In an alternative universe, humans can harness the magical potential of demons, angels and other range of spirits by partnering with them. Conversely, spirits are unable to manifest their powers on the mortal realm directly- they must use humans as vassals to do so.
Here, the rarity and magical potential of your spirit determines whether or not you would succeed in life. Heroes from the ancient past are told to wield the power of marvelous hard scaled wyverns and huge beasts with dagger-like claws with an explosive temperament. Geniuses who invented transport, medicine, chemistry, or made huge advances in other facets of scientific enquiry had always been paired with similarly intelligent spirits such as the spirits of deceased scientists, wise angels, or any other brainy and calculative spirits that gained knowledge through billions of years of existing.
Magic is so entwined in human society that electricity is can only be seen as a very inefficient substitute to Mana. Mana is collected magic that can be harnessed to power machines and devices that in our world require electricity.
However, Mana has a huge drawback, not known to most of mankind other than a few spies and their leaders- their presidents, kings and ministers- using huge amounts of it will create an extremely poisonous gas or watery liquid named Menace, that has the ability to kill off huge ecosystems and even human cities- if they are not disposed of carefully. This led to several world leaders signing a secret pact- to dump all their Menace in a huge area of land the size of a large country called the Forsaken Zone.
Mountains of discarded heavy industry machines, aged television sets, expired food, plastic and styrofoam waste jutted outwards towards the hazy, purple skies.
No animal herds, dense forests or blue skies exist in the Forsaken Zone. The few unlucky animals which live here had turned mentally unstable and physically deformed, from the three headed goats to the half rotting fish that will not ever die, which was why half of their intestines dangle out of their corroded body when they flail about in the smoky water. Much of the vegetation in the area became carnivorous and poisonous to eat for the average human. It is not hard to tell that they are inedible as their leaves turned into a shocking bright reddish purple hue with sharp spikes, and the plants almost resemble animals with fur or hair on their stems and can even move and hunt prey for sustenance.
In this hopeless place, a shocking sound can be heard- the high pitched sound of an abandoned ginger haired baby girl crying. In this dry, relentless and forgotten place, no one will care about her. It would have been the most pleasant outcome if her cries had alerted a predator, her neck snapped and she died instantly in the jaws of a hungry mutated wolf, instead of having to tolerate living in the literal hell on earth. But luck was not on her side, as she would live there, barely hanging on to the thread of life, for another sixteen whole years.