So Mathis woke up in the hospital, laying on a bed with his mother crying by his side.
Her head was resting on her arms on the left side of the bed. Her head was facing the other way so she couldn't see he woke up.
Seeing her sobbing like that hurt Mathis. He was extending his arm to pat her head, but just before his hand touched her, he heard her murmuring words.
"I should've known. I-I should have kept him at home." she sniffled before continuing. " He's not mentally stable, I should have kept an eye on him. It's my fault." she sobbed.
Feeling an ache in his heart, he quickly retracted his hand. To avoid an awkward confrontation, he pretended to be asleep again.
'Hey, what was that she just said?' Hector asked.
Hearing the voice in his head, the pain in his chest intensified. His eyes started watering, but he kept himself from crying. Maybe his mother was right all along. Maybe banging his head against the tree was just the trigger and he was mentally ill all along. His throat seemed to squeeze along with his heart. He couldn't help but feel like he was worthless.
'Hello? Don't ignore me young man.' Hector tried having an answer.
For a split second, his sadness transformed in anger towards Hector.
'You shut up dumb voice!' he screamed internally.
'...' Hector was a bit stunned by the sudden reaction, but he didn't take it personally. He knew Mathis had yet to consider him real.
After Mathis seemed to stabilize, Hector tried again.
'Hey, I think I might know the explanation behind why your mom thinks this way. If you just give me more information, I could be more certain. Please?' Hector demanded politely.
'... Okay. It all started when I heard my mom and dad talk in the kitchen. I was around 11 and I can't remember clearly, but it went along the lines that my mom told my father that my behavior wasn't normal and that she was worried and my dad suggesting to bring me to a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis. When I was in a small room with my mom and a strange woman, I froze under all the weird questions they asked me. Later, the psychiatrist said my mother should at least explain why I was brought there. I could see pain in my mother's eyes when she tried explaining everything. Apparently, I had episodes where I would suddenly scream in terror and try escaping somewhere for no apparent reason. There were also times where I would suddenly cry in pain and wriggle on the ground because of it, lastly, there were days where I would be completely unresponsive to what happened around me. She said I ate and went to the bathroom normally, but wouldn't answer when someone talked to me, and I would show no emotion during the whole day. She also said my eyes were scary, that she had a hard time approaching me without feeling fear during those days...' the sadness Mathis felt intensified on the last words. 'I don't have any memory of these episodes, and they stopped the moment I passed 10 years old, and started when I was 5.' He told Hector.
'It's just as I thought. This will be hard to believe, but this is good news!' Hector exclaimed.
'Im sorry?' He thought, slightly irritated by what the voice just said.
'I'm being very serious. This is symptoms of having way too much affinity, normally you would have died, but for some reason you didn't. This is fascinating! Even among Athanatos that are as rare as extinct animals, you are very special. In other words, you have the potential of becoming extremely strong. Isn't that great?' Hector said, trying to lift up Mathis' mood.
'Who said I wanted to get stronger?' he answered in a morose tone.
'...' Well, Hector didn't expect that one. But it didn't matter. ' Mathis, wether you like it or not, you will naturally get stronger without making any effort, and strong people will notice you, some will even be able to tell you have a beast core. You need to be strong enough to defend yourself.' Hector argued.
'Well, I can't say anything. But about the core, is there no way to hide it? I mean, I can't get strong instantly, and I definitely don't want to leave society. And in society, I need to go to school and at school there are strong people.' he asked.
'Of course there is, but there is always the possibility you'd slip up at some point, you know?' Hector reasoned.
'You are right..' He thought.
But even then, Was Hector real? What he said was nearly impossible to believe. It was way more realistic to say that it was all inside his head. Athanatos? That sounded like a made up word.
Mathis sighed and pretended to wake up.
"Hey mom." He said with a fake smile plastered on his face.
His mother, Marla, instantly turned around with teary eyes.
"Mathis! You are awake!" She said with relief.
She then hugged him hard. Though it didn't manage to hurt him physically, it did somehow worsen the pain in his heart, as if putting salt on the wound.
"Yeah, I'm aware." He said with a soft smile.
"Mathis, can you tell me what happened?" she asked while looking him in the eyes.
"Urhh.. I'm not certain either. I was taking a walk like usual and then something hit my head, before I could do anything, it hit again and again. I ran away, but collapsed when I reached the city. I guess I made it there because of the adrenaline." he answered.
His mother looked him in the eyes, looking for a sign he was lying. She then sighed. It seemed she decided to trust him for now.
"You'll have to explain all that to the local police too, but for now just try to relax." She told him.
"What about the awakening ceremony?" He asked her.
"That depends on what the doctor says about your state. If you get permission to leave then we'll have to go, otherwise we'll have to make a special appointment." She answered with a frown.
"Okay."
Soon after, his mother left for work as the doctor came in to do a check up.
The doctor removed the bandages, asked him a bunch of questions, checked his blood pressure and pulse.
"Everything seems to be in order. You'll be able to attend the awakening ceremony!" he announced happily.
But Mathis was hoping to not need to go, he wasn't looking forward to fail the awakening ceremony. He won't even have a feeble affinity or anything, actually nothing at all because of his awakening to the core. Not having any affinity was quite rare, though not impossible. These kind of things happened more and more these days, so it wouldn't be a shock to anyone.
' Don't be depressed young man. Why don't you practice absorbing magic energy? if you don't, you'll get sick. How much time until you need to go to the ceremony?' Hector asked.
