The Awakened World

Part 2: A Rude Awakening

The night after the lecture Brian was trying to study in his apartment but had a lot of trouble concentrating. "The matter with Scott and Susan really threw me for a loop" he thought as he desperately tried to understand the fine details of employee management, or "sheepherding" as it was referred to by the book which was, unsurprisingly enough, written by an Awakened. All the words merged into a jumble as he remembered the feeling of helplessness he experienced when dangling in the air. "Again, that is just something I have live with, though. In today's world, I'm powerless before the might of the Awakened" he mused as he felt his eyelids closing.

Susan Abbot could not believe what she was seeing. She had just returned from his horrible "date" with Scott, when she noticed a text message from Scott. Susan closed her eyes counted to five and opened them again. Unfortunately, she had not misread the first time. "After my multiple attempts to get closer to you, after all my hard work, you still have the gall to act aloof? I'm beyond disappointed, and I have decided to show you what happens when you try to humiliate me. You showed a surprising amount of concern for the class 2 piece of trash, didn't you? Well I'll be sure to pay him a visit. I will not kill him, but I will make sure that you will never try to pull this shit again..."

As Susan read the message for the fourth time, she decided to act. "No one will get hurt because of me," she thought as she dashed out of her door and prepared to make for the roof. As she was running up the stairs of her apartment building, she focused her mind as she was taught, and began to search for Scott's energy signature. Soon enough, she found it. "It's good that he's so lax about his defences, locating him was a hitch" she thought as she opened the door for the roof, and started to run for the edge of the roof. She started to load a large amount of energy to her legs, and red triangles started to form around them. Upon reaching the edge she jumped high into the air and landed on the next building with a loud thud. "I have no time to waste," she thought and started to jump from building to building, hoping that she would be on time.

Brian was floating around in a huge black open space, filled with thousands of tiny lights. "Where on Earth am I?" he asked, as he twisted his head around in an effort to make heads or tails of his surroundings. "Ah, this must be a lucid dream. I must have fallen asleep," he thought. "Pretty boring for a dream setting, though isn't it?" Suddenly Brian heard a deafening crack and a silhouette of a creature appeared. Brian could see the creature's rough outline, but he could make out that it had six very humanlike arms on an otherwise very humanlike body. Beside the excess of arms, the creatures head made it clear that it wasn't a human; the head's shape reminded Brian of a crocodile's head, but with three large eyes, or at least silhouettes of eyes, on both sides of it's head. Suddenly, the creature spoke with an incredibly deep voice: "Another one? I suppose phase two has truly begun. This could prove to be interesting, indeed." Before Brian could react in any way, he started to hear a muffled banging sound.

Brian jolted up in his chair, where he had fallen asleep. He quickly glanced at the clock, it was already almost morning. He then turned his attention to the banging sound that had woken him from his sleep. "That's odd, I can't seem to remember anything at all from my dream," he wondered as he walked towards his door that someone was pounding on from the outside. When he touched the door, it blew from its hinges sending it and Brian flying inside the apartment. Brian sat up and looked to see what had happened and saw that standing in his now destroyed doorway was Scott, with red helixes spinning wildly around his arms. "I'm here to rough you up, you piece of trash. Susan decided that she could humiliate me by acting distant and cold all through our date. That is something I will not fucking stand for! Let's see what the bitch will do when I put you in a hospital!" Scott screamed as he wound his leg back for an energy-infused kick to Brian's head. "No, don't..." Brian began to yell as something clicked inside him. He could see energy flowing around the room, and understood what it was, how it functioned. Before Brian could say or do anything about this fact, Scott's leg encircled by a red helix (manifestation of his energy manipulation, as Brian now understood) was approaching his head with superhuman speed. Brian instinctively began to raise his arms to guard against it but saw that it was too late; he would not make it. Brian closed his eyes and clenched his teeth in preparation for the kick.

Much to Brian's surprise, his arm had made it to stop the kick. In addition, the kick felt extremely weak, and couldn't even budge his arm. Brian head Scott screaming, and opened his eyes only to see that the bones in Scott's leg had somehow shattered on impact. Brian could see Scott's tibia sticking out, broken in half. As the once so confident rolled around on the floor, howling in pain, Brian shifted his attention to his arm that had miraculously made the block. Brian almost screamed as he saw that his arm was engulfed by green flames but calmed down as he noticed that he felt no burning sensation. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that what he thought to be flames only looked like them; he realized that "the flames" were formed from his energy, a manifestation in the same way as Scott's helixes were. "What did you do? You aren't an Awakened, what is your trick?!" Scott screamed. "I have no idea either!" Brian screamed as he struggled to grasp the situation. The only answer he could come to was that he had somehow awakened. But this was different: every Awakened had done so five years ago. In addition, their powers manifested with the colour red, without exception.

Before Brian could come to any proper conclusions, Scott started to laugh. "This has got to be a fucking joke! Me, an Awakened defeated by a lowly commoner? I will NOT allow it!". "Calm down, I don't understand anything either. Can you walk? We should get you to a hospital, quick. Then we can..." Brian said, but was interrupted by Scott: "Hospital? Me? No, the only one who is going to go to a hospital is you. Actually, scratch that. Only place you will be visiting is the morgue! A humiliation like this is unacceptable!" Scott shrieked, "Us Awakened are not allowed to just kill commoners, but this is going to be an exception. I will unleash ALL of my energy against you!" Brian could see that Scott's face twisted into a murderous expression as he started to concentrate all of his energy on his right hand. The energy helix grew brighter and brighter, and Brian knew that he would die if he didn't block this attack. "What will I do? I have no experience with my powers, so I have no idea what to do!" Thinking furiously Brian decided that he, too, would concentrate all of his energy on his right hand, and block the incoming attack with it. As he loaded his right hand with energy, the energy flames grew larger and brighter, to the point that they became almost too bright to look at. "Die, scum!" Scott roared as he extended the helixes around his arm to attack Brian. To the attacker's horror, Brian managed to grab them. Scott then started to scream in pain, as soon as the helixes had hit Brian's arm the faux-fire from his arm spread onto Scott. Brian shut of his energy, but the fire on Scott wouldn't go out. Brian could only watch in horror as Scott's skin boiled of and he burned into a crisp, all the while Scott was screeching in agony. Finally, the fire waned and what was left was burned husk. Brian threw up, fell to the floor and the passed out.

As Susan landed on Brian's apartment complex, she was worried. A moment ago, she had sensed another energy manipulator near Scott, but this was something she had never experienced the likes of before. The energy signature was different to that of any other Awakened. Filled with worry, Susan kicked the door to the stairs open. Then she felt something that made her stop. Scott was gathering all of his energy. Susan's eyes widened with shock; there was no way any normal human could survive that; Scott was going to kill him. Susan started to run even faster, augmenting her whole body with her energy. When Susan reached Brian's floor, she could see an open doorway, through which emanated a green light. She bolstered her defences, took a deep breath and entered. What she saw made her nauseous. A burned corpse, once known as Scott was emitting smoke on the floor, and she could just see how Brian fell to the floor, unconscious. After a brief while she collected herself and decided to act.