Davis…..Davis……….DAVIS! Finally looking up, I tore my eyes away from the scar on my hand. "Sorry, what's up?"

My dad, who had been calling me, gave me a sympathetic look but turned around in his seat and pointed to a building on our right. Following the indicated direction, my eyes were first drawn to the massive parking lot we found ourselves in; the lot was split up into two parts, the first having expensive and professional-looking vehicles neatly parked side to side and the other where we found ourselves were less gaudy vehicles, and the lot was much more empty.

Getting out of the car, I saw a pathway with plants on all sides between the two sides of the lot. This pathway led up to the front of the building, giving everyone a refreshing break from the sun. Now having my eyes drawn to the building, I was amazed by the structure being so large that you had to crane your neck to see the top; the building had four large pillars on each corner, each of them jutting out somewhat as they spiraled to the sky tapering off at the highest point almost making the building sparkle as the sun glinted off of it.

Looking back down, I noticed my sister and mom go on ahead while my dad stayed near my side. "Follow me. I want to talk man-to-man with you." He then led us on the path between the lots, which seemed to be covered by vines. He then pointed to a bench hidden from onlookers by the large amount of foliage.

As I sat down, I noticed the worry etched on my father's face. He was slightly shorter than me, with black hair and blue eyes. His usual confident look was now replaced with a grim expression. "So you are scarred," he said, his tone mirroring his concern.

Noting again how worried he was, I looked at my palm, which had my scar. "Yup, it looks like it. Don't make it sound like I'm going to die, though."

When I mentioned dying, my dad's shoulders sagged as if mentioning death would make it a reality. "I know; I just don't want to lose my son I'm so proud of." He then grasped me in a hug that rivaled my mom's earlier before eventually letting go minutes later, this time with still a worried look but a big smile on his face. "What kind of powers do you think you'll get?"

Seeing him try to make a brave face helped me relax a little, and I looked down at my hand again. "I'm really not sure. I don't know what a curtain in the wind means or what it could do, but one thing I can tell you is that now that I have a scar, I'm definitely the coolest in the family."

My dad's eyebrows shot up in surprise as a genuine smirk stretched his face. "Oh yeah?" he said, pulling me in and ruffling my hair.

"Stop. Stop! I did my hair this morning." I said as I pushed his hand off, trying to straighten my hair with my own smile now, too.

My dad stood up, smiling, and gave me a hand up. "Well, let's go catch up with your mom and see what kind of ability you have that makes you so great!"

As we walked towards the building, I looked down at my phone, which showed 34 missed calls from my mom alone. "That is why my mom looked so worried."

We eventually walked through the sliding doors at the entrance. We were met with vaulted ceilings, a clean marble floor, pillars breaking up the open space, and benches around the pillars where my sister and mom sat.

Walking over there, I pulled my mom into a hug. "Sorry for making you worry," I said.

My mom, surprised at first, eventually hugged back, which apparently was the start of everyone hugging as my sister joined in from one side and my dad from the other, making a family meatball. "It's fine," my mom said. I'm just happy you're okay."

When everyone was officially un-meatballed, we turned toward where a lady stood with a clipboard who was smiling at the chaos. I stepped toward her, recognizing her as a receptionist, and said. "Hi, my name is Davis, I just woke up scarred today."

The lady nodded. "Nice to meet you, Davis. My name is Ella. If you would follow me, oh, and this examination and implantation of your SUI are only for you, so your family will have to wait here." I felt a mix of excitement and nervousness as I followed Ella, leaving my family behind in the waiting area.

Her eyes were a deep brown, matching her shoulder-length hair. Ella was wearing what would probably be the most normal receptionist clothes that I'd ever seen: a black skirt, a white shirt, a blazer, and heels.

Ella led me into a small room large enough for a single table, chair, and tablet set atop it. Ella then gestured inside and said, "This room is for you to fill out the form of who you are and what your personality is, as well as your consent form for after you are confirmed to be scarred to have an SUI installed."

I thanked her and sat down, watching the sliding door shut behind me, I looked at the tablet, and it immediately turned on, showing a form of exactly what she mentioned; I filled it out and then took a personality test, which made me mad since after completing it didn't tell me what it was. Still, after looking for any indication that they would tell me and finding none, I went to the next part, where an extensive consent form was, I read through it carefully. It basically read that the government would not be at fault for "misuses" of the SUI and is only at fault if the device malfunctions while under "intended use." I signed the form, and the screen went dark.

The door then opened, and Ella looked inside. "Are you done, or do you need help or clarification?" I showed her the dark screen, and she said. "Sounds good; follow me."

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Ella then led me to a room and gestured to the door. "This room will prove to us if you really are scarred or not; I will warn you if you aren't, this process will be extremely painful." I gave her a big thumbs up, which earned a smile before she gestured to enter, and I did.

The room was much larger than the previous one, resembling a padded room on the sides and bottom, but had a large metal dish on the ceiling. The door closed behind me, and I noticed the floor had a flashing arrow on it indicating the center. I followed until the arrow disappeared, and I was in the middle. Then I started to hear a light hum. This light hum slowly grew in intensity for about a minute until it disappeared.

