Dan woke up with a groggy head the next morning. After checking his dirty clothes to see if they were salvageable, he walked into the bathroom and took off his shirt. His broken ribs had healed over night; Dan couldn't feel any pain in them. He also noticed that although some discoloration from the bruises still remained, all of his wounds, including the cut on his ear and other scratches from the fight, had vanished. He felt relieved, but still pretty confused. The fight he'd been in was intense and the injuries he sustained didn't seem to be that light. It would have taken him at least a few weeks to get better but now it looked like he never got hurt in the first place. Then it struck him and he closed his eyes to check the image.
There was a new addition to the stats - Restoration, with a value of 42. As he was about to move on when he noticed that the skills had also been altered slightly.
> Time dilation
modifiers: Free form
> Foresight
modifiers: Free form
After thinking about their meaning for a while, he tested them again. For time dilation, he imagined the same ticking clock as he did in the fight and it worked.
"So, I don't need to use the watch anymore."
He was relieved as it was clear that in tense situations, there wouldn't be enough time to do so. He then took out the dice to test foresight. He got the numbers right a few times but there was still some inconsistency present. Then he remembered how in the fight he could see attacks coming before they actually happened.
"Maybe it's the trajectory?"
He let the dice fall down and focused on its path, seeing how it bounced. He could now visualize its expected path. Satisfied, he quickly removed the sheets from his bed, which were stained with dried blood, and threw them into a laundry bin in case his mother would happen to see them. He opened the window and realized that it was already late in the day. He leaned out and saw his mother talking to someone a short distance away from home.
They seemed to be having a heated argument, but the man did not look angry. After some time, his mother handed him a small bag. The man took out what looked like cash from it, counting it before pocketing it entirely.
Dan squinted, trying to get a better look at the stranger's face which triggered a faint memory, he remembered him from when his father's case was still going on. He had run away after emptying out their savings. Loan sharks like this man would frequent their house demanding repayment of the money they had loaned to him.
"But wasn't the debt cleared?"
They had to take out a second mortgage on their house and sell many of their belongings. His mother and sister were forced to work several jobs to stay afloat afterwards. He had enrolled in college with the hope that he could get a well-paying job that would help them financially. However, in the span of one year, he hadn't been to keep up with his classes and had lost all motivation. He'd slowly come to terms with not graduating and the guilt of not being able to help his family had caused him to become distant from everything around him.
As his thoughts swirled like a whirlpool, rage slowly started to build up inside him. All the feelings he had buried deep down burst out of his control, overwhelming and consuming him. His father's face flashed in his mind; the suffering he had caused their family and the desperation they were burdened with. He saw the loan sharks and the harassment they kept inflicting upon them, making life unbearable. The anger quickly shifted and turned inward; it was Dan's fault for ignoring all this, for being useless and incompetent to help out his family.
He watched from afar as his mother returned and the man walked away. He activated time dilation and ran after him, needing to stay out of sight so she wouldn't spot him. As he followed the man to the place where he had parked his car, a dark thought surfaced in his mind; he had powers now and getting rid of this guy wouldn't be that difficult. He got close to him, ready to take matters in his own hands- but stopped and shook his head. He realized that if he crossed the line, there would likely be no way back from it.
'So, you were okay with jumping in blind to save a random girl but now you have doubts?'
He heard a familiar voice admonishing him, and he turned around to see the same stranger as before.
"It was different with her; she was in immediate danger. Using my abilities here would be wrong" Dan tried to reason with him.
'Who's to say this asshole won't continue to harass your mother even after this? Also, did you already forget how you used the same powers to steal money yesterday?' The stranger countered harshly.
"Stealing is one thing but going out of my way to intentionally harm someone is..." Dan trailed off, troubled by all these conflicting emotions inside him.
'So, what are you going to do then?'
"I will talk to mom and see if we can get the police involved. Then we could..."
Dan fell silent as memories of the gruelling months when the search was still on for his father resurfaced. They had been constantly surveilled and interrogated under immense pressure from a powerful corporation. Despite the overwhelming evidence that his father hadn't contacted them or that his mother wasn't involved, no one listened. They had to face corporate lawyers and law enforcement and if that wasn't enough, scavengers like this guy would come along to pick off whatever was left. No matter how many times they pleaded for it...
'There's no justice' the stranger finished his thought.
Dan glanced at the man who was now looking in his direction. If there was no justice, he would settle for the next best thing.
