*Warning - this novel will have foul language*
"Kayne! Get the hell up!"
Kayne, lacking strength to his voice, grumbles from his bed:
"God damn it Dad! Stop shaking me, I'm up, and quit smiling at me while you do it!"
Kayne's Dad, Patrick, has a widening smile. Patrick is a middle-aged, tall man with a fair bit of muscle on him. A fair bit of fat too... and lots of hair. He has blue eyes and light brown hair with a hue of ginger.
"Who gave you such a damn foul mouth!"
Patrick says while massaging his beard, his smile stays a permanent resident on his face.
Kayne's mom, Isabelle, looks at Patrick then looks away shaking her head. Isabelle is a taller woman around 5'7", she has a gentle face with just a few stress induced lines likely caused by the double trouble her husband and son seem to be. She sighs and turns toward Kayne.
"Kayne, the bed won't protect you from the choosing ceremony."
Kayne's face tightens and momentarily glances down and back up.
"I know Mom, I jus—"
Patrick interrupts excitedly:
"Protect him? He's a seventeen year old MAN. Most importantly, he's my son!"
Patrick continues, grinning proudly:
"He WILL be chosen, just as I was, and we don't even need to fear it. The trials will tremble and wince once it gets word of his last name!"
'My dad was unlucky to be one of the town's few chosen. I probably can't even begin to imagine what he struggled through to survive. Yet, that tenacious bastard did it in the end. And oh boy he was rewarded for it, now there are few here who would dare fight with him. Yep, it would be pretty cool to earn an aspect like he did. Not sure if I'd work in a green zone though. I'd want to be on the front lines with lots of opportunity to grow stronger... and richer!'
Isabelle, who generally has a docile demeanor has now sharpened into a scowl. Her body is restraining fury.
"Patrick Welyn! He will not be chosen! You of all people should know the danger within the trials! I can't believe you still think he should go through that, what if he–"
During the motherly rant, Patrick blinked a few feet back to where he was previously standing. Patrick's aspect is the aspect of time. A very rare aspect, only several thousand of the around two million aspect holders have his type. He seemingly, by reflex, used his aspect to try to undo what he said. Which in this case, he dug up an old argument of the past. Patrick is unfortunately unable to revert the entire planet, just revert his body positionally. Despite his reflexive usage of the ability, he will have to deal with the consequences of his ideas and his large mouth.
Patrick wants his son to be chosen. He has high hopes and a great amount of confidence in his son. He believes his son will be able to go on an achieve a great many things. Patrick does understand the risk, but he also is witness to the benefits of wielding an aspect. Given they survive the trials, an aspect is capable of having plenty of privileges provided to them beyond the obvious benefits such as being stronger than all normal humans. Aspects are a blur between men and gods, blessed with general physical buffs and mysterious powers. A typical human poses very little threat to them even with weapons. This also means that aspects are very valuable to the government, they are the backbone of current society. After the disaster of 2054 aspects are needed everywhere, even for day to day protection. They are also a highly sought after military asset. Aspects do live great lives, but, Patrick was a fool for thinking that a mother's love would ever appreciate the idea of willfully stepping into danger.
'Yikes Dad, she full-named you, time to make my exit.'
A young woman observes a similarly aged boy with raven black hair. He has a tall skinny-muscular frame and pale freckled skin. The boy quickly accelerates down the stone steps and bickering seems to audibly follow him out of the open doorway. In a rush, he stumbles over the last stair. The boy regains his balance and he looks at the girl.
'Oh god damn it, Christina saw all that?'
Kayne does an embarrassed wave and shouts to her:
"Good morning Christi, let's head over to Cillian and Seemack's."
Christina Ypsilanti nods her head and the two begin their hunt for Cillian Green and Sean Mackadoo. They take off down the sidewalk. To their left, a long row of single family residential homes repeat in a horizontal line. On the corners of every property, skinny and heavily engineered towers are erected. These towers have blue metallic siding with reflective coating. Grooves are dug throughout the stem of the towers. These embedded wires are the veins of the system pumping the important systems full of continuous energy. Sitting at the top, a large turret rests with a CCTV-like device perched above. This acts as the network's eyes and teeth, continuously scanning for any hint of monster essence. The turret has a small magazine filled with enchanted ammunition. The government subsidizes many powerful enchanters to keep these turret's ammo produced. For rifts of the lower tiers these turrets tend to do an excellent job keeping the disaster contained and most importantly, the public safe. Rarely, however, intelligent monsters may slip out during the ensuing chaos and begin striking in the turret's blind spots. This is why aspects are stationed in zones where even human magic technology can mostly contain all the threats. Kayne's dad isn't a particularly powerful aspect holder, this is due to his infrequent engagement with monsters. Patrick has stagnated in his aspect's growth. It isn't all negatives though, most aspect holders who fight on the front don't get to live as long as him. The only requirement for his position is to have a combat aspect. Combat aspects are determined by the name and in Patrick's case his full aspect is "The aspect of bladed time." With a name like this, he will get mostly time oriented abilities curated towards fighting with blades.
To the kids right, there is a road splitting the homes and sidewalk off from the community agricultural park. The park is a long developed food forest, every layer and plant was put there for a purpose. The shrubs are currently green with brown and orange tinges. A few remaining rotting berries are nested on the branches, most bushes are well past their spring season. The forest, while appearing still, is doing an important transition into the fall. The trees, having already flowered, now have unripe apples strongly tethered to the end of the branches' spurs. Large, green vines climb up and hug the tree with vibrant purple berries. The late summer grapevines are mature and ready for harvest.
Kayne elevates his arm and curls his hand into a fist leaving only the index finger extended. The finger is targeting a particularly juicy collection of grapevine:
"Let's go nab a few."
Christina chuckles:
"Sure thing!"
Kayne and Christina run across the road and grab a handful. After crossing back, they are stuffing their face full of grapes. The grape massacre is painted onto their hands in shades of purple.
Before making it to the Sean's house which is next door to Cillian's, they run into Sean and Cillian who are laughing with each other.
Their jovial faces are evidence that they've already invaded the farm too, laughing Sean says:
"Your hands are purple too, huh?"
Christina looks down and then raises her purple hands and smiles:
"Caught red– oh I mean purple handed"
Kayne watches Christina for maybe a fraction of a second, stuck in a moment of thought.
'Christi's eyes are so pretty.'
Sean impatient and somewhat used to noticing Kayne's ogling lets out a sigh:
"Allllllllright, we still need to grab Dixie. After that, let's discuss the real shit."
Now everyone's face darkens, even a slight mention of the choosing ceremony is enough to trigger a melancholic atmosphere. Everyone here, at least by word of mouth, knows someone who died by the trials. Nobody here wants to participate, all of them would have to share in that pain if someone is taken and not returned. Nonetheless, some people dream of entering and discovering riches, glory, or power. Unfortunately, some enter and the only thing they discover is the end.
Kayne, trying to distract from what they're all thinking, he points in Dixie's house's direction:
"To Dixie's"