Andrew watched the tired crowd of people. They were sprawling in front of him in the wide clearing, doing different things.

"That’s a lot of progress for a few days, am I right?" said the young, scrawny man, who was called Denis and sat on the ground next to Andrew.

He was wearing some sort of underpants, made out of elastic tree bark spun together. One of the craftier people came up with the idea a few days ago, and now he and a few more are working on clothes nonstop.

By now, everyone had at least some clothes to hide the most important parts. So everyone was much more at ease with each other.

Andrew smiled slightly and patted Denis on the shoulder. "That is also your achievement, you know. I’m not quite sure how you do it, but you seem to know exactly when to make a joke to lighten the mood. I guess you prevented a few people from freaking out the last few days."

Denis smiled wryly and scratched his head. "I know you just want to make me feel important. And I also know that all of this is mostly because of you. I noticed, that if people get too far away from you, they start to get more nervous. You got some of those powers right in the beginning, am I right?" he asked in a shy voice.

He was, of course, right. Andrew’s passive skill, ‘Equilibrium’ held the minds of these people here together. And when this wasn’t enough, he could increase the calming effect with his active skill, ‘Emotion manipulation’. He felt a bit guilty about it, but it was needed right now.

"Maybe." Andrew said with a somewhat sombre smile. While exploring their surroundings, the group had undergone some changes.

More and more people gained strange powers with the help of the system. They were mostly used to calm their nerves and emotions. Or powers to suppress the reactions of their bodies to fear.

A few got stronger, tougher, or more dextrous. Denis himself got one of the most unique abilities. He was able to somehow identify if a plant was edible or poisonous. One of the guys called Thomas actually got some kind of beautifying skill, which he was really embarrassed about. Andrew also thought that it was ridiculous for him to learn a skill like this. By now, they had found out that strong emotions or thoughts can lead to powers being awakened. Which made the beautifying skill all the more laughable.

Most people got their powers without much trouble. Some were in heavy pain, but nothing that would be traumatizing.

But sadly, they had one case when someone got comatose in the process of gaining powers. It was the female doctor who tried to check on the other comatose people.

They tried to feed the people, but it didn’t work. One of them actually died while someone tried to shove some berries in his mouth. And the others were also slowly dying.

From the initial seven comatose people, only four were still alive, not including the doctor. And with things standing as they were, they wouldn’t make the night.

Their deaths were very shocking to the little group. But they were somehow able to press this shock deep into their minds and concentrate on the most important tasks at hand. Andrew himself carried the bodies deep into the woods, far away from their little camp. He always started trembling slightly when he thought about it. But used his active skill on himself to quell the upcoming panic.

"Hey Andrew." Denis started talking again, making Andrew realize that he had been silently sitting there for a few minutes. "What did you do before all this?"

This question confused Andrew. "I don’t know. Before? Does it even matter?" he asked, feeling even a little bit annoyed.

"Of course it matters." Said Denis, "I mean, I doubt we just started existing all of a sudden. We should have been kids at some point, right? Who are our parents then?"

These questions made Andrew’s head hurt. Denis was right. Who was he before this? What was his past?

"And when we’re already talking about kids," Denis continued. "Where the hell are they? Not even to mention, shouldn’t there be older people too? I’ve been asking around, and we all seem to be somewhere between 17 and 30 years old. And everyone here seems very healthy too. I don’t know, but, something about this just seems so…. wrong. And strange."

All these words burst out of Denis, as if he had been making himself crazy about this for days.

And Andrew could understand him well. Something about this didn’t seem right. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

"I have an idea," said Andrew. "Why don’t you start asking people more questions? Find out if anyone remembers something from before our awakening in the forest. Or if anyone knows where the old and the young people are or what happened to them. Do you think you can do that?" he asked the wide-eyed Denis, who started to nod.

"If you say so, of course. But many people get strangely irritated if I ask them about stuff like that. That’s why I wanted to talk with you about it. If it gets out of hand…" he shily asked, his face turned to the ground.

Andrew smiled and patted his shoulders. "I have your back. You can always tell them, that I asked you to do it. That should help a little. This group here seems to see me as a leader. And I intend to do my part."

Denis looked up with motivation in his eyes, nodded, and stood up. Right before he was about to go, he turned to Andrew and looked at him seriously. "I see you as a leader too, you know. You are like a pillar of calmness to us. And honestly, I think we would be pretty fucked without you. So yeah, thank you. Really." Denis blushed slightly and scurried away, walking right to the group of people who were making clothes.

Andrew sat still for a while before he stood up and went some way into the woods. It was getting darker, and his face wasn’t really visible anymore.

Even though he had his emotion suppression skill, his hands trembled slightly, as he held them in front of his face.

"Who am I?"