God of Strength (Chikara no kami)

Chapter 2

Arabella Jones was a good landlord. She took all her responsibilities seriously and always addressed the needs of her tenants. On this day, however, she was in a dilemma. One of her tenants, a young man, had yet to pay his rent. So she paid him a visit only to find there was no response. After asking around, one of his neighbours recalled seeing him leave with a small bag. Assuming the man was on a trip, Arabella decided to give him another week. A week quickly passed and the tenant had yet to return.

Sighing, Arabella grabbed her keys and entered the small apartment. If the young man wasn't coming back anytime soon, she had to make sure the gas and lights were off. Walking in, she saw the light of a lamp in the darkness of the bedroom. As she went over to put it out she saw a young man dressed in pyjamas sleeping silently on the bed. Taken aback, she called out to the boy. After several attempts and no response, she reached out to jolt him. Arabella slowly grew worried, as, despite her attempts, he wouldn't wake up. Taking a closer look, she was surprised when she saw the boys face. He seemed a lot more...handsome than she remembered. Blushing furiously she checked the youths pulse and found that it was slow and strong. Had he been lying here for over 2 weeks? Was he in some sort of coma? Worry turned to fear as Arabella quickly pulled out her phone and called for an ambulance.

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The doctors were baffled. The state of the patient was incomprehensible. When he was brought in a week ago, they were told the patient hadn't eaten in over 2 weeks. However, when they saw his condition, they were completely shocked. He wasn't suffering from any sort of nutritional deficiencies. On the contrary, his health was beyond reasoning. Despite this however, he was in a vegetative state. His pupils didn't respond to stimuli. What scared them next was the iv tubes. The moment the needle was pressed against his skin, it would bend, unable to penetrate the skin. This was like nothing they'd seen before. The best doctors in the hospital were unable to find any skin condition which would cause this. The patient had smooth vibrant skin, not matching any symptoms they could conjure. They decided to leave the matter for the moment and find the cause of the coma. The patient went through numerous physicals but it was the brain scans that almost caused numerous heart attacks. His sleeping brain was operating at 100% and lit up the MRIs. The best doctors from nearby hospitals were called in for help in evaluating the patient. Their numbers steadily grew.

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War. The world had fallen into chaos. Whole cities were wiped from maps. Constant explosions were the norm. It was the longest war in human history going onto 20 years. The population had fallen to 4 billion with many suffering from radiation poisoning. However, it was the environment that had suffered the worst. This war had set humanity on the path of no return, doing irreversible damage to the planet. In the beginning, many were ignorant to the cause of the outbreak but over the years rumours had become fact and many knew a version of the truth. Country A had discovered the body of a deity and through intelligence networks, this information had spread to the other nations. At first, they were all sceptical of their intel but soon spies and informants gathered irrefutable evidence of the entity. Human greed took care of the rest, plunging the world into an era darkness. One good thing that had come out of this travesty, however, was the advancement of technology. Military and medical technology had reached new heights as the war pushed each nation to its limits. After close to 2 decades of fighting, however, talks began. Their planet and race were under imminent threat of death if they didn't end the war. And so the World Truce Federation was born. The world was united as one and the greatest minds on the planet had finally come together to study the anomaly.

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"Alright everyone the senior technician says pack up." A scientist shouted.

"Are we finally done with this cumbersome work?" Another asked.