"Argh!"Dom bolted awake, his head covered in sweat and constantly ringing from what he had just experienced. Seeing his friends, his only family, dead was the worst nightmare he could have. Right now, all he wanted to do was to see them.
'It's just a dream.', he thought to calm himself, as he resisted the urge to get up from the expensive looking bed. 'Wait, where am… I?', he thought.
He looked around the room and everything looked way above the room he had been sleeping in. "After the awakening process,we are taken to our rooms, right? So, is this my room? I didn't expect it to be this expensive.", he said to thin air as his eyes scanned his environment. There was a huge wardrobe at the side of the room and a study table beside it. The table had a lamp on it and a place to place your books, like a mini bookshelf. There weren't many things in the room but it still looked very gorgeous and expensive. 'The air smells great, no squeaking noise from the wardrobe. This is blissful.', he thought.
"Why am I bothered about this!! I just f*cking awakened!", Dom quickly but carefully removed the expensive looking sheet off his body and walked towards the toilet to examine his body. Ignoring the expensive looking toilet equipment, he stood in front of the mirror. "Let's give this a try.", he said, trying to use his powers. "Where's that feeling?"He spent several minutes in a state of concentration, trying to activate his powers. "Fuck! Where is it!" he had gotten so frustrated that he just felt like hitting something. He looked around for something to throw, but looking at the expensive things around him, he quickly changed his mind.
Having calmed down, he tried to think of a possible explanation. "After the dust torus left everyone's body, they released their powers. Maybe it's because I was out cold while still in the dust torus.", Dom sighed as he cursed his mind for being so weak.
He needed something to get his mind off his recent failure. Checking the time, only an hour plus had passed. "Might as well explore the room.", he sighed once again and decided to go around the expensive room.
He exited the toilet and walked towards the table, with a mini book shelf on it, to examine it. By the top left corner of the table, there was a holographic display of the lessons he was to attend,with a calendar and there was a blue highlighted day, which was Saturday and a red highliyhted day for the lessons starting on Monday. Opening the drawer, there was a contact lense case with just one lense with L, indicating left, written above it.
"Shit, this thing is very expensive, I can't even afford one of the lense!"He saw these lense in a huge store on his way home and once thought of buying them, but once he saw the price, he knew there was no hope. It had 2 zeros attached to it and the government only gave him 10 Gir monthly. That was the minimum amount needed for his monthly expenses.
A/N :- Gir is the currency of Kerr
Dom wasn't a government worker but according to the Constitution of Keer, orphans were made to evacuate the orphanage and live on their own at the age of 8 and would be paid 10 Gir monthly. It was enacted to make the kids independent and strong willed from a young age. It was first used by their powerless ancestors, the powerless adults, to make the children, their weapon, to be strong willed from a young age. The method was opposed by many powerless individuals, but every member of the government unanimously agreed to it, ignoring the public.
He carefully picked the lens and headed to the toilet. The toilet looked marvelous seeing it again, but he didn't really care about it at that moment. He headed to the mirror and put the lense on his left eye.
"Woah, cool.", he couldn't stop his mouth from opening ajar. The left half of his vision had various apps aligned vertically at the left and all he needed to access an app was his thoughts.
'Contacts.', he thought and an app opened showing him that he had zero contacts. "I'll take my friends' contacts later". He spent hours going through the things in the room and lens until he felt he had gone through everything.
Looking out the window that also looked expensive, it was already night time. "I can't even imagine the money spent on this room." He decided to rest today and explore the school tomorrow, when he meets up with the rest. He had a day left before classes resumed on Monday.
He felt blissful as he laid down on the bed and covered himself with the sheets. Thinking back to the dream, he remembered about the unknown person he had seen and the tears he had shed when the person was decapitated.
'I've met various people but I have never seen him.', he tried remembering all the faces he had seen, but none of them matched. 'I'll keep this thought for another day, right now I need to sleep. No more slanted sleep.', and with that, his vision turned black as he drifted into sleep.
.....
[The next day]
Don yawned and stretched as he got up from the bed and headed towards the shower. 'Let's have one more try.', he once again focused deeply, searching for the pull and once again, he failed.
'Fucking Fuck! How am I meant to face Nat when I don't even know my ability.' He took his bath, dressed in one of his attire and walked towards the table to put the contact lenses on. He decided to wait until 10am before heading out to look for his friends.
He walked out of his room and began his search. The hallway was long and large to accommodate the huge amount of people moving around the hallway. He kept looking around as he passed many people. He saw a sign above a huge door to the side with 'Cafeteria' written on it. "Might as well grab something before I continue my search. They might be there"
He walked into the cafeteria and it was huge. He looked around the room and noticed that the cafeteria was divided between people dressed in high fashion and those dressed in lesser clothes. 'Discrimination inside and outside.' he sighed as he went to grab a plate to serve his food.
He went to one of the empty chairs to eat. He sat down and paid half attention to his food and the other to the conversations between other students. Based on the conversations in the cafeteria, many people awakened fire and earth abilities, just few had awakened other powers. Listening to other people talk about their abilities made Dom, who didn't even know his ability, sigh. 'Argh! I really have to figure this out.', he thought.
He submitted his plate to the dish room and exited the cafeteria. He was back in the large hallway and continued his search for his friends. His legs had begun aching when he saw the training room. 'How hard can it be to find a couple of children!', he thought 'I have been walking for so long and I still haven't found them!', he suppressed his anger as he walked into the training room.
