Mathis was taking a walk in the small forest near his house. Tomorrow was the awakening ceremony. He wasn't very hyped about it, the other students already made enough fun of him, he didn't need more.
As he kicked a rock on the ground, he felt something change inside of him. It was very subtle, like a fresh mist, but Mathis was very perceptive and noticed it right away.
'what's going on?'
He stopped in his tracks, looking down at himself. His skin seemed to give off a light glow.
"UUuuh.." Mathis said, confused at what was happening.
He started sweating and a pain formed inside his head.
'I passed the adolescent stage where your body change, this is not normal' he thought.
He stood still for a while, waiting for the situation to evolve, but even five minutes later nothing had changed. He started worrying. Mathis couldn't just go back home with glowing skin.
As he was wondering if he was going to have to sneak into his own house, he felt danger.
The kind of feeling that hits you suddenly. You look around yourself and get a feeling of déjà vue. This intuition that tells you to get the hell out of here.
But Mathis was a curious guy, and just stood there, waiting for a monster to pop out or something. Instead, the glowing intensified and the pain spread to his bones.
"Ouch!" he yelped with a wince.
Soon, the pain became unbearable and his thoughts became incoherent. A silent rage started eating him from the inside, suddenly giving him violent energy. Looking at the nearest tree, for some reason he decided that banging his head against it was a good idea.
Trembling in pain, he walked to the tree and grabbed each side firmly with his hands. He tilted his head back, and with full force, bashed his head against it.
He succeeded in calming down his violent urges, but nothing more. With a clouded mind, he decided to continue.
Bang...Bang...Bang..Bang..BangBangBangBang!
'Stop it!!' An annoying old voice said.
Mathis instinctively obeyed and stopped. He noticed the glow and the pain were both gone along with the rage.
He looked around, searching for the person who just spoke. But there were only trees. Did he perhaps imagine it?
He felt something drip down from his face and wiped his chin. Blood, a lot of it too.
'Agh... I'm bleeding.' he remarked inside his head.
'Well, that's kinda obvious with how hard you bashed your head against that poor tree.' the old voice said.
Quickly, Mathis turned around, trying to pinpoint where the voice came from.
'Don't waste your time, I'm inside your head.' the voice told him.
"Oh. Are you a telepath?" he asked the voice.
'Oh course not, telepaths can only transfer thoughts, not read them. You don't need to talk aloud.' the old voice said.
'Okay. Then, what are you?' he asked again.
'I can't tell you yet. But let's just say I'm a spirit that lives inside your head.' the voice explained briefly.
'A voice inside my head, but it's not a telepath.. this can only mean one thing. I've gone crazy because of how many times I banged my head against the tree.' he concluded, ignoring the explanation given by the voice.
'What? No, no, no, I'm really a spirit. You didn't go crazy.' the voice reassured him.
'You shut up. I'm going to have to take a medication, also I'll probably be forced into a mental hospital or something like that.' Mathis complained.
'...' the voice recognized this was a normal reaction.
'My name is Hector, and I have something important to tell you. Mathis Forest, you are not human anymore.' the voice told him solemnly.
'Hahaha' he sarcastically laughed.'very funny. A voice inside my head is telling me I'm not human.'
Mathis started walking back home.
'This is very serious, young man. You are what we call an Athanatos, in other words, an immortal. We can also call them demons.' He continued.
'Mhm, and what are these Tataritos exactly?' He said, purposely messing up the name.
'The Athanatos are like humans, but better. Just like humans, they awaken during their 17th year of life. Except they don't awaken to a certain type of magic. Instead, they develop a core. To put it simply, Athanatos are human beasts.' he explained.
Mathis stopped in his tracks. If the voice in his head was real, then this was a disaster. After all, there was no right chart for beasts, so scientist could do what the heck they wanted with him if he ever gets captured.
'R-really? I don't really know much about magic beasts, so could you tell me more? Though, if you're just a voice in my head, then any information you give will be bullshit.' he thought.
'You'll just have to check the information I give you then, it'll prove I'm not just a side effect of your insanity. I'll start with things humans know. First, Beasts have a special diet. They need to ingest magic energy to sustain themselves. They can get via the air, magical plants, or preferably strong magical beasts. Every beast has a core right next to their heart that will grow stronger with every energy they ingest. Sometimes, beasts will kill their prey, eat the core and leave the rest alone. Beast also go through a number of evolutions that will change their bodies and powers. Instead of elements, beasts use their body and auras as their weapons. Now, what humans aren't aware of, Beasts can control how they evolve up to a certain extent. They also have control over weaker beasts, they will listen as long as the order isn't too hard, like something that would eventually lead to their death. Beast are more intelligent than humans think. They have loyalty and other such emotions. They also have their own language they speak through aura energy, though it's less developed than human language. There's other details, but I won't go over them now.' Hector said.
'And... all this also applies to me?' he asked, not sure if he will like the answer.
'Exactly.' he confirmed.
'Ugh... Does this mean I'll have monster features? like horns or something. Can't I just not evolve?'
'Sadly, this is not something that you can avoid. And yes, you are forced to change something during evolution. To survive, you'll need to consume energy and eventually, your body and core won't be able to take it anymore and will have to evolve.'
In the end, he wasn't sure what was worse between being insane or an Athanatos. Why did this shit happen to him?
'But hey, my parents are certainly humans, why am I like this?' he asked.
'You see, when beasts are young, they are just like humans and don't have a core yet. But beasts genetics and affinity with aura makes it near impossible not to awaken a core. Humans have very low affinity with aura and their genetics just don't tend that way. But for some reason, once in a while, there's a human that's born with an insane affinity with aura, just like you. So they awaken not to elements, but cores. The same can happen to beasts, I'm sure you've heard of rare elemental beasts?' Hector explained carefully.
'Now that you say it... I did hear about them. But I didn't know they didn't have any cores.' Mathis said.
' And I'm sure you've heard of how powerful they are, and that's because they need an immense affinity with elements to go against genes, which leads to every elemental beasts being very strong. The same goes for you!' Hector mentioned enthusiastically.
But that was of meager comfort for Mathis.
'Ah, I need to mention why Athanatos are superior to humans. You know beasts can regenerate most wounds as long as they have magic energy right? Well Athanatos can be brought back to life as long as your core is intact and is given enough magic energy. All your 'soul' and genetic is stored in the core you see, and your regeneration power is a hundred times better than normal beasts. Also, you can't feel pain, so you have to be careful.' Hector added.
'So the wound on my forehead will heal?' he asked hopefully.
'No, right now you barely have any magic energy, so you can't do anything. By the way, with all the blood you lost, you should be passing out any moment now.' He said nonchalantly.
"What?!" Mathis said aloud, panicked.
Now that Hector mentioned it, he did feel a little light headed. But he thought it was because of the shock of learning he was either mental or a beast. After all, he couldn't really tell how much blood he was loosing and if it was really that bad, he was no doctor.
Sadly, soon enough, his sight started darkening. He was nearly out of the forest, he just needed a last bit of effort.
'You know, you could try absorbing magic energy, it'd give you a little boost. Just take long breaths.' He advised.
Mathis did as told and took long breaths, concentrating on absorbing energy or whatever. to his surprise, it kinda worked. He felt he could make it out of the forest now.
So, unsure if it was because of the advice working or just him pumping more oxygen, he continued walking until he reached the pavement that delimited the forest, and he just dropped there, hoping someone would pass by.