Marcus smiled to himself as he strolled to his car. It was another easy score; a few hundred bucks wasn't much but it barely took any effort. He was just told to visit them once in a while but taking money from people like these was too easy an opportunity to pass up. As he reached for the door handle, he heard someone talking nearby and turned around. There was a guy standing a few feet away from him talking seemingly to no one and arguing with empty air beside him. After straining his eyes, Marcus realized that it was the son.
"What a weirdo", he was looking at him when the guy shifted his gaze to Marcus. Suddenly, Marcus felt a gust of wind pass him; glancing around, he found nothing unusual and then looked back at the young man only to find that he was gone. He dismissed the incident from his mind and got in his car to drive off.
"Marcus Vicenti, a car dealer?" Dan said looking at the contents of the wallet he had swiped from the guy.
"Why does he want to do this?" Dan muttered, more to himself than to the stranger sitting on his bed. "He doesn't look like a low-level thug."
The stranger only shrugged in response.
'Sometimes,' he said, 'the number doesn't matter. Being an easy target is enough.'
"He doesn't live that far away; I could go talk to him at night". Dan tucked everything back into the wallet, hiding it in his closet after making sure there was nothing else in there that might be useful.
'If I were you, I'd go there now.'
"Didn't you say we are the same?" Dan questioned him being reminded of their conversation during the previous night.
'We are, I think, but you are still in control'
"What do you mean?" Dan asked before adding, "Also, you still haven't told me who you are."
'I don't know...exactly' the stranger began, looking out into the distance with a faraway expression. 'The last thing I remember was feeling my body being...dissolved. Then I saw a way out of it and hung on to it.'
"Then? How did you possess me?" Dan pressed on.
'It's not possession,' the stranger explained slowly, 'I am part of your interface. That's probably how I escaped. I -- or rather, my original self -- latched onto it and when you activated it, my consciousness was able to free itself.
Dan started at him for several moments before taking a deep breath and sitting down.
"Okay...so you are like a parasite then" he said.
The stranger merely shrugged again.
"Why don't you have your memories?"
'Integrating into the system isn't easy and I am only able to use small part of it. The interface will attack anything that's foreign. Maybe as you get stronger, I will also become more...whole and regain my memories.'
"Interface is the white image with the stats and everything, right?" Dan continued, "If you are not responsible for it then who is?"
The stranger's face darkened, and he clenched his fists. 'I don't know what they are,' he growled, 'but the only reason I'm here is so that I can watch them get destroyed.'
Dan raised an eyebrow at the revelation.
"You don't even know who they are but you want to kill them?"
'One of the two things I have still left of my original self is the desire to thoroughly annihilate them until nothing remains,' his eyes were serious and his voice determined. 'They must be the reason for whatever happened to me'
Dan took a few seconds to digest this new information before asking, "What's the other one?"
The stranger's demeanour instantly changed to one of longing 'To find someone', he said softly, his voice filled with emotion. 'This feeling is more intense but no matter how hard I try I can only remember bits and pieces of it - there's a field...full of violet-colored flowers with someone in the middle and then it's just a blur'
It sounded familiar to Dan "So that memory is yours? If it's so important to you then why is it so incomplete?"
The stranger thought for a while before replying 'It's probably because of your own memories as I can also access them. As my consciousness grows stronger, mine should return'
Dan could feel a chill running down his spine as he asked warily, "So I will lose my own self?"
'It shouldn't happen as you are still the host, a merge is more probable'
Dan still wasn't convinced but realized there was nothing he could do in that very moment so he decided to think about it later.
"You said something about variables before, what are those?" Dan enquired.
'In the interface, you are given the term variable and we found someone else like you so there must be more out there. I can't tell you exactly why but I feel like something is going to happen soon' the stranger replied ominously.
Dan pondered over the implications of the statement and realized that all of it was much bigger than himself. He was reminded of how the stranger had told him to prioritize what's important. Taking a deep breath, he vowed to never try to be a hero again.
'Also, I forgot to tell you, the more interactions we have, the more the system will try to remove me from the interface and that will probably cause you problems' the stranger continued casually.
Dan was suddenly reminded of the time an intense headache had struck him without warning. "You are telling me now?!" he cried out, anxiety beginning to overtake him, "What are we going to do?"
The stranger shrugged nonchalantly, 'Like I said, as I gain more control, the impact will lessen. We can just talk less until then I guess' with that final sentence, it seemed as if the stranger melted into thin air.
Dan sighed and looked out the window, noticing that the sky had turned a deep shade of indigo. He was soon going to confront demons from his past. He could feel his heart racing and a wave of nausea wash over him, but instead of running away and shutting himself off from the world, like he had done in the past, he would take action and no longer be a spectator in his own life.