1 Awakening

"Kill..."

A burst of sudden pain exploded at the top of the young man's head.

"Kilian!" The shout finally woke him up. Drowsy from his recent nap, Kil brought his head up.

Looking up, he could see the furious face of his teacher. Her extended hand and bits of chalk dirtying Kilian's desk proved who was guilty of his headache.

To his right, there were school desks. Behind him as well. Only Kilian's left side broke the mundane reality, replacing the student's seats with a window.

Within this classroom, the window oozed the feeling of freedom. The vast, bright world behind the barrier of glass tempted anyone who dared to look at it. And it was this bright picture that lulled Kilian to sleep.

"I'm aware that you are ahead in my subject, but that doesn't give you the right to sleep on my lessons!" the teacher muttered through her teeth. Her hateful stare didn't fit on her young and relatively cute face.

'Can't you find someone else to prove your authority?' Kilian protested in his thoughts but put a sad, devastated expression on his lips in reality. "I'm sorry, teacher," he said, standing up and lowering his head. "It won't happen again, teacher," he added as he sat back in his seat.

"Good," the teacher cast her long, blond hair away with a decisive shake of her head. "If I catch you sleeping ever again, I will prove how little you know about history in reality," she threatened before turning her attention back to the class. "With the rise of industrialization, the central princedoms..."

Kilian didn't bother to listen to the teacher's lecture. As looking through the window bore the risk of making him fall asleep again, he had no other choice but to direct his eyes elsewhere.

Studious classmates of his sat in front of Kilian. Most of them already realized how shallow those lessons were but continued to furiously make notes nonetheless.

Kilian glanced behind. The small rustling noise that he could vaguely register turned out to be the back rows playing a card game.

'If I'm right, they are in the semi-finals already, aren't they?' Kilian thought, noticing how tense the faces of his classmates were. But it was no surprise.

Thanks to the smart marketing move of the developers, the cards were sold per piece rather than in bulk. And according to the rules, the winner of the round could claim any card from the loser's set, greatly raising the stakes of the game.

'Well, I guess I should be happy I'm too poor to indulge in this game,' Kilian thought. He shook his head to stop himself from counting the value of all the cards currently placed on the tables behind him.

"Stop it," a voice reached Kilian's ears from his right. He glanced to the side, instantly tightening his fingers into fists.

Two tables away, Nat, his childhood friend, was resisting the advances of her desk partner. The hands of her alleged boyfriend continued to sneak past the girl's defenses in a clear attempt to feel her up.

"Stop it, I said!" Nat protested again, pushing the intruding hands away. Sadly, because she kept her voice low to avoid the teacher paying attention to her, the bastard sitting beside her only took her voice for an invitation.

'Don't get involved,' Kilian thought, gnashing his teeth. 'You can't protect her forever. This is all the result of her own choices,' he thought, moving his eyes back on his table.

Ever since the two of them entered the high school, Nat continued to distance herself from him. At first, Kilian attempted to mend their relationship but soon decided not to infringe on the new life of his friend.

'Empty your mind, empty your mind,' Kil repeated the mantra in his thoughts, forcibly stopping himself from causing a mess.

If this situation happened just half a year ago, he wouldn't hesitate even for a second to react. But now, there were too many ugly words between them. Nat threw too many accusations and insults his way.

'It's painful, for sure, but you need to keep your own dignity,' Kilian told himself. 'If you give in now, there will be no end to it later,' he added in his thoughts.

Troubled by the situation, Kilian stretched his head to the back. He looked at the grey tiling of the roof. He slowly closed his eyes, enacting one of the few abilities that set him apart from the crowd. The ability to cancel out everything that he considered a noise.

The monotone voice of the teacher disappeared. Then, Nat's protests and flipping of the cards from the back row followed. Soon, only the gentle echo of the bird's chirping and trees rustling in the wind remained.

'How nice,' Kilian thought, using this delicate music of nature to relax.

'Huh?' Kilian's bliss didn't last long. The songs created by the birds were abruptly cut as if someone scared all those small creatures away. While the white noise made by the nearby trees remained, Kilian couldn't help but look at the window to see what had happened.

The birds were there... But they were all flying away. Once Kilian strained his eyes, he could see the dogs in the residential area nearby all freaking out. Even the rabbits that the school kept locked in its backyard were now fighting against the metal of their cages as if their life depended on it.

'Tsumami? Earthquake?' Kilian quickly recalled how animals would be the first to react to natural disasters. 'No, that's not it,' he thought. They were too far inland for the crashing wave to appear and in the middle of the tectonically stable region. 'Maybe a landslide?' Kilian rapidly went through the list of all the possible sudden disasters.

But none of them fit his location.

Then, the wind ceased as well. Kilian noticed it when the trees sang their silent tune no more.

'What the hell is going on?' he thought, feeling the first tinges of panic birthing in his soul. He was far from freaking out yet, but he looked at the teacher and was about to raise his hand nevertheless...

Then he saw it. While his teacher continued her boring and shallow lecture, she started to shine. It wasn't some metaphor for a person fulfilling their dream. Her body literally started to produce a faint hue of blue light!

'No,' Kilian realized as panic exploded in his mind. 'It's not just her,' he thought as he looked around the classroom. It wasn't the teacher that started to produce this weird kind of light.

It was everyone in the damned room!

'Am I hallucinating?' Kilian thought, violently pinching his arm in hopes of waking up. But the pain felt pretty real, and the weird situation didn't cease. Rather than that, everyone's light continued to grow as if in response to Kilian's growing restlessness.

'Nat!' A sudden thought exploded in Kilian's mind. He looked towards the girl, only to see her still warding off the unwanted advances of her pushy boyfriend. But as Kilian looked towards her, he noticed something else.

A random student walked past the open doors to the class. He was carrying some kinds of books, likely filling the order of his own teacher.

And he had one redeeming feature.

He wasn't shining at all!

"It's coming.'

An echo of a distant voice reached Kilian's ears. It was just a faint sound, something that he couldn't even be sure to be real.

But in the current situation, it was enough to startle him.

'I have no idea what's happening,' Kilian thought, standing up from his seat and leaning to the side.

"It's coming!"

The voice appeared once again. This time, it was filled with a sense of urgency.

Kilian didn't waste time figuring out where the voice came from. Once his body swayed enough, he lunged forward. In a single jump, he leaped towards Nat's desk and grabbed her hand.

"Huh?" the girl shrugged in surprise. But Kilian was acting too fast for her to react.

'Just her,' he thought with desperation clenching his guts. 'At least let me save her!' he begged whoever was responsible for this weird situation.

"NOW!"

The voice rang in Kilian's ears. Someone grabbed him by his hand. Likely, Nat's bastard boyfriend. Kilian wrestled his arm free, lunging forward before spinning around.

'Just a little bit,' he thought, stretching his hand out and then pulling it forward along with the girl he was holding. 'A tiny little bit,' he screamed internally, throwing the girl towards the doors.

Everyone in the classroom was shining. Kilian's fellow schoolmate outside the class did not. It would take an idiot not to connect the dots here.

Kilian threw the girl towards the doors. As she flew through the class, he could no longer see her. She was shining too brightly. Or rather, the shine surrounded Kil, blocking everything else from his view.

For a moment, Kil was surrounded by nothing but bright, white light. The blue shine from before was so intense that it no longer had this sky-like hue.

And then, the light receded.

"Awakening the seed.

The voice announced. This time, without any urgency. As if it was just another thing off the list.

And this voice was the last thing that Kilian heard before losing his consciousness.

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