In the year 2026, the most beautiful and peaceful sight humans had witnessed introduced itself in the form of an aurora. Ironic considering the era would, later on, bring nothing but carnage in its wake.

The event would thereafter be dubbed by many names such as "The superhuman era", "God's judgement", "The apocalypse" etc. but mainly it was referred to as "The Aurora Event" or "AE" for short. The aurora lasted roughly 3 days and scientists could not make heads or tails out of it.

Several months later, individuals around the globe started showing signs of the supernatural. Needless to say, the age of humanity became the age of superhumans or "gifted" as medically diagnosed by mainstream science.

At first, many people were excited with the thoughts of gaining abilities themselves. Of course, most were skeptical of the things that may follow and held themselves indoors for what seemed to be like a lifetime to them. As if to prove their worries correct, reports from around the globe started flooding in from lootings to the most heinous crimes imaginable.

As you would expect, the aftermath was abysmal. Moreover, it seemed it was not just humans that had gained abilities, but animals and plants as well. Your next-door neighbour's pet who used to leave its droppings around your house may have suddenly become a ferocious three-headed hell-hound bent on making your life more miserable, or even the orchid on your shelf may have become a poisonous flytrap.

Lives were being lost at a tremendous rate and this era would last for approximately 80 years until authorities from around the world finally managed to put a system in place that would keep gifted individuals from abusing their power.

Most countries also built districts around their cities to keep the mutated monsters and plants away.

Although it was not considered foolproof, especially in some countries, it did more than enough to usher in a somewhat peaceful environment at the least. In the end, a total of 3.6 billion people lost their lives in this era.

It was not all doom and gloom, however, as with the coming of abilities came a technological revolution that catapulted the world to greater heights, and made life easier for most.

Fast forward to the year 2148, a young light-skinned man who seemed to be roughly about 5'9" with light brown eyes and silky, curly black hair was enjoying his final weeks of term break. This young man goes by the name Liam Holdsworth and he turned 17 a couple of months ago. Currently, he was laying flat down on his stomach with one eye open staring at his alarm clock. A few minutes later, the alarm clock started to beep and the time displayed was [11:30 AM]. Liam quickly slapped it to get to stop beeping and brought out his phone.

He opened up the 'World Gifted Organization' or 'WGO' website and entered his login details. He swiftly read through the details that they had sent him with no hopes or expectations in mind.

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'Third time's the charm my ass.'

He had just read an unfortunate piece of text explaining to him that with the blood sample he had sent them, they were able to determine that he had not been awakened as a gifted, but should he ever, he is to inform the WGO. It concluded with the consequences that the gifted would face should they not, as it did not just affect society, but in most cases may bring harm to the individual as well.

He put his phone down and went to make himself some breakfast. He lived alone as his parents died when he was 13 years old on a mission to exterminate mutated monsters around the district border. The news came down on him especially hard as they were his only relatives. Ever since then, he has been living off government funding as well as the remaining money they had left him in their will.

'Mum awakened the ability to attract and repel small objects when she was 12, and dad awakened the ability to harden any body part when he was 13. I thought I would have awakened one of these abilities by now' Liam thought as he spread jam on his toast.

He didn't eat much as he liked to conserve his money. It took him $350 just to confirm whether or not he had awakened, and he had already done this 3 times in the span of a year. He had every right to be worried though because there have been no known cases where someone awakens as a gifted after the age of 22, so every year that he remained unawakened pretty much signalled that he should stop having any expectations.

It's not as if it was a death sentence to those who had not awakened an ability as they still lived a relatively easy life with technological advancements, and the really rich could afford gadgets that could keep up or even overtake most of the gifted. However, with the way Liam's bank account was set up, it seems he would not be able to afford any of these gadgets any time soon.

He hopped back into bed to binge watch some anime for the rest of the day, seeing as he had nothing else to do other than study for the upcoming term, but who was he kidding, he knew was never going to get anything above average, which he didn't mind.

Days turned into weeks, and there was only 1 week left until the new term began where Liam would reunite with his old classmates.

Liam was scrolling past videos on the 'WorldTube' website when he suddenly felt a small migraine. He thought it would go away, but it was still persisting even after a couple minutes, so he stood up to grab a glass of water, but on the way to the kitchen...

*Thud*

He had passed out.

'Ow... my head hurts... w-what time is it?' he thought as he looked over at his alarm clock

The time displayed was [05:27 AM]

'Holy crap that can't be right.'

He took his phone from the bedside table and checked that the date was Friday the 23rd of August and the time was now [05:28 AM].

'I was out cold for most of the day yesterday, what the hell happened?

Wait, something feels weird'

Instinctively, as if he felt he had grown another limb, Liam tried moving this 'limb' to get it to move.

"O-Ow, what the fu- Ah-AHHHHHHH"

It felt as if his body was being ripped into millions of pieces and there was nothing he could do to get the pain to stop. Once again, Liam passed out cold.

Waking up as if he had just been hit by a truck, he felt as if all the muscles in his body had contorted, and ended up staring at the ceiling for a couple of seconds, but certain words spoken by an unknown person brought him out of his stupor.

"So are you just gonna lay down there for the rest of your life?"

Liam turned his head to the side only to question what the hell he was seeing.

'Why am I over there? And more importantly, why am I naked?'

___________________

UnpaidAuthor:

And so begins my first ever novel. Hopefully you enjoyed the chapter.

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