The sun is setting in the sky as Daniel makes it back to the home fracture.
Making it back had been surprisingly challenging. Initially as simple as tearing a singular paper-rune given to him by the wax-masked man, With his regrown skin completely hindering his hand motions, And no solution found as of yet, Daniel was forced to resort to using his mouth to tear the paper rune.
After making it back to the home fracture, The walk back to his house was fairly simple in comparison.
Finally arriving back home, Daniel greets his parents as he gets in the door, Doing his best to act casual and hide his rather strange looking hand scars, as well as the blood on his clothes.
"Hey Mom, Dad, Sorry for getting home late- I wanted to catch up on some school work at the library"
His Mom is the first to respond, Making her way to greet Daniel at the door.
"That's okay Daniel, There's food in the microwave for you if you need"
"Thanks-"
Smiling at his mother, A rather short, middle-aged woman with brown eyes and greying black hair, Daniel walks past into the house, quickly making his way to his room before closing the door; Not wanting his parents to see his injured hands.
He then takes off his bloodied clothing and replaces it with clean fabrics.
Sighing as he lays back on his bed, Daniel flexes his hands, feeling the resistance caused by the regrown, tough skin with a frown.
"What a pain"
He mumbles, frustrated at himself for ending up like this, as well as not having found a solution as of yet.
'I wonder what that masked man did today- what with him leaving all of a sudden'
Daniel thinks about one specific strange occurrence during the day, before sitting up and booting up his laptop to see if the masked man had caused a stir on the internet.
His typing is slow and arduous, though it doesn't take him long to go to a few news sources, all of which seem to be focused on the same things.
'Prophecy?' 'Magical terrorist attack! Propaganda!' 'Savior? Or merely someone riding the wave?'
Just from headlines, Daniel can tell that the golden masked man, who he assumes to be the same person as the wax masked man, just based on build and timings, Has once again Hijacked a news source.
Quickly finding any video feed he can of the event, Daniel find two different videos, uploaded many times in many differing qualities; The first is a video of the masked man attacking two security guards, and the other is of the masked mans live broadcast from the digital news company.
Pulling up the video, Daniel watches it while simultaneously doing his best to excessive his hands to the new, tougher skin.
"[In six days, an event called 'the breaking' will occur-"
"-in six days, Those abilities will work- allowing each and every human to practice and gain abilities only classifiable as magic]"
"leaving long range communication such as the internet, largely useless,"
The words bounce around in Daniel's head, his mind boggled by the implications of what the golden masked man had said.
'Maybe its fake?'
He thinks, though as he watches the live video of the man beating the guards, the knows first hand the fighting style of the masked man, confirming for him, the golden-masked man's identity, as well as the validity of the claims.
_____________
Daniel wakes up feeling drained, a new thirst having awakened within his body. It doesn't take him long to figure out that his body feels wrong because of the low mana in the surroundings.
'I guess that's why it's dubbed 'mana addicts constitution'- I really should have thought about the consequences of this magic stuff'
Lamenting to himself, He takes a moment to gain some clarity within the light mental fog created by his lack of mana, eventually getting out of bed and making his way to the shower.
Showering under blistering hot water in an attempt to soften the tough skin on his hands, It doesn't help much, if at all, leading him to leave the shower a few minutes after the fact; not wanting to waste the days before the prophesied 'Breaking'.
Quickly tossing on his school clothing, Daniel doesn't waste a second, not bothering to put anything in his bag aside from a few notes he scribbled the night before.
His parents are fairly surprised to see him leave for school so early, though they don't comment on it as he exits the house, breaking into a jog in an attempt to subdue some of the anxiety caused by both his hands not working properly, combined with the near-apocalyptic event likely occurring in less than a week.
He arrives at school quickly, not living all to far away from the establishment, before immediately looking around for Aaron and the rest of his old friend group.
The night prior, He had decided to try and convince them of the validity of the masked mans claims, and group with them to make a plan for the occurrence.
And so, Anxious they won't be eager to speak with him thanks to the distance he had inadvertently created between himself and the majority of his prior friends, Daniel continues searching the school grounds before classes begin.
______________
Not having seen Daniel at school the entire day prior, Aaron's worries continue to pile as he waits for the first school bell to usher him towards the distractions of learning, though his typical drive to improve himself is replaced by the worries regarding what the 'Savior' had said on the news the day before.
His eyes widen with relief as he sees a familiar face looking around the school grounds anxiously, Immediately making his way to his friend and opening his arms wide to embrace him.
"Daniel! I thought you were dead!"
