I suppose there was one saving grace, if it could be called that- children under 12, or Unawakened, would not provide xp even when killed. Even when I was little, I didn’t really understand what was happening. Yes, I grew up quickly, but not fast enough; my little brain simply could not process my deadly surroundings. My parents were kind, or so I had thought at the time, and I thought they loved me. The early days before I turned 12 were still not quite the hellscape it was when I Awakened, although we certainly thought it was as bad as it could get, and people could still afford the luxury of not killing the newly-Awakened.

Still, the older Awakened were not afforded the same luxury. I idolized my dad, seeing him as a gold-like figure blessed with the remains of our System’s power. My mom, when she was still attempting to be the mother figure I knew she was, closed my eyes whenever he killed the local Gardeners and Alchemists. He, in turn, closed my eyes whenever she killed the remaining city Clerks and Dentists. They both had peak Rare classes, on the cusp of Epic. I never questioned how they climbed so high so fast, and I certainly never questioned why I should close my eyes and my ears to the sounds of screaming so often. Things were simple to a simpler me- my parents were my parents, and so they had to be good. And that was that.

A year before my Awakening, my dad had decided to take on a group of Legendary children. While their Classes might’ve been Legendary, what is a Legendary Class, that cannot be used, to a peak Rare Classer? Only, these children, only a few years older than I was, were more powerful than my dad had expected, and my mom was forced to step in. This left me able to open my eyes.

It wasn't like I hadn’t seen death before. No, I had even killed- but that was in self defense. It was not the slaughter of apparent innocents like I saw; it was not the splatter of the blood on the wall, spurting out of a child’s neck after being beheaded. It was not the carving out of their hearts for maximum xp gains. It was not the black color of my fathers eyes as he feasted on a heart still beating, my mom’s eyes rolled back in ecstasy as she too reveled in Leveling, advancing from Rare to Epic. It was not the desperate shuffling of the singular survivor, and it was not the tense eye contact we made as her haunted blue eyes looked into mine and she whispered, “please, help me,” before she was noticed by my mother and shot in the head.

Good times. If only I was a psychopath released from the chains of society.

Unfortunately for my sanity and my overall youthful naivety, I am not.

I was frozen in shock, vomiting even as I couldn’t look away, my mouth gaping open life a fish. Or what I had thought a fish to look like- all of Winlei’s fish had long since been turned into monsters or killed by the escaped dungeon denizens. Monster hides are notoriously hard to prepare and are easily made disgusting, especially when not cooked by a now extinct Cook Class. But I digress.

We didn’t speak of that day afterwards. After the dismembered corpses were nice and looted, my mom took my hand and left me away from the crime scene, coating my palm in slick, sticky red.

“Never tell a soul, boy. Otherwise… well, bad things tend to happen to snitches,” my mom growled into my ear, squeezing my hand too tightly.

“‘I won't, Mama. I promise,” I said solemnly, with the enthusiastic nod of innocence.

••••••••••

As it turns out, the Legendary kids my parents slew were well connected. The sons and daughters of Legendary Classers from the previous generations, who were actually capable of using their strength. And they wanted revenge.

They got it, too.

They lured my parents in with promises of young, newly-Awakened Legendary children ripe for the slaughter and reaping of xp. My parents were not the sharpest knives in the drawer- no, they were more like butter knives, dull and brittle but ideal for select situations. They lept on the opportunity for a rich source of xp (they hadn’t had any real xp gains since the last big murderfest) like a starving man jumping into a pile of bread- without hesitation. They did not consider why if these easy targets were actually so easy, then why hadn’t they already been killed? Or why someone was giving them, my parents, a tip that could potentially make them that much stronger. Or why, if someone had bothered to track them down, why haven't they killed my parents themselves?

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As I said, my parents were not the sharpest.

The tip was simple- a bunch of newly-awakened Legendarys were taking shelter in an abandoned factory, just a little ways away. Incredibly convenient, less than a 45 minute walk for an Unawakened. A single long jump for my Epic parents.

Why were they so close? If they were Legendary Classers, they could have easily expanded their senses miles in every direction, even if they would soon be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of information, and spotted us. While my parents did not wonder about anything, I did- I, afterall, am not a total moron. But I trusted them, because they were still my parents. Even if they were suspicious of me and watched me at all times ever since the last Legendary killing.

My parents were kind enough to walk with me- not even they were stupid enough to leave a nearly-Awakened alone in the woods.

It was a gray, concrete building with one entrance, the right half of it crumbled and the chimney knocked over, covering the surrounding dirt field with splatters of cracked brick. The behemoth of an old factory towered over the trees daring to grow near it, forbidding natural light from entering with its few, iron-barred windows. We hid behind a tree stump, waiting for my mom to finish scouting the area.

“C’mon, son. I think you're old enough to see how it’s done,” my dad said in his gruff voice, clapping me on the shoulder.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Mama to come back?” I asked, wary of continuing without her and a bad feeling in my gut.

“Your mom can take care of herself, son,” my dad said. “Now follow me.”

He stood straight up and proceeded to strut to the front door.

“Knock, knock!” My dad yelled as he banged on the iron door. For show, of course, as he then pulled the door off its hinges. I, like the little boy I was, cowered behind the door. We entered the factory, admiring the decrepit conveyer belts and rusting machinery.

“Oh, no! We’re scared! Don’t kill us, please, mister! We’re in the third room with the iron door on your left! But don’t follow our directions! ” Voices chirped in a sing-song voice, sounding surprisingly smug for people who knew they were about to be murdered.

“Pfft. What idiots. Giving their soon-to-be xp-harvesters directions to their exact location.”

“Dad,” I said into the heavy silence.

“Not now, son, we’re getting ready for a great harvest!” My dad said, continuing to slowly walk, passing the first and then second iron doors on the left, the flickering lights illuminating the dust and cobwebs covering the concrete corridor.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Shut up. You’re too old to be squeamish,” he dismissed.

“I think we should go back.”

“I already told you to shut the fuck up. Daddy’s busy,” my dad said, turning around as he opened the third door, his eyes glimmering with cruel anticipation.

He opened the door to a room full of, not the Legendary children that he was promised, but Legendary veterans. Their power, the auras of danger radiating from them, made me want to fall to my knees. I didn't, but perhaps it was because they weren’t focused on me. My dad, the focus of their ire, collapsed.

“You killed our children. Our children. Now you will die,” they say in unison. “Take solace in the fact that, unlike you, we are not monsters. Your wife and child will live.”

An old man, a red-ribboned tophat on his head, hobbled forward. His dead, blue eyes sparkling with wisdom and wrath, he said, “Just as you shot my daughter, I shall shoot you.”

And then he shot my dad in the head.

“Go, little one. Your mom, the horrible woman that she is, is still your mom- and you need her to keep you safe. She’s outside, unconscious. Take her and run, little one, but never trust her,” the old man told me, pushing me out the door with immense strength hidden by his frail arms.

The old man was right- my mom was indeed unconscious, left on the floor. I took her by the arms and dragged her away as fast as I could.