The repeating beat of a heart monitor rang out throughout the hospital room, with a single bed in the middle with a girl lying on it.
The girl groaned a little, irritated at the noise, before opening her eyes to look around.
The sun was shining brightly into the room as the girl looked around confused.
That was until the door opened and someone walked in. He had graying hair and was wearing a white coat.
"Ah, you're awake." The man commented as he walked towards the end of the bed, picking up a clipboard. While reading it he continued to talk. "My name is Quinn Mills, but you can call me doctor, doctor Mills, Mills but just don't go call me by my first name." The doctor informed her.
He read a bit more on the clipboard before looking up at her confused. "It seems we don't have any information on you. Just give me a moment to check the system."
The girl just continued giving him a confused look as he walked out of the room.
When he left the girl looked at her body, her hair and around the room. It just felt weird, something was wrong with her.
What was it? She thought for a second, trying to remember what it was, before it came to her. She couldn't remember anything! That was what was wrong with her.
Was that normal? To not remember anything? She questioned herself. What even is this place? And that person didn't look like her. Did everyone look different? That would be difficult. Especially if she had to remember everyone she met.
The girl moved her body to sit up, fixing the pillow behind her, and waiting for 'doctor, doctor Mills, Mills but just don't go call me by my first name' to come back. She could barely remember that! What if everyone had a name that long.
The man was gone for a few minutes before he returned with two other people behind him.
One of them was wearing a dark almost black uniform that had a badge on it. His skin colour was dark in colour and he had short black hair.
The other one was a man with blonde hair and light coloured skin, like the doctors and hers. He was wearing a formal suit and held a device in his hand.
"That's her." The doctor said before leaving and closing the door behind him.
"It's nice to meet you ma'am. I'm police officer Emiel Scott, and this is inspector Adam Foster. We're just here to ask a few questions, if you could answer them honestly that would be great." Emiel informed the girl, who didn't know what he was on about, but agreed nonetheless.
"Okay." The girl said.
"What's your name?" Adam asked abruptly in a harsh tone without care for her.
The girl paused, trying to remember anything, even if she knew she wouldn't.
That was until something appeared in front of her. A floating screen, dark green in colour with a name on it, with instructions telling her it was her name.
The girl didn't think anything about it, thinking it was normal and did what it said. "My name is Kyla Solomon." 'Kyla' said to them.
Emiel nodded his head and wrote it down. "And what's the last thing you remember?" He asked.
Kyla waited for the screen to change and when it did she spoke what it said. "I don't remember anything. I woke up here and the doctor came in before leaving is the first thing I remember." Kyla said honestly.
Adam looked a bit more interested now, and Emiel wrote it down. He didn't know if it was the truth, but assuming it was then…
"Maybe an awakened fucked with her memory." Adam finished Emiels thoughts.
Kyla saw the screen change and she said what it asked. "What's an awakened?" She asked, her head tilting a little.
"What do you mean…" Adam began before being hit on the shoulder by Emiel. "Right, no memory." He mumbled.
Adam took a breath before speaking to Emiel. "You search up her name and see if anything comes up, maybe a missing persons report. I'll explain what an awakened is and about the world a little."
Emiel nodded his head in agreement. Although he didn't exactly trust Adam to explain everything properly, he knew Adam could give a better explanation then him.
When Emiel left the room Adam moved from standing to sitting on the couch with one leg over the other, getting comfortable.
"Alright, where do I start…" Adam mumbled to himself, scratching his stubble as he thought. "I guess the beginning is the best."
Then he explained about the current world they live in.
Almost a hundred years ago, monsters started appearing randomly. Some religious fanatics said it was the end of the world and that god was punishing them for destroying the planet and not praying to him.
It didn't matter if that was the case, the military soon got involved and started killing the monsters. They were like animals, but just a bit stronger and bigger… at first at least.
Then they got bigger and started to have special traits to them, which they would later learn was mana. Some had flames covering them, others could shoot out flames from their mouths and others could hide in shadows.
And then the big boys came along. These were the size of buildings and guns didn't do anything, and although some could be beaten with tanks, some were invulnerable to regular attacks.
The military was considering dropping nukes on them. Multiple governments came together from all over the world to help each other, and discussed the possibility of nukes. That time was probably one of the only times where every single government at the time came together to face a common threat.
Of course, thankfully, that time never came. As ten people appeared and killed one of the monsters.
They were the first awakened people. They had special powers and increased strength that they could kill the monsters.
The group started small but eventually grew in size with others awakened to help them. They weren't called awakened at that time but when people saw that others could gain powers as well, they started calling that process the 'awakening', hence the name awakened.
The military was in control of them at the time, because it was a small enough group, but as the numbers grew governments created a branch to handle them called the 'Hunters Union', which gave the people in that branch the name of 'Hunters'.
