Walking out of the room, Grey ran into Storm and the suited men.
" You alright kid?"
Storm asked, noticing tears on the youngster's face.
" I'm good."
Grey replied, quickly rubbing off the tears with his sleeves. Looking at him, The three men behind storm nodded at each other before walking into the room.
" Ok now that that's done, you still have the rest of the day to spend. Is there anything you want to carry from your home, we can escort you back home to get it."
Storm looked at Grey.
" No I'm alright, I think I'll spend the remaining time in my room."
Grey replied, his voice sounding determined. If possible he didn't want to see that house again.
" Ok, If you say so kid. The academy provides the basics for cadets, so I guess it won't be much of an issue. Also, I'll send someone to bring you some food in a little, you haven't eaten since yesterday."
" Thank you."
Grey said with a curt nod.
" Just doing my job."
Storm chuckled, straightening his uniform before walking away.
Soon Grey was left alone in the empty corridor. Now that he had sent his parents off, he was feeling a little lost. He thought it would take more time for the cremation to finish, just like normal burials.
' I guess I'm still going back there.'
Sighing, he used the elevator to go back to the top floor.
Upon arriving there, he coincidentally met the person staying on the floor with him. It was a girl roughly his age with short dark hair and deep ember eyes, she had an emancipated build with an unhealthy pale skin tone. She wore the same get-up as him minus the hood and gloves.
' She's probably from the slums. Her powers shouldn't be too hazardous.'
Their gazes met for a moment before Grey quickly entered his room.
Walking in, the door to the bathroom was still open but there were no mirror shards on the floor. The cleaning bot had already done its job.
Grey sat on the simple bed in the room, wondering what to do now. There was still some time before 5, so he had a little free time to himself.
' I guess I can check what my curse is.'
Although he felt disgusted just thinking of it, he felt he needed to at least see the cause of his parent's death. There were many theories surrounding the rise of curses but the only known fact about them was that they brought powers and those powers came with side effects, to be honest, the case could have been vice-versa. It was said that at the inception of curses, curse wielders were only able to know the abilities of their curse through experimentation. That all changed somewhere between 2065-2070 A.C, the current head of the government established the project 'Overwatch'. It involved the implantation of chips in the heads of newborn babies, which enabled the children to experience augmented reality while allowing the government to be able to monitor them better. These chips came to be known as holo screens, their working principles similar but very different from phones of old.
When the first child with this chip got cursed, something strange happened. Something called a 'status' appeared on his holo screen. It showed his curse, abilities, and relics. Those weren't the only changes the curse made to the holo screen but information like that wasn't shared with the public. From that day onward, these status pages kept on appearing in front of the cursed regardless of whether they had the holo screens or not.
This proved one terrifying fact to humanity. Regardless of whether the origin of curses was alive or not, it was capable of learning and learning very fast at that. Experts had not yet confirmed if the origin of curses were on humanity's side or not, but just the fact it could learn and adapt to situations was unnerving.
Since Grey had already been cursed, he should have his status screen by now.
' Status.'
Grey called out the same way he had seen actors do it in movies, after all, Cursed were the current focus of modern pop culture.
A blue screen slowly buzzed to life in Grey's vision. Some notifications popped up on it.
*ting*
[ You've been cursed.]
[ Loading curse.....]
[ Curse: Plague bearer.]
[ Description: Pitiful one, you've been damned with the fate of a vessel of plague. Henceforth, you'll be a harbinger of disease, a herald of disaster, a messiah of malady...... Brace yourself, poor child, the life of a walking disaster has never been easy.]
[ characteristics: [Vector], [ Aggressive Adaptation], [ Vitality of the plague] ].
[Vector: Vectors are little affected by the burdens they carry.]
[ Aggressive adaptation: the plague had never been accepted by the world. It fought for its place, struggling and surviving whatever the world threw at it. As a vessel of the plague you shall too.]
[ Vitality of the plague: Quite paradoxical isn't it, that those responsible for diseases often have the most vitality.]
[ Abilities. ]
[ malady acceleration ]
[ malady acceleration: By infusing cursed energy into the body of another through physical contact, ailments present in their systems may be empowered or suppressed.]
_****
To say he wasn't surprised upon seeing it would be a blatant lie, he believed his curse would have something to do with decomposition but he never imagined it being related to diseases. There was still something inconsistent between the screen in front of him and his experience.
According to the movies he'd watched, when Cursed use neither, the official name given to the strange radiation, they were meant to feel something like a formless wave moving out of their bodies. Although he couldn't rely too much on those flicks, the info had been verified by some official cursed.
' But I never felt anything like that yesterday, so what happened couldn't be a result of malady acceleration or any of my attributes. But... Storm did tell me that I'm dangerous to all living things. So I guess there's only one other possibility...'
Grey sighed.
".....it's my true curse isn't it."
*ting*.
A new notification popped up.
[ Congratulations on discovering your true curse]
[Loading curse....]
[ True vessel of the plague: The main goal of the plague is infection, as a plague bearer your only purpose is to spread it.]
[ Description: Any living thing that comes in physical contact with the plague bearer will be infected with the origin plague.]
****
" Heh, ...bastard."
Behind the mask, Grey's face warped into a terrifying scowl. He finally found it, the cause of his problems. This was one of the many reasons he hated the curse.
According to studies, the curse randomly selects people between the ages of 16 to 18. Each curse was unique, granting their wielders different abilities. There was a catch though, staying true to their names each curse gave their users different disabilities, some seemingly insignificant while others were extremely delapitating. As though playing a sick game with the cursed, the curse origin never showed defects on the status pages leaving the cursed to find it by themselves. It was only after they discovered it that the defects appeared in their status.
*ting*
[ Status loading......]
[ Status]
[Name: Grey Ash ]
[Title: None ]
[Attributes: [Vector], [ Aggressive Adaptation], [ Vitality of the plague] ].
[Grade: Cursed]
[Curse: The plague bearer]
[ Description: Pitiful one, you've been damned with the fate of a vessel of plague. Henceforth, you'll be a harbinger of disease, a herald of disaster, a messiah of malady..... . Brace yourself, poor child, the life of a walking disaster has never been easy.]
[ Abilities: [ Malady acceleration ] ]
[Relics: None ]
Sighing he closed the window.
" It's not like I'll be needing this."
Before he could do any other thing a knock resounded on the door.