She should have known. How could she have been this blind? He had betrayed her! Stabbed her in the back after the battle and was now leering over her laying on the ground.
"Did you really think I would stay with you? Spend my life with you?! When your sister is so much better? Samantha is so much more beautiful than you. Not only that, but she is also smarter than you and her future is so much brighter than yours. Did you actually think I could love you?! Ha! You're delusional."
She took a ragged breath, the blood slowly pooling in her lungs. Her sister was more beautiful than her? They had the same face! They were identical twins, and they got mistaken for each other so much that her parents would often have her choose other clothing to just to be able to differentiate her from her sister. Even they couldn't tell!
Were they in on it as well? They had been adamant that she takes her sisters place when her Samantha had been chosen through the lottery. Even though humankind had awakened powers when the towers and monsters suddenly arrived a few years back, there were far too few people who wanted to risk their own life to fight. Very few people were keen on fighting monsters, when the chances of death were so high.
Very little were known of the monsters, and even though it had been a few years since the towers showed up, new monsters were still being discovered. When meeting with an unknown monster, the attack team would have to go in blind. Where the monster's weak spots were, what kinds of attacks worked best against them and what types of attack the monsters themselves possessed, nothing was known. Going in blind would almost certainly lead to half the attack force being wiped out.
Evelyn had the rare class "healer", which was almost unheard of. When she had