He didn't even have enough time to take in the scene around him before his vision was covered by a bright orange fist. His instincts kicked in and he ducked underneath the arm. "Always the same move.", a female voice said before his head was bashed in with a knee. The same scene as before, his head flew upwards with blood flowing out of his nose.
"Argh, Fucker!", Dom shouted as his trembling hands tried to stop the blood. "It's not my fault you always use the same move.", Nat said as she walked towards him.
'Where's Aurelia?', his eyes quickly scanned through everyone's faces. "If you are looking for Aurie, she's in her room with Atlas.", her devilish grin increased, looking at her prey. "It's been long since we spared, don't you say?", she sprung towards the stunned Dom at an insane speed.
'Why?!!',Dom thought. Nat flung her hand upwards in an uppercut motion aimed towards his chin. Dom saw it coming and took a step back, but it turned out to be a feint. With precise accuracy, she moved her leg towards his ribs.
'Fucker!', he moved his hands towards his ribs as fast as he could. Suddenly an orange flame enveloped her leg, increasing the speed of the leg. He didn't even have time to register the flame on her leg before he was blown away.
He laid on the ground, gasping for air. His ribs felt like they had been broken, 'Yup, they are broken.'. He looked towards where he once was and saw Nat running towards him with her legs on fire.
"I give up! I give up!", he shouted. "Please, no more!", he pleaded since Nat didn't want to stop. She slowed down and extinguished the fire on her legs and slowly walked towards him. "How do you like my new power?", she asked with a huge grin on her face.
"They are amazing!", he hurriedly said. 'This should make her happy enough to stop the beating.'
Normally zhe would have lasted for a long while but Nat's powers had increased the gap between the both of them.
"So, what's your ability?", she asked. "Is it earth or another bad one?"
"I don't know yet.", he sighed in his head while his eyes never stopped being wary of her.
"What do you mean by you don't know, didn't you check it out?"
"I tried, but it never worked.", "I felt a pull during my awakening and when I pulled, nothing happened.", he sighed. 'I have been sighing a lot.'
"You need to figure it out fast, I need a good sparring partner.", Nat said, causing a low snarl from Dom. "Cute snarl, let's head to your room to pick a new shirt and from there we will head to the others."
He grabs her hand and leads the way to his dorm.
Entering his room, Nat's mouth was left agape as she looked around. "This is way better than mine.", she said
"What do you mean better than yours?", he asked "Aren't all the rooms like this?"
"How can all the rooms be luxurious? Do you think they have huge amounts of money to spend on mere orphans?", she asked back, baffled by his stupidity.
She was right and this made Dom scratch his head in a dumb manner. 'If my room is better than her's, doesn't that mean I'm being given special treatment? But… why?', he didn't say his words out because he didn't want Nat to think he was better than her. Sure, her expression at the thought of him being better than her would have been marvelous, but the beating after, won't be.
"Just wear your clothes and let's head out", she said inspecting every corner of his room.
Minutes passed and they finally arrived at Auriella's room. " Oh Dom, how are you doing?"Auriella was reading a book when Dom opened the door. He was about to answer when he heard another voice.
"Dude, what's your ability?"Atlas sprung from the bed immediately he noticed the person at the door.
Looking at the glimmering eyes of the child only made Dom feel sad for himself. 'How am I meant to tell him that I might have gotten nothing'
"Dom here has no ability.", Nat said while looking at the book Auriella had just finished reading, nonchalance was written all over her forehead.
"Wait, what?!"Atlas shouted, "How could he get nothing?"
"There's no way he got nothing. The chance of any one not awakening is close to zero.", Auriella added
"I-i don't know, I had the feeling that I must of awakened something but I haven't been able to use any ability." He couldn't help but stutter. Everyone had awakened, leaving him in the dark, so couldn't help but feel oppressed.
"Maybe he is just among the 'close to zero percent' chance of not awakening.", Nat said
"How can you be so nonchalant in this situation?" Auriella felt her anger increasing with each word Nat uttered.
"Hey, he didn't get powers and that's sad but we have to move-" Nat didn't get to finish her sentence when Auriella shouted.
"Wait! You said you felt something, right? What did you feel?", she asked, moving closer to Dom
Dom shrieked silently as he saw the towering figure move closer to him. He felt like a lamb awaiting a slaughter. He almost stuttered once more but he somehow managed to find his confidence once more.
"During the awakening, I felt a pull and when I pulled, everything went dark and I woke up in my dorm." He said.
"I also felt a pull!", Atlas said
"We all did.", Auriella looked menacingly at Atlas, who almost cut her off. "The fact that you felt a pull means that you must of awakened something, so you aren't among the 'close to zero percent' of people to not get awakened." she continued.
"I also had a weird dream.", Dom added. His eyes slowly lost its shine as he remembered the horrible scene.
"I also had one. I dreamt about my mom.", Atlas chimed in as his eyes went from hope, that Dom had an ability, to sadness. His mom had died when he was barely 3 years old, leaving him in an orphanage.
"We're sorry", his three friends said in unison. All of their past were horrible and that brought them together along with their personalities. They always try to help each other forget about the past but that was a hard task.
"Yh, it is okay. Let's get back to Dom.", he said, trying to hide the sadness once more.
"You'll tell us about your dream another time, let's head to the training Hall and see if we can milk any ability out of you.", Nat said. She was not reading the book in her hand, she just held it for holding sake. She noticed Atlas capriciousness and decided to change the mood with what she liked best, training.
'That's just gross', Dom thought when he heard Nat's words. 'She didn't even let me say my dream. Well, it's not like I want to say it.'