When my mom woke up, she… was not happy. At all. In the slightest.
Not I could really blame her, of course, as she had, after being thoroughly caught and beaten by her superiors, awoken to find her husband dead. Not a good start to a new day.
But, instead of perhaps meditating about her actions, and realizing that it was an obvious trap from the beginning, my mother blamed me. For not making my dad wait until she was back (ignoring the fact that she was unconscious), for not killing all of the Legendary classers that she was too weak to fight. She began to resent me, the reason for her life; she had wanted to die with her husband, but I was the sole reason they had left her alive.
The reason the Legendaries spared my mom’s life was because I needed a mother. She seemed to resent this, becoming more and more distant with every day my Awakening grew closer.
She figured that I had already seen death, and there was no point trying to hide it from me any longer. Nor did she wait for me, forcing my little legs to run in order to keep up with her slow walk. A scrap of food here and there, but I was allowed to go hungry more often than not. Without my dad to help us, my mom could not challenge the harder dungeons, and thus stayed Epic. And thus grew bitter.
••••••••••
And then… I turned 12. I did not Awaken.
“Have you Awakened, yet?” My mom asked, a greedy gleam in her eyes.
“No, Mama,” I told her, and then she didn’t say anything until the next morning.
“Have you Awakened, yet?”
And I always told her the same thing. “No, Mama.”
A year flew by.
••••••••••
Then her question of the day was shortened to a word. “Boy?”
“No, Mama,” I told her, ashamed.
One day I walked into her tent without knocking. It was the last time I ever did; some things, once seen, are impossible to unsee. My mom, with her face full of the purple, sparkling powder called ursynth, was one of them. Ursynth was a steroid for Legendary Classers. It was supposed to make them stronger, more focused, and overtime change their brains to have even faster reaction time. It was a shortcut for the Legendaries who hadn’t had time to climb up the ranks, who needed to gain speed and strength quickly before they died. Of course, ursynth continued to be addictive even after it was no longer effective.
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However, if you were anything less than Legendary, the body couldn't handle the effects. Indeed, ursynth seemed to have almost the opposite effect- after rapid muscle expansion and processing increase, you lose motor control and your senses as the ursynth takes control. At that point, you ceased being you and began to be nothing but a vessel for the drug. It wrecks the mind, becoming so ingrained into your very soul that the only thing the addicted can think about is getting more. Then, when you are nothing but a husk of your former self in an empty, ursynth-craving shell, your muscle, the body unable to sustain it, rotted away. But you didn't stop growing in size- no, you doubled, even sometimes tripling, the access magic of the ursynth in your body turning to fat.
But my mom didn’t know that at the time. I think. Ursynth was new on the market, branded as a get-strong quick scheme. Any side effects were, supposedly, well worth it in the short term. They didn’t say anything about the long term. But, if you were desperate and not very smart, like my mom, it seemed to be a godsend.
The key word, of course, being “seemed.”
When I walked into the horror story, the purple powder covering every surface in her small tent, the various dishes and glasses that she kept her precious ursynth in were thrown across the room, all nearly empty.
“Mama?” I asked. “What are you doing?”
I, of course, knew that no get-strong quick scheme always has serious long term consequences. There is no gain, afterall, without any pain. And so I was immediately suspicious. Even though my mom was no longer acting like a mother, she was all I had. The tingling feeling in my gut was drowned out by a roaring sensation that something bad was going to happen and that I needed help. In the reflection on the rusting mirror on the wall, I saw her smile in ecstasy, her once, slightly-crooked teeth withered away into a mess of brown and black.
She turned around, the violent rapture of addiction quickly turning to extreme hatred as she turned around and saw the disgust in my face. I did not recognize her- her warm brown eyes that I had known so well turned purple and cruel.
I was overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness- the feeling that I could do nothing to help the one person I cared about- as she sneered and then said, “Sap.” One of her Skills, one that she usually used on animals to sap their strength and lifeforce, but leaving everything except the brain untouched. I saw a tendril of black energy snaking up from the carpeted dirt floor, grabbing onto my leg and refusing to let go. I tried to move, to get away from the life-sucking root, but I couldnt- I was stuck to the floor, getting weaker with every second I stood there. My vision blurred, my eyes watered.
“Mama! Stop! You’re hurting me!” I screamed.
For a second, it looked like my mom’s eyes had turned back to brown. And then her eyes flashed purple again. “You will not steal my precious!” She snarled, charging towards me. She lashed out with her nails, which I realized had not only been left to grow for seemingly months, but she also could not control them. Her fingers shook violently as they, seemingly in slow motion, hurtled downward towards my face.
I was, of course, unable to move.
Her right hand punctured into my skin just below my eyes, carving two long scars into my cheeks.
Her left hand was aimed for my throat.
As I saw my life flashed before my eyes, taken from me from my own mother, my very being, the essence of my soul and all of my willpower, reached upwards and demanded more.
And… I got it.
Welcome to the System, Awakened!