Year 2098. Falling Star City. BEACON city #132

Northern border between China and Russia.

—

"Ugh." Arryn felt a sudden tickle in his throat.

He covered his mouth and began to cough. Endlessly.

The cough started out dry but halfway through, a prickly feeling of liquid had sprayed onto his palms.

"Blood?" He worriedly checked while still hacking up more of the same clammy liquid.

It's black?!

His facial expression grew increasingly more disturbed. When did he get infected by the N-virus? Was it during work? Are his parents infected too? And his sister Lunah?

"Mom, dad! Lunah!" Arryn called out from his bedroom.

No one answered.

"That's right." He reminded himself. They're still in the Outer District buying groceries for dinner!

Numerous thoughts filled his head. What was he going to do?

His emotional self wanted him to stay, in hope of meeting his parents and little sister one last time before he turned into one of those dreadful abominations.

His rational self needed him to run. Run as far away as possible. If his family came back after he had turned into an Unrisen, it would be his life's greatest tragedy!

As he continued to cough up more black and viscous matter, his eyes grew strained and his vision began to blur.

"Oh no! It's too late!"

What a life he'd lived – in a world filled with war and genocide, all for the sake of gaining control of the world's ever-depleting resources? He mocked those high-ranking officials from his city!

Yes, it's because of people like them that Earth turned to ruin. And then the dreadful Contagion N just had to spread. As if angered by all the atrocities that had occurred in recent decades, Earth finally decided to doom its whole population!

What was worse, plenty of the absolute rich and the elites of society had long since traveled to Mars.

What a bunch of egotistical people! What about the rest of humanity?! Living their comfortable lives on a newly terraformed planet, free of all the unresolved doom and gloom happening back on Earth!

Instead of investing their resources to fight back against the virus, they left humanity behind.

And now, because of the increasing scarcity of resources, over half of the world's population was below the absolute poverty line while the other half had become scattered or turned into Unrisen!

The global pandemic outbreak of the Unrisen happened about a year ago. As a result, the governing bodies of the world had become strenuous at best.

Those lucky enough found shelter in communities like Falling Star City under the jurisdiction of the Brim Expedition Allied Countries.

Not many cities were left standing after a year of the Rise of the Unrisen, as people nowadays called it, referring to the abhorrent, zombie-like creatures that came to roam across the entire world.

Only superstates like China, USA, Russia, and other larger hegemons like India, Germany, France, and the UK had the military power to stay somewhat intact and functioning.

However, even in such countries, the rural areas were the first to get overrun by swarms and throngs of Unrisen. It was simply impossible to stop the spread of the infectious Contagion N as city after city fell likes houses of cards.

People always speculated whether this virus was man-made or alien in nature. The easiest ones to blame thus became those rich bastards that traveled back and forth from Mars!

"Arryn? Arryn!"

"Brother?!"

Arryn's family had finally returned from the Outer District.

As he was lying face down on the floor, his father turned him around on his back to get a better look at his son.

"Son! What's wrong? Wake up!"

Still unconscious, Arryn's body suddenly began to glow, emanating a dark purple aura!

To his family's bewilderment, this could only mean one of two things.

Arryn's father soon realized what was transpiring and picked up the nearest blunt object, which happened to be a metal flashlight the size of kitchen utensils.

"Oh no! Is he infected?" Lunah worriedly called out as she embraced her mother.

"Stay back!" Her father yelled. "Go downstairs! If I don't return within the next minute, go and alert the guards in our Zone. What are you waiting for? Go! NOW!"

The two women soon awoke from their shock and rushed downstairs with tears streaming down their faces.

Arryn's father had seen these changes that were taking place on his son happen before. It was a sign that someone was turning into an Unrisen. Though, there was a minuscule chance that the opposite might happen.

Checking for marks throughout his body, he confirmed that there were no bite marks on his son.

"There's still hope."

He gripped his son's flashlight tightly in his arms, praying to higher powers that his son still had a fighting chance to become a Risen and not an Unrisen.

The purple aura grew denser and adorned the whole bedroom, and even penetrated through the curtains, illuminating parts of the alleyway outside.

"What strong light! It's usually much weaker than this."

Soon, Arryn's eyes slowly opened and his father prepared himself for the worst.

"Don't have red eyes, don't have red eyes, don't have red eyes." His father chanted to himself while keeping the flashlight ready to strike his own son if it came to the worst.

If Arryn awoke with red eyes, he was no longer his son. Would he hesitate to kill 'him' – or the thing that now took the shape of his son?

"Dad?" Arryn spoke. "What are you doing?"

"Son? Son! It's you!" Relief radiated from his father's face as he embraced his only son.

Arryn finally remembered what had occurred. Wait, he didn't turn? Then that could only mean one thing! He'd become a Risen!

"Dad, you're holding me too tight. I can't breathe." Arryn said and tried to get out of his father's embrace. He found out he lacked the strength to do so.

"I guess my superpower isn't an Augmenter type." He reckoned.

At those words, his father finally realized that Risen humans indeed gained unique powers.

"Ah, son. You made it through! Finding your power can wait. Let's go downstairs. Lunah and your mom are worried sick."

Today Arryn's family had their first feast of the year. Their mother even served meat for the first time in weeks and cooked up Arryn's favorite dish, soy-braised pork! One of the best parts of this dish was dipping the sauce and mixing it with rice.

Living in the Outer District's Zone 7 meant that their living conditions had seen better days. Because eating meat was a luxury that only people from the Inner District and Core District could afford on a daily basis.

This was how Falling Star City and most other surviving cities operated these days. The city was segregated into Districts, and thus, so were its people.

A District was then divided into Zones. Since Arryn's family resided in Zone 7, they were slightly better off than those that resided in Zone 8 or Zone 9, but worse off than those from Zone 5 and Zone 6.

The difference wasn't as pronounced in the Outer District, but it became quite more noticeable in the Inner and Core Districts.

"Father. Mother."

"Haha! You're only this formal when you need something." Lunah spurted out.

She wasn't wrong. Now that Arryn had gained a power, although still uncertain of which type of power he had unlocked, he wanted to try out for the tentatively and newly formed Brim Expedition Allied Countries.

BEACON – A special units organization, formed in all major cities across the world to combat the apocalyptic threat known as the Unrisen!