'Uhm. It's still seven in the morning, and the ceremony takes place in five hours. Mother said the police would come here for a quick interrogation, and the doc said I should stay at the hospital for at least three hours just to be sure.' he answered.
'In this case, you should practice breathing magic energy in the meantime, you need it to become natural. When the police leaves, you should go outside, the energy is more concentrated there. Maybe confirm the information I gave you.' he suggested.
And so the police arrived, asked a bunch of questions, left and Mathis was now sitting on a bench in the hospital's garden.
The breathing started to come naturally and he stopped taking excessively big breaths. He was starting to relax. He couldn't tell if it actually did anything, though, Hector said he was doing more than great, because his affinity was so high, his absorption rate was of 100%. He also claimed normal beginner Athanatos would have a rate of 49%. But honestly, he wasn't sure if it was in his head or not. Even after confirming what Hector said about beasts, because he might've just forgot that information, or just guessed correctly.
Anyway, just relaxing on the bench was nice, even if he was insane or an Athanatos. Right now he was feeling okay, and for him that was very good. Just not feeling pain for once.
As he had his eyes closed, someone sat next to him.
"It's my first time seeing you here." a girly voice said.
He opened his eyes and turned his head. A girl his age was there. She wore the blue hospital gown and was smiling at him with her green eyes and long brown hair.
"It's my first time seeing you here too." he replied jokingly.
She smiled.
"I like your cap and freckles." she complimented him.
"Uhh, thank you." Mathis answered.
He was wearing a cap to avoid getting freckles, but whatever. He quickly guessed she wanted something from him.
Observing her, he noticed she was looking intently at his white hoodie.
His hoodie, pants and the rest of his clothes had been washed by the hospital. But blood stains didn't go away easily. Suddenly, he felt frustrated his mother didn't think of bringing him a new set of clothes. Right now, he end of his right sleeve had a big smudge of brownish red on it, along with little drops. The torso also had droplets. In fact, the whole front of the hoodie had little splatters of blood. You could only see it when observing closely, but still.
"Don't worry, that's not really human blood." He said honestly.
"Then, what is it?" She asked directly.
"It's beast blood. I got in a small incident." he answered.
"But isn't beast blood black?" she pointed out.
"Now that you say it.." he trailed off.
'Say Hector, will my blood turn black?' He asked curiously.
'No! You don't need to worry, it'll only get slightly darker. A genetic thing.' he answered, happy Mathis called him by his name.
"Sorry, I don't really know." he said while shrugging his shoulders.
"okay..." She said, regretting not getting any answer.
Mathis mimicked looking at his watch, although he didn't have one right now.
"Oh damn, I need to go to the awakening ceremony! I hope you have a nice day." he quickly said as he got up.
"The ceremony is in two hours, but okay, yeah, have a nice day. By the way, my name is Cheryl Cole." she said with a teasing smile.
"Hahaha.. My name is Mathis Forest." He said with an awkward smile before turning away.
Soon, he was on his way to the ceremony with his dad. He had brought him home to change his clothes. They were both silent, as usual. Neither of them were good at making conversation, so it just stayed like that. So he was calmly doing the breathing to absorb magic energy.
"Say Mathis, can you tell me what really happened? You know you can't fool me." he said.
His father, Marco, always knew when Mathis was lying. So he instantly knew when he heard the story.
" I'm sorry dad... I can't." He said bluntly.
"Fine, keep it to yourself. But when you need help, come to me." He said to his son with a comforting voice.
Then, much later, he was called to the stage.
"Now if you please, stand in the middle of the diagram." An old man said.
On the ground, there was one big circle with patterns and writing in it and it was surrounded by six other smaller circles.
One for water, one for fire, one for earth, one for wind, one for light and one for shadow.
When someone would stand in the middle, they'd activate the magic circles and the circle of your affinity would glow, the more brightest, the more strong it was.
The ceremony was simply to help young adults discover their elements, not to decide how strong they were.
But as he stood in the middle, no circles seemed to want to glow up.
The old man gave him a sad nod, confirming he didn't have any affinity.
So he walked away.
"Splitch splitch" a weird sound was coming from his feet. As if his socks were drenched in water. Mathis frowned, having a bad feeling.
His dad was about to walk out, but Mathis couldn't take it anymore.
"Wait dad, I feel like there's something in my shoes." he said as he sat down on a near chair.
As he removed his shoe, a weird feeling as if his skin was slipping off, made him shudder. And then, he saw his formerly white socks were now completely dark red. Where the sock had slightly slipped off, there wasn't any skin, just red flesh. It was bleeding abundantly.
"Oh dear god! SOMEONE CALL THE AMBULANCE!" his father yelled as soon as he saw what was happening.
The sight was very disgusting, the skin around his feet was coming off like bad makeup. As if they had been melted in acid. Mathis was on the verge of puking, but his morbid curiosity overcame that.
So with a shaking hand, he took his finger and rubbed it on the skin just above where the sock used to be. The skin came off like a thick paint layer.
"Mathis what are you doing!?" his dad grabbed his arm and pulled it away.
"Sorry, I was curious." he told him honestly.
"Mathis, are you okay? does it hurt?" Marco asked worriedly.
Mathis stayed silent.
"Mathis?" his dad called.
He turned to look him in the eyes.
"No, it doesn't hurt." he said.
His dad then frowned and closed his eyes while taking in a big breath.
"You don't feel pain anymore?" he asked.
"Don't tell mom." he indirectly confirmed.
He looked at his son with concern.
"Okay, She won't know." he agreed nonetheless.