Lucas stood before the mirror that reflected his emaciated figure. He checked himself out with a tinge of depression on his face. His emaciated cheeks failed to hide the obvious outline of the cheek bones that grinned shamelessly beneath the small skin that canopied them.
''So much can change in just eight months.. A few months ago and before, even though I was not an awakened, I was physically in good shape. I had good food to eat since my parents were still around....'' .He sighed, then adjusted his collar and resumed his depressing monologue ''I was not bullied, I was not the object of ridicule, and I even had friends, even a girlfriend...Well, that is what I thought , until mum and dad run off on a mission, only to get killed... Their deaths really did a number on me, however, the realization that everyone who claimed to have been my friend only hung out with me because my parents were promising B class hunters who had great potential and therefore they could reap positively from having a good vibe with me further broke me...Not to mention that damn Amanda, dumping me yesterday at the cafeteria right after I got beaten to a pulp....'' Lucas sighed self derisively, then checked himself out again in the mirror. The black windbreaker managed to hide his extremely emaciated physique. His crazy jeans tightly hug his lean legs, revealing their frail outline. His white sneakers managed to hamper the visibility of his lean legs.
Lucas took the insignia of the Oslon City Academy, and tugged it on his right chest. The insignia was silvery in color.. It boasted the carved image of a man holding a thunderbolt.
He nodded, then turned around. He skipped a few empty take out boxes of pizza, some leftover hamburgers that bragged a nauseous smell, a few under wears lying here and there, cursed a few times for no reason, and finally reached the edge of his bed. He reached out for a picture of two familiar faces with a younger version of himself in their middle, about a ten year old version of himself to be precise. The man in the picture had black eyes and long black hair with a handsome smile on his ordinary looking face. The beautiful woman had the same eye color and hair as the man, albeit her hair was longer. The man and the woman each had their hands placed on the adjacent shoulders of the ten year old Lucas, who boasted a warm smile with eyes full of innocence and life, nowhere compared to the crooked, rugged, depressing demeanor the current Lucas subconsciously sported.
Picture now in his lean hands, his hands shook in small and minute frantic motions. The tears that had already voyaged the side of his cheeks managed to land on the picture. Then, with a shaky voice full of melancholy and sniffs, Lucas managed to mutter.... ''7th October 2100,I remember this day, five years ago, exactly today...This was my birthday, and the day I turned ten.. the age at which some of those who neither awakened at birth nor during the period before the age of ten have their fears of not ever awakening quenched, or rather have those fears turned into a reality....I remember even after not awakening, I was content, having the love of my parents...To me at the time, and even until you recently died, you both were unstoppable, undisputed and a pair who could not die, not under any circumstance...and therefore...I.. was protected....Yet, I now realize how ignorant I was....Mum, dad...your death, and the experiences of these few months have taught me that...you are not really immune from the maltreatments of this cruel world unless you are strong enough to control your own fate.....So lend me your luck today, as I go to the awakening center of the academy to register myself as an awakened.....If my affinity turns out to have enough potential to help me grow stronger, I will do everything to become strong, strong enough to control my own fate...strong enough to not feel threatened by the power of anyone ''
Lucas managed to calm himself down, as he gently lay the picture back to where he took it from. He entered and emerged again from the washroom again with a wet face with no more tears and sniffs. He wiped his face with a towel, returned to his former and normal depressing demeanor, then walked out of the room.
Lucas slowly descended the staircase towards the empty and melancholic living room. He glanced at the side of the wall that housed various medals awarded by the Oslon city Hunters' Association to his parents...He heaved a large sigh then mused to himself ''To think that all the benefits that came with all these medals and all the credits mum and dad amassed were actually donated by them to an orphanage, leaving me broke, with only this house to my name....I just know that mum and dad would not do something as senseless as that to me.....something is really fishy somewhere''.
Lucas managed to make it past the living room, then opened the front door, finally venturing out of the house. The cool winds of the autumn season blew past his face as he tugged his hands in the pockets of his black windbreaker, and decided to trek on foot to the academy. He had no money to hire a cab after all.
''There's nothing I can do at the moment about where my parents' little wealth really disappeared to...Maybe I can leave such concerns for the future. However, I cannot let the all the credits they went through sweat and blood to accumulate go down the drain....no use thinking about it now'' Lucas mused as his stomach made growling noises in hunger.....
He held his belly with a crestfallen expression on his face as he kept trekking to his destination.
''....I am hungry, yet I still have to trek to my destination, plus I am not even halfway through to the academy and yet they can just order an AI cab whiles they enjoy an Ice cream. Money really makes life easy...I miss the days of money''. Lucas sighed as he spotted a young couple buy ice creams from a stall, further ordered an AI cab, immediately made payment with credits in their identity bracelets and sped off in the cab. ''Life is hard'' Lucas sighed, but he had no choice, other than to trek to his destination