[@%#ERROR!-hAs oCCurEd&¡]
Connor was on the verge of tears, he tried swiping and tapping at his phone-nothing. Then he tried pressing his home screen and his power button-nothing. The screen seemed to be forever frozen with that line of text. He could still see a portion of the lottery wheel as well as the spark that was generated; all of it was frozen.
In this moment of absolute grief, he took the time to look over his shoulder to spitefully shoot daggers at Jacob. Feeling his stare, Jacob cluelessly smiled at him before going back to fiddling with his phone.
Giving a quiet sigh of defeat, Connor looked at the clock in the front of the classroom, and saw that 4th period was going to end pretty soon. He started to silently pack his things even though the teacher was still explaining the last bit of the lesson.
"Vrrr!"
Feeling the phone in his hands vibrate, Connor felt hopeful; he crossed his finger and made a wish. All that he wants is to have his phone working again! He didn't care about the prize anymore!
He stared at the screen, however, he found that it was still in a frozen state. But the line of errored words had changed.
[%¿yöÛ HAve-rÈceIv;: Umbra!]
'Umbra? Is that my power? Umbra as in darkness? How does that even-' Deep in thought as to what his power was, he suddenly noticed a change in his phone screen.
The errored line of words began to slowly disappear, and he was left staring at the frozen lottery wheel. All of a sudden, everything seemed to go back to normal, as the fast moving wheel came to an abrupt stop. The electricity scattered, and the triangle pointed to a black colored slot. It was a very slim slot, only taking 1% of the wheel, however, this was not what made Connor stare. He was pretty sure that the black color of that slot was much darker than the darkness of Endless Midnight.
'What's going on? Didn't I already get a prize?' Looking at that dark slot, Connor couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. It was as if the darkness was trying to suck him in. The feeling was different from dread, it was much stronger, yet it feels absolute.
'Is this... despair?' Connor's skin startled to crawl.
At this moment, the darkness within the slot began to spread on the wheel. Connor could only watch helplessly as the darkness took complete control of the wheel. But it didn't stop there.
The darkness crept into the background, and slowly started to fill all of his screen. When it had completely swallowed the remnants of white, he couldn't even see his reflection on the dark screen. He could only stare into what seemed like an endless abyss.
Connor could only stay frozen as he watched this event develop, he just hoped the darkness doesn't impose upon reality.
However, his hopes were quickly destroyed as the darkness seeped out of his phone like a viscous liquid. When the darkness came into contact with his own shadow, it crazily consumed his shadow; replacing it in the process.
Dumbfounded by how it all turned out, Connor looked at his screen, which had already turned back to normal, without any trace of darkness whatsoever, and then he looked at the shadow of his hand that stretched on his desk, as well as his shadow beaneath his desk. It was darker! His shadow was now darker than normal shadows.
'What the heck-? Just happened?' He looked all over his body; nothing had changed about it, he was feeling fine. Then he looked around him, and it seemed like nobody had noticed.
Since he found nothing wrong, except for a darker shadow, he grabbed his phone and fiddled with it. He gave a sigh of relief when it was working fine.
Wanting to find answers he went over to his stats, however, when he found that nothing had changed, he noticed that a new other tab had appeared! It was the [Power] tab!
He clicked on it.
[Power]
Umbra
(A power to control the darkness. Gifted by the Lord of Darkness.)
Danger Perception
(The power to sense danger. Innate.)
'I have two?' Connor furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of this. A question of his had been answered, yet countless more pop up because of it.
'Danger Perception? Innate? Is this why I've been feeling fear?' Thinking about it, this was a pretty good explanation to why he keeps feeling the sense of dread.
'The Lord of Darkness?' Connor just couldn't wrap his head around this one. Should he be thankful? Or fearful? The way the darkness took over as his shadow still creeps him out.
"Riiiing!~"
The loud ringing of the bell broke his train of thought as he grabbed his bag. He went over to Jacob as they both made their way to the cafeteria. It was now lunch time, and Connor was starving.
...
After they both got their lunch, they found an empty table to sit at. Previously, on their way here, and on the line, they had whispered to each other about what they got from the lottery.
"What the heck? That really happened?!" Jacob exclaimed in a low voice as Connor recounted the Umbra incident. However, he made sure to leave out some important details.
"Man, that's so cool! I'm so jealous, you got so much stuff!" Jacob whined as he stuffed the lunch food into his mouth.
Jacob wasn't as lucky as Connor, and only got 250 DP, a basic movement skill called 'Fleeting Rabbit', +2 to strength, an unnamed iron shield, and Telekinesis.
"But that's not the point here, all of this is real." Connor said seriously as he stuffed some bread into his mouth.
"Well, yeah. What are you getting at?" Jacob gave a questioning face.
"I'm talking about the special event! You know, the one where it implies that we might get hunted by people? Don't tell me you don't know about it."
"I... I don't."
Connor could only sigh, as he gave a brief overview of the situation that he found out. Along the way, Jacob began to slowdown his eating, and seriously listened.
"Are you sure?" Jacob asked as he stared at his plate of food.
"This App can really give you superpowers, so I'm sure about anything else that can happen. It's only a matter of time before something big happens." Connor said with a grave face, as he stuffed the last of the food into his mouth.
Looking around the lively cafeteria, Connor could tell that a majority of the students use the app, because of their sketchy actions. He saw one student light a small flame in his hands under the table. He also saw another student's skin transforming into wood or metal. They were all done in secrecy, but Connor noticed them all, which also surprised him.
Connor looked at, Jacob, who was admittedly his only friend in this school, and usually carried a happy attitude, now carried a grim face as he looked to be in deep thought.
He didn't know much about Jacob, but he knew that he was trustworthy, else he wouldn't even be talking about anything at all with him.
Throwing away his plate of food, he fiddled with his phone. He wanted to check the news to see if anything had happened so far.
As he was scrolling, something had caught his eye. It was a video from an hour ago. Clicking play, It opened up to a small street; a cloud of dust had enveloped it, and several people were running away from the dust cloud.
A single silhouette slowly emerged from the cloud. It was a bald man in weird attire, he was neither thin nor muscular, and he had a wide grin on his blood covered face. Suddenly he disappeared, and the video went blurry for a second, as it showed a different perspective of another man.
"H-how?! Y-y-" The man collapsed to the ground with extreme fear and disbelief on his face.
The camera blurred again, as it showed the face of the bald man, with a grin that was as wide as the screen. All the hairs on Connor's body stood up as he heard a voice drift into his ears.
"Hello Server #16! You can call me Bob. I just wanted to let you know that we're already here! Don't sweat it rookies, wether you fight or hide like rats, it doesn't matter cuz we'll find you!" The bald man broke into maniacal laughter as if he told a really good joke.
"Well, that's all that I wanted to say! Good Luck! And let the hunt~ begin!"
The video blurred and showed the guy on the ground once more. However, in the next second, a steel like fist swiftly moved across the screen. It was too fast to see. And without even being able to let out a scream, the head of the the guy had exploded like a blooming scarlet flower.
Connor could only stare as the headless body went limp in a pool of blood, while the sound of a laugh resonated out before the video had abruptly cut to black.
The video had ended.