The response he gets is fairly stock standard for Daniel, not reciprocating the gesture, he simply asks with a frown
"Dead? I often miss school, why would you think that?"
Aaron simply chuckles, his worry that his friend had been attacked by a madman targeting those with the ability to activate basic runes removed from his shoulders.
"Look- Some guy was attacking people that had activated runes, I was worried he might attack you-"
Aaron's eyes widen as Daniel responds casually
"Oh, right, Him"
"As long as he didn't attack you, I can stop worr- 'Right, Him' ?"
He grabs Daniel's shoulders, though Daniel seems too distracted to exhibit a typical awkward reaction, simply speaking in an anxious tone.
"Right- yeah I fought him off, or something like that- Where are the others, Jake, Kim, them- Its important"
"You fought him off?-"
Aaron starts to question his friends 'joke' as he labels it in his mind, having seen the state the others assaulted for having runes had been left in, though as he hears the serious tone rather rare from his friend, he matches it.
"Yeah- Kyle's on a school trip, but Jake and Kim are hanging out in Jake's homeroom before classes, you know how they are-"
"Lets go"
Frowning with worry as Daniel starts making his way to Jake's homeroom class without a moment's hesitation, even interrupting Aaron unhesitatingly to do so, leads Aaron to simply follow behind without saying a word, his concern growing.
It takes less than a minute to arrive at their destination with Daniel's pace, Aaron watches as his friend opens the door without a moment's hesitation, another uncharacteristic action.
"Oh- hey Dan"
Aaron hears Jake's voice from outside the door, following behind Daniel.
Closing the door behind himself, Aaron looks towards the table where Jake and Kim looked to be catching up on school-work at, taking a seat at the same table, alongside Daniel.
The two look out of place next to Daniel, his pudgy build and average appearance differing from Jake's tall, well built frame, blond hair and blue eyes; As well as Kim's rather cute appearance, her black hair matching her round, black-frame glasses.
Though Aaron doesn't let his friend's appearances take up any space within his thoughts as he waits for Daniel to speak.
"What's going on?"
Kim looks at Aaron for an explanation, though he just shrugs, gesturing towards Daniel, who appears to be readying himself to speak.
A few seconds later, Daniel begins to speak, gaining his three friend's undivided attention.
"Did you guys see the man with the golden mask on the internet yesterday?"
Kim pipes in, curious as to what Daniel seems to be getting at.
"Yeah, That guy who tried to claim all of the original magic dude's credit, called himself 'Savior' Or something"
Daniel frowns, but continues explaining
"Well- In case what he said is true- What are you guys- and girl, doing about it?"
Aaron is glad that someone else shares his concern, rather than denying the possibility of a global internet blackout and calling him naïve, And decides to query Daniel.
"I haven't thought about that yet- And nobody else seems worried about it- What are you getting at?"
Daniel looks worried at Aaron's words, waiting a moment before speaking once again.
"Look- It's probably real- all the things that guy said on the news, So I came here to plan what we're going to do when sh*t does down"
Jake and Kim look at Daniel with confused stares, as though not believing what they're hearing, before Kim speaks up.
"What do you mean real? He's just a doomsday fanatic, Is that really what you came here to tell us?"
Aaron feels a little bad for Daniel at Kim's irritated tone, though as he looks at his friend, he sees no irritation.
"Look- I met him alright, he took me to another 'fragment' or whatever you call it- I don't think he'd lie about this"
Daniel places his hands on the table as he speaks, only then does Aaron notice the rather grotesque scarring on his knuckles, as well as a fairly wide copper band on one of his fingers, all just serving to make him further confused.
"Wait what happened to your hands? Are you okay?"
Jake is the first one to speak about the injuries on Daniel's hands, continuing on in a likely unintentionally demeaning tone.
"Look- I don't know if this is some kind of skit- But your hands look bad- Did you see a doctor about the scarring?"
Aaron simply watches Daniel's expressions change as he listens to his friends speak, Looking increasingly frustrated, brought to a boil as Jake ignores his prior statement.
"Look, Please- I didn't come here for a joke- Look at my hands, This is caused by magic, proof that this stuff is more dangerous than people are giving it credit, I can barely even move my f*cking fingers. Please just trust me here, We need to get to planning- Chaos when this supposed 'breaking' happens will only serve to cause more suffering and deaths"
Aaron looks with more anxiety at Daniel, not questioning his claim regarding his hands, Rather looking towards Kim and Jake; Seeing the same expressions on their face, genuine concern, not having seen Daniel this emotional and serious around them ever before.
Aaron takes the initiative to support his obviously worried friend.
"Look- I trust you, What do we need to do?"