I walk down the hallway; it's about two stories tall—perhaps a lot taller than that. Three stories, very least. I feel light weight, taller, and maybe even stronger. Either way, I feel way better than I felt before.
The man walking right in front of me, Oda, as he wants me to call him, just saved me from the deadliest encounter and the most horrifying revelation of my life.
Angels of dear God are actually demons in disguise.
More or less, that is all I know right now. I might've heard something different from him, being honest, and didn't really pay much attention.
Who would pay attention when you're dragged out of your neighborhood to a—I guess high-tech, state-of-the-art' military base somewhere in... probably the world?
Not to mention, when you've met something you couldn't have even imagined existed. My ears can hear something, but my eyes surely can't see something else. I still very clearly remember it.
"Alright buddy, we're here." Apparently I'm being evaluated for some type of recruitment right now. I'm just a normal high school kid who's also almost always getting bullied and taken advantage of. I don't have time for this.
I'm just hoping these guys in this organization could just flash me a beam of magical memory-erasing laser.
"Unfortunately, we don't yet have a memory-erasing laser." This guy, I don't know how, but he's been able to read exactly what I've been thinking for the past few hours I've stayed here.
"Haha, I guessed it since you've been looking so—well, unpleasant!" Good guess if that's all you're coming from.
I've seen a demonic embodiment of terror almost evaporating—Wait, do they evaporate us with those beams or just slice to a million pieces? That guy was getting not so good treatment, so I guess slice...
Either way, there's no way this world has demons existing and living right with us but no memory-erasing technology yet.
"God, could you shut up?" Oda is looking frustrated while talking to a nurse, after he takes a peek out to scream at me, of course. I guess I might've started to mutter my thoughts out a bit. Has happened many times, I'm afraid...
"It's so dense." I touch the walls of the building; it's really dense. At least around a hundred layers worth of materials are hidden from the outer layer to the inner layer.
From my months of knowledge about architectural integrity, this wall is specifically made from heavy metals, and the outer layer is built up from marble shaves.
I see some people walking past me, laughing a bit at my way. I quickly retrieve my hand from touching the wall. People are a real hangover nowadays.
I take a look inside the room. Oda is still talking with the nurse—I think she looks more like a scientist or doctor. Maybe a neurologist or a surgeon; perhaps I really hope they are here to erase my memory through a surgical process.
I guess they'll take a bit more time. I didn't notice actually, but my palms seem a lot bigger. Everybody around me seems a lot bigger too. Not forgetting that I don't have to wear glasses anymore; it's weird. Mostly like something has changed inside me.
I sit down near a bench; it's a safe distance from the room. I need some time to process things.
I was just going through my normal daily life, somewhere in the cluttered parts of America. As I reached towards the end of my high school life, the more stressful and overwhelming life was becoming. Bullies, slang, nerdy comments, and most importantly, being joked around for having no real blood relatives alive.
Apparently I doomed everyone related to blood to me, and everyone not related to blood as well. Even amongst the hardest of these conditions, I was always pushing through due to Alice being with me.
A single smile from her takes me by the air. The entirety of her soul, body, and mind is pure. Her body pale as snow white, her hair as black as a night's chime. I just want to go with her, as deep as her eyes can lead me. I was always pushing forward due to her help.
After my parents—grandparents died, I had only one friend who convinced her family to take me in as their own. Her family of four decided to make themselves a family of six. As I brought little misfortune along with me.
"Hey kid, time for evaluation." I asked him what the evaluation is for, and he only shrugged, telling me to check it out myself.
Actions speak louder than words they say; it's not the same situation here though.
I head inside the room, It's nothing like what I saw from the outside. This one room is already as huge as two-story mansions. Inside the room, there's a bed that could probably give me the best and most comfortable night of my life. I turn one step towards it, thinking it's where I get to rest.
"That's not your destination unfortunately; checking to the right instead?" I sigh in a 'Dang it.'
I go past the wall facing my right and see an object sitting right in the middle of the room.
There lies a chair with a metallic hatch over it. The chair seems to be bound to the ground with lights illuminating the upper part of it.
"It's nothing too fancy or scary." Oda adds on after trying to sound a bit comedic. "Just go sit there, will you?"
I head over to the chair, not wanting to sit without an explanation. This chair might very well be an electric chair designed to—well, send me to hell?
"It's not going to tickle." I'm not feeling good about this, but since he did do his efforts, I'll trust him.
Sitting down at the chair doesn't make me feel comfortable—nor uncomfortable. It's just a plain chair with heavy machinery covering it.
"Begin the evaluation." Oda says as he is directing, looking at me from far away. The nurse, scientist, or doctor presses a button. Suddenly a mole that was visible on her face vanishes, and the lights under the chair start to flicker.