Then when that got too big, stronger hunters created guilds. The guilds weren't controlled by the government and were considered independent businesses, for lack of a better term.
They also created ranks during this time, realising that there were greater gaps in strength between hunters.
They measured their rank by the amount of mana they had when they awakened, as that was when their mana would be at its peak. Also, when a Hunter awakened, they could never get stronger. They could learn skills to help them, but their level of strength, speed, mana, and other things would stay the same unless they had an enhancement skill which increased one of them traits.
Although most wouldn't be able to buy skills, as they were expensive and rare to get. So whatever skills you got at the start would most likely be what you were stuck with, unless you were a high ranking Hunter with a lot of money.
The ranks were divided in the best way they could be, which just happened to like most games and novels. Clearly whoever created that system in real life was a genius, and most people joked about how the person who proposed the idea for it and who approved it, were both probably gaming nerds or weebs.
During this time, when more hunters were appearing, portals started appearing. Or dungeons as people learned to call them.
They basically held monsters inside of them that were much stronger than the ones out in the real world.
Which had greatly diminished and their strength was mostly gone, since monsters in the real world didn't randomly appear like they did at first but now had to procreate to create new monsters, which would be weaker than their parents.
These dungeons weren't safe though either. They couldn't just let the dungeon sit there, as it would eventually 'burst', so to say, and the monsters trapped inside would come and wreak havoc.
And monsters also dropped crystals when they died, which the world used as an energy source since it was better then other fuel sources. And the world only needed the weakest mana crystals to actually use stuff, like cars, electricity, and other stuff. The bigger and stronger mana crystals would be used to power something for years.
"I think that's everything. Did you understand everything?" Adam asked as he finished his long explanation.
Kyla nodded her head in confirmation. Although some parts confused her, like why everything was happening. She figured they didn't know either if she wasn't told.
Another question appeared on the green screen that she asked Adam. "How do you know if you're awakened?"
Adam let out an 'Ah' before speaking. "That's actually the reason I came here. To see if you're awakened. But if you want to know, some people, like I said before, have skills. Not all are useful for combat and some don't even appear before you fight a monster." He said to her.
He then moved beside her bed and pulled out the tablet he had and put it on the bed. "All you need to do is put your hand on it for a few seconds and then it'll tell you if you're an awakened or not. If you are, don't be surprised if your F rank, it's the most common and weakest, but even the weakest of F rank are double the strength of the world's strongest bodybuilder."
Kyla nodded her head, before putting her hand on the table and then taking it off, and then turning to look at Adam.
Adam sighed in annoyance and rubbed his forehead. "No. Just… keep your hand on it and I'll tell you when you can take your hand off."
"Sorry." Kyla mumbled before putting her hand back on it, and waiting for Adam to tell her when she could take it off.
After around half a minute Adam finally spoke again. "Alright, that's enough."
Kyla took her hand off the tablet and shook it as it tingled a bit.
Adam took one look at it before giving the verdict. "E rank." Adam said he then took a look at Kyla before looking at the device again.
"Punch my hand." Adam said abruptly as he stuck his hand out.
"What?" Kyla questioned.
"Just do it." Adam said forcibly, but seeing fear in her eyes he stopped. But she wasn't afraid of him, he knew that, she was afraid of hurting him. "Don't worry about me. I'm a B rank hunter, whatever you dish out I can take."
Kyla just gulped, nodding her head. She reeled back her fist, not really knowing how to hit someone, and stuck Adams palm.
Adam then moved his palm away and waved it around with his eyes closed, trying to get an idea of her strength before coming to an answer. "So a mage type, huh." She had the mana of a E rank but the strength of a F rank, Adam noted.
"Mage?" Kyla asked.
Adam nodded his head and gave a brief explanation. "Yeah, they're weaker physically but have greater mana and control over it then others do. Mages don't exactly require skills to use magic. As long as they find out the element they are attuned to, they can manipulate it however they want so long as they have enough mana. And given your rank and the average mana for that, you would be able to do the basics of the elements you are attuned to a few times before running out of mana."
Kyla saw another question appear on the screen and asked it. "And what if a mage class used a skill?"
Adam rubbed his chin as he sat down again. "Hmm, that's a bit difficult to answer. But in a basic way of putting it, for mages at least, is that their skills would be a type of technique they can use. And having that skill, would allow them to use that move without as much mana, had they not had the skill." Adam said.
He then quickly added on. "Although there are some exceptions. Like a mage could have been attuned to the earth element, but have a healing skill. Which would allow them to use the earth however they wanted within their mana limit, but is only able to use that type of healing without access to the element of healing itself."
Kyla nodded her head in understanding of it all. It was a bit complicated, but she felt she could get the hang of it.