The door to the room opened, and I was surprised at how easy that was. However, as I took my first step, I felt as if my whole body was stiff. I was thankful for the padded floor as I fell onto it and let out an "OUGHFF." The lady walked over while writing on her clipboard. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I slowly pushed myself off the ground using one of the walls as a brace. "I think so; what was that?"

Ella smiled as she scribbled down a few more notes before answering. "First off, let me congratulate you. You are scarred. Now, to answer your question, let me take you to our recovery lounge."

Ella then asked me to sit on what looked like a floating wheelchair, and she pushed me into a large room filled with couches facing each other and tables between them.

I exited the fancy wheelchair and sat on the nearest sofa as she explained. "Let's start at the beginning. You are scarred. A few things happen when you become scarred. One is that your mind becomes stronger; what that can look like is that you actually become smarter or can handle fighting monsters.

Next, your body becomes stronger, which allows you to grow beyond what an ordinary human could. Lastly, you don't really get exhausted anymore, that is, until you use all of your energy. Davis, have you ever played video games?"

I nodded.

She then pulled out her phone and clicked on it a few times, which made a glass-looking square come out of the table. When fully out, a picture of a yellow bar appeared inside the cube as if floating. "In some video games, you have stamina. Energy works similarly to this and is how long you can run, how long you can stay awake, and how much damage you can take.

What we did in that room was siphon out most of your energy. This allows us to give you an accurate depiction of your base energy while confirming that you are scarred."

I watched the yellow bar slowly rotate as I comprehended what she said. After a few minutes of taking it in, I thought of a question: "Am I even human anymore?"

This looked to almost relieve her as her shoulders visibly relaxed before she responded. "I'm actually happy you brought that up. More recently, we have started to think of any scarred as non-human. The reason for that is how your body works is fundamentally different from humans. You see, when people started returning, we examined a few of them and also asked them questions. After a certain threshold, they no longer need to eat or sleep, and they also lose any kind of skeleton and organs."

Looking at her, I was waiting for the punch line, but when none came, I had to ask. "I heard about people returning, but how have I not heard about something so weird as scarred not being human?"

Ella gave me an apologetic look as she explained, "We don't believe it would help the public to know these facts, but this is the reason we have scarred come in immediately when they find out. We want to be able to explain to people firsthand how their lives are changing. This also gives us the chance to help talk you through these changes, as we have professionals on site for this."

Looking down at my scar, I watched it flow in its wind so peacefully, this scar was apparently fundamentally changing me if it hadn't already. Oddly enough, I didn't feel the anxiousness that my brain wanted to attribute to the situation, and I wondered if that, too, was one of the changes happening to me.

Looking up at Ella, I felt like I had a better grasp of what was happening, so I asked, "Okay, what is next?"

Ella looked down at her clipboard, noting a few things down. "Next comes the fun part. Do you feel like you have enough energy to walk?"

Standing up felt odd. What was exhausting only a few moments ago seemed to have no strain on me at all. I took a few cautious steps and nodded toward Ella.

This time, Ella led me to a room that looked much more like a therapist's room; I looked inside and noticed two chairs, one of which held an older gentleman. This man looked like he walked straight out of a book about butler etiquette with his spotless suit to his well-mannered white hair; in his left hand, he held a book and a mug in the other.

Noticing me, he set his mug down and placed a mark inside the book. Setting it aside, he sat up straight and gestured to the chair on the other side of the small coffee table. "Good afternoon," he said in a deep, smooth voice. "My name is Gregory and I am a scarred like you" When he said this he held up his hand to show that his scar was a dark orb with a book inside it.

Sitting down, I watched as he looked me over, nodding with what looked like his approval before speaking again. "Before you ask, let me answer a question that everyone wants to know, and if you don't know to ask it, let me answer it before it even crosses your mind. I have already been in the tower and have earned my freedom."

I looked at him excitedly, my mind running a million miles per hour. "This is such a closely guarded secret that everyone online still has to speculate, and now they will tell me?"

"Don't get too excited, please. It is not a set method, and I can't promise you that you can escape. But let me start from the beginning. Do you understand how the tower chooses two people a day?"

I nodded.

"Well, it also chooses one person a day who gets the option to leave the tower."

Feeling my heart sink, I looked at him with grave promise. "So you have to be lucky?"

The man gave me a somewhat confused look as he said. "Do you not find being chosen to be a scarred lucky?"

"Not really. Should I be happy being stolen from my family and forced to fight?"

Gregory just shook his head. "Let me explain a little more about how it works." When he said this, a purple hue started glowing from his hand as he continued explaining. You get to keep some of the power you obtained when you leave the tower, but that doesn't mean you have to fight. Many people, myself included, stay on world one and wait for an opportunity to leave."

"Why would you want to go farther in the tower then?"

Gregory then gestured, and from the purple hue appeared a video; the video was from the perspective of an onlooker as four scarred fought a drake; throughout the video, it looked like the person watching was shaking, but the men and women who were defeated the drake stood strong. "Power, power is a reason people have risked their lives since the beginning of time, and people will continue doing so; the other and more compelling option, in my opinion, is the extended life span; the more powerful you become, the longer you can live.

I was contracted by the government due to my appraisal skills. There are different tiers of skills, so my skill is only handy for viewing the abilities of new scarred. If I had progressed further, I would have been able to do more. So, what do you say you want to learn about your scar?"