The hatch over the chair falls down, falling right on my head, resulting in me falling unconscious. I can't feel anything or do anything right now. I'm slowly seeing things dimly.
The alarm rings, As I yawn and unintentionally stretch to wake up, the door opens. "Isaiah, We're late." Alice suddenly opens the door as I'm in the stretching position, my hands up in the air and my legs spread out wide.
Alice is looking at me in a statue-like appearance; I guess she wants answers to what I was doing. I immediately change my position and return to a normal position.
"A-Alright, I'll be there." She leaves the room with a smile on her face, closing the door behind and shattering my hopes of this day being a decent day.
I get back to stretching before stopping as I get a notification on my phone. Notification less, more like a type of... well, threat.
"Prepare for the club activities." I turned the alarm for these notifications off before. Well, I guess I'm going to have to visit the club now or then.
I head over to my desk. It's been in a mess since last night. I had to check over with the Brandies assignment alongside my own assignment and prepare to go to school without the money at hand to give them.
I'm feeling pretty pathetic now; neither will I be able to stand up for myself nor will I be able to pay them back the impossible amount that they supposedly are going to charge for 'protecting' me.
Well, the extension's time is now over. Packing up the books from my desk into my bag, I zip it close. Yet the zip gets stuck midway. I try to pull it back and forth, but the zip would probably break if I added too much pressure.
I turn to my phone again, and I receive yet another notification. This time, it was from Ria, a friend of Alice. I haven't talked with Ria for a very long time now; the most we've talked about is around a few months ago. When I messaged her to bring back the books she borrowed from me, apparently she forgot; or maybe she just ignored it for the time being. Either way, it's not her fault if she did any of those.
"Hey Isaiah, could you check with Alice?" I don't quite understand her message, possibly because I have not had much contact with her and do not fully understand her method of language interpretation.
"Uh, what?" General response from a confused person.
"I wanted to know whether or not you could see what Alice is doing right now." What does she have to do with what Alice is doing? 'Right now,' that is.
"?" The most obvious response from me is that I might be sounding annoying or irritating to her, but I guess that's what I am.
"Just for the track preparations." Ria replies, I send her a thumbs up emoji before getting a notification again. It's from a conspiracy board by a user named "Tsunami" on LuckyLeaf.
It's saying something related to global unrest and civil protests, but I ultimately decide to ignore the text for now.
I go downstairs and see Ray, Remy, or Rjordis Junior, as he likes to call himself, watching television. If he was watching a cartoon, it would've been another thing, but this child watches what is forbidden for his age.
"Galactic Warrior" is an animated masterpiece for the adults and an adolescence paradise for the underaged fellows. By adolescence paradise, I mean it.
The plot features a man and his best friend exploring the corrupted regions of their world that are now filled with extraterristrial beings. The beings materialized themselves into reality by a certain god particle that had a mass of a million school buses.
Either way, the plot unfolds as humans come to know of these beings; the best friend betrays humanity and decides to gain humans trust to just feed them lies. "The beings are the result of dissatisfaction among humans," and they bought it, started to conjure unrest, and slowly eradicated their own species.
At the end, the friend reveals his motive and shows his true self, causing a fight that ends in a tragic tale; the friend reveals to be in love with him, and so forth, ends himself. As earth is no longer there in the solar system.
I probably don't have the clear picture of the series but either way, it was just a bunch of remakes added on top to fill it up. Oh god, I completely forgot to check with Alice.
What about this kid watching R-rated shows, though? "Galactic Warrior: 18+" Not like I watched it when I was 18, I'm far from becoming of age right now, but I'm quite certain that a 10-year difference should not be glorified.
"Hey, Ray.." Before I could even finish my speaking,
"She's on the balcony—I mean, terrace—and I'm not leaving this seat!" I guess he paid more attention to me muttering to myself than watching the intro of the series.
"Alright, I'll bring you a candy then." I'm seriously going to end up leaving instead of negotiating for the remote if he asks for more.
"Deal." He flings the remote. As I try to reach for the falling remote, I trip, but the remote lands safely on the couch.
'Ouch.' It landed on the couch, but I landed on the floor facing back up.
Well, that was the payment for saving a childhood. I'm not that guilty, I guess.
Oh yeah, Remy said Alice was on the terrace right; I should check with her quickly. We're also running out of time for the school, not like we weren't already late.
I head over to the house terrace; it's right under my room's balcony.
"Hey Alice-" As she is smiling, turning towards me. I see her talking to someone on a video call; it's without a doubt her photographer. My face turns dull, and I stutter to talk to her.
"Yeah, Isaiah? Oh, I completely forgot about school." Alice responds, putting down her phone without cancelling the call. I'm staring at her phone for some reason; I'm sweating the hell out too.
I hate this.
"R-Ria wasn't able to, well, contact you." I say with stutters, still sweating.
Alice cuts the phone call; the guy is saved as 'MZ Studios.' I'm not the type of person who is always out to judge others, but I've been guessing for the past few days that they have something(s) in common.
Most likely, Alice is waiting to make him official.
"It's probably for the gym; I'll call her." I turn back, facing to leave the terrace right now, when Alice calls me from behind.
"Thanks Isaiah!" with a smile too. I am awkwardly standing there, not noticing that her father is right in front of me.
"You guys haven't dressed up yet; at this rate, we'll have to change schools for you." Her father makes it clear that he is telling her, but he is also directing it at me because he considers me his own.
"Hey Isaiah," Alice says to me as she suddenly makes a stop. We are heading towards our school right now.
I make a stop behind her too since we were walking to the school pretty awkwardly together.
"Yeah?" I say to her, looking confused on why she called my name out during the walk.
"Is there anything going wrong with you and my photographer?" she says to me, as I stutter and start becoming nervous again.
At this point, I just want to freaking call it quits. Really, just wishing to strangle myself till I can no longer damn breathe.
"Isaiah?" Yeah, alright, what am I supposed to say right now?-
"FOUR EYES!" Someone screams from behind; I can get an idea of who they are. A surge of fear starts to overwhelm me as my legs start to stutter. I turn around. It's without a doubt, them.
I fix my posture and calm my legs out; it's just the retarded brothers that take pleasure in bullying others. They call themselves "Threats," the cringiest name I've ever heard, with the most ugliest members. Their names and faces speak for themselves; I'm better to ignore them.
It's just that bullies actually get to have their own friend circle become full of gangs.
"Isaiah, I think we should go forward ignoring them." I start to run as I walk, a speedwalk. I can clearly feel them getting mad due to me ignoring them out.
Alice and I somehow seem to get away from their range; the school bell rings; class has already started now.
"Alright, I'll see you soon, Isaiah!" Alice says as we part ways to our separate classes. I head over to my classroom; thankfully, the teacher hasn't come over just yet. I take my seat, backbencher, as always.
I'm still pretty tired from all the assignments last night, along with waking up early today. Early as in, not getting to stand outside the class for the first period. Rarely do I wake up early.
Well, there comes the teacher. As I open up the book, the teacher starts his lesson. I can't focus on the lesson that much, remembering the blog post from before. "Global unrest" alongside civil protests. Mass homicides and genocides happening around the globe for some reason.
I cover my front with the book, pretending to read it as Michael is staring at me. A random guy who just looks out for everyone.
Although he is a good person in general, the way he looks at me is creepy. I try not to notice him staring at me and instead look at the table silently.
I'm all gloomy though, as I slowly doze off.
"Idea capacity is unstable; it's phenomenal Darwing." My eyes slowly start to shutter open. I look over my head; the hatch is gone now. Oda comes towards me, and I start to slowly regain vivid vision.
"Biological capacity is, well, underwhelming." I believe the scientist woman is a nurse, but I am not sure what she means by "Biological and Idea Capacity."
Oda pulls me out of the chair as I start to vomit a yellow sticky substance. It sticks right to the floor, making the floor messy.
I bend over to check it; even though I'm disgusted at first, it's not anything I've digested. As far as I can be sure, I haven't eaten anything so far.
"Oh dang, that's rare for a newbie to be doing. It appears you may have tapped on your second frame." I can't get a single word of what Oda is saying to me.
This substance is stuck really tightly to the floor, though, and I'm sort of intrigued by what this might be.
"Let me sum it up quickly." Oda directs me to a panel with two white glasses over and below it. It shows my name, "Isaiah."
"Touch the panel, kid." Oda says to me, I'm reluctant, but I do as he says. The white glass immediately turns bright red. My finger starts to burn from the intense heat the panel is converting.
Isaiah -
Level: Paragon. (I look at Oda, searching for answers as the panel slowly starts to reveal more numbers with abbreviations.)
Intellectual Development Empowering Archive (Idea): 90/10
Biological and Physical Capacity: 8/10
Historical Saves: 0/10.
Arcane Association Panel
Oda is staring at the screen with a very serious look.
"Congratulations! You're now an Elysian Hunter, Part of Illuminator!" Oda shakes me, causing me to vomit the yellow substance again.
"What is this yellow substance exactly?" Wait, I am an Elysian hunter? What the hell does being a part of the illuminator imply?
Isaiah's encounter, Chapter 1.