Marcus was in a rather unfortunate position in life. Having been orphaned at a young age, and bouncing around from home to home, he had never had a moment to rest. Most of the people that had adopted him were doing so just to get by government checks when they would receive aid due to the global war and recession, soon after getting the extra supplies they would just put him back in the system. Of course, it didn't help that he had some unknown heredity disease that left him bedridden for most of his childhood. But always the optimist, Marcus thought that one day he would find his forever family, he believed that all he had to do was wait long enough. However, with constantly being adopted and thrown back into the system, worn away at the once happy youth, leaving him as a cynical teenager with broken dreams.
And with his time in the orphanage coming to an end, Marcus realized that sulking wasn't going to bring him a happy life. So by the age of 17, one year before he was forced out of the home, he focused on getting a job and looking for a college that would accept his less-than-great grades. Eventually, Marcus managed to find a college in South Dakota. Through 4 years of hard work and even harder times in classes and trying to keep up with being extremely ill, he managed to get a bachelor's in Accounting, and soon after graduation, he managed to land himself a comfy job with good benefits. For the next 5 years, he managed to live a good life until his disease came crawling back to collect the debt that Marcus had owned after so much time living without it acting up.
It began with him waking up vomiting blood in the middle of the night, forcing him to call an ambulance and rush to the hospital. Marcus prayed that this was only a momentary break from good luck, if only he knew how bad it would become. What was supposed to be only a few days in the hospital turned into 7 months in the hospital, during this time all he could do is mourn a job that he had lost after week 2 in the hospital, and watch the world burn as the tension between countries rose. By the time he was free from the hospital he had lost a majority of his saving, forcing him to sell his home and move into a run-down neighborhood and a shabby apartment.
Now Marcus was sitting in his home looking down at his most recent test results from the hospital, and even with himself almost drowning in other papers, each holding past dues and final notices on them, he couldn't look away from the results. He had spent the better part of 2 hours just reading and rereading the paper, which contained a simple apology and told him that he only had a few months to live. And as if it didn't even matter later in the same letter, it told Marcus that he need to pay almost $60k and if he didn't pay up, they would take him to court.
After reading the letter one last time, Marcus calmly stood up and pushed the stool he was sitting on. After fixing his hair and his clothes, a stained gray hoodie and dark blue sweat pants, he went into his kitchen to make himself his last instant noodle cup. Watching the water boil, Marcus listened to the news on his phone, one of the few things he had managed to hang onto, as the newscaster spoke about how Mexico has joined the Canada-America alliance in an attempt to help in the war. Marcus couldn't help but sigh and shake his head in exasperation, "At least I'll be gone before we nuke ourselves into ash." Shaking his head once again he walked over to his small table and pulled out his stool, sitting down to enjoy the salt-filled meal that was his noodle cup.
After staring down at his 'meal' for two minutes, Marcus felt an overwhelming sadness set in. The reality of his life finally set in, he swiped the noodles to his left while in the next motion he flipped his small table, grabbing his stool and slamming it into the table until it broke. After slamming the broken pieces of his stool a few more times he threw the pieces that were in his hands to the side. Sucking in air like his life depended on it, Marcus wobbled over to his air mattress and let himself fall into it. Rolling over to look up at the ceiling Marcus couldn't keep the tears from spilling over, silently crying to himself, letting the burning sensation he felt across his body carry him into sleep.
As Marcus closed his eyes a blinding white flash robbed him of the darkness he sought after, he tried to cover his eyes and roll over and search for his thin blanket for extra shade. Reaching out his hand his eye shot open in response as when he felt around his hand touched what felt like grass. Sitting up Marcus looked in disbelief in what felt like a few brief seconds that the blinding white light had taken his vision, he found himself in the center of a meadow. While he was still trying to process what was going on, Marcus realized that his body had stopped hurting. This gave him some comfort in his mind, as only ever in his dreams, or at least the ones he could remember, he could be free from the aches and pains of his body. With this in mind, he decided it would be best to enjoy the dream as much as he could by taking a stroll through the peaceful landscape that he found himself in. Standing up and dusting himself off Marcus began his stroll through the meadow, he walked for what felt like hours, just enjoying the fact he could walk this long without his body protesting about his prolonged movement. As he looked up to the sky he couldn't help but lament that this was only a dream and not reality "If only it this could last-", Before he could even finish his train of thought, Marcus walked straight into a what looked like a crater within the meadow. Coming to a stop at the bottom of the crater Marcus slowly pick himself up, "Where the hell did this come from?" Looking around, he found that the crater was rather large, about 10 feet deep and almost 19 feet in diameter, bewildered at how he missed something this big he climbed and slowly climbed the steep incline on the other side from where he had fallen in. His befuddlement didn't end there, as when he got to the top, the beautiful meadow was stained with what looked like the aftermath of an intense battle, looking at the expansive landscape that was otherwise peaceful, it felt out of place for this destruction to be here, and it seemed like it got worst the further he went.
Feeling like something was pulling him forward, Marcus followed the path of destruction, wondering what had caused it and why. With night finally descending he continued to follow the path of destruction, each crater becoming larger and deeper than the last until he found what looked like the beginning of the destruction. Sliding down to the center of the crater, he had a growing feeling of fear that started to grip his heart, ("What the hell is in this crater?"). Approaching the bottom of the crater Marcus only found one thing, a full-body mirror that seemed to be lodged into the earthy soil, it looked like it was made out of some type of metal, as the back and outside still looked like it was polished minutes ago, walking around to the front of the mirror, what he saw didn't make sense. It was himself, but at the same time it wasn't, it was a recording of him standing in front of the mirror. As he watched the recording he saw his body slowly lose its shape losing all color, becoming an amorphous black blob, like a hole in the fabric in space and time. He then watched in horror as his body began to morph into illogical shapes and sizes before finally settling down into a humanoid, after standing still like a statue Marcus could see himself fall to his knees before slamming his fist into the ground creating the first crater. For the next 20 minutes, he watched himself rage, thrashing about the meadow leaving a path of destruction in his wake before eventually, he became too tired to destroy the landscape, and then he just walked until eventually laid down in the grass to rest.
He then watched in fear, wanting to tear his eyes away from the mirror and run from it, but Marcus stood still watching as he walked woke up, and followed his way back to the mirror. As he saw the event replay the mirror flashed white for a brief moment to reveal himself, it showed an 8-foot tall masculine figure, featureless across his entire body, even his face was something new, instead of once less than average appearance, was now replaced with 8 red eyes in a circular pattern, with a golden eye that emitted a subtle light. Looking into his own eyes, Marcus could feel something swell within him, a strange power that compelled him to destroy everything around him. As he raised his fist to begin his rampage anew, the mirror flashed again, showing a bird's eye view of the crater before moving to a staircase that lead into a flat onyx rectangle. This was enough of a revelation to cause Marcus to pause his actions, while it didn't make sense to Marcus he couldn't shake the feeling that mirror was trying to tell him something. Slowly he let his hands drop to his side as he looked towards the direction that the mirror had shown the staircase. With enough time to settle his rising fear, sadness, and anger, Marcus decided that going to the stairs would be the best option instead of his previous poorly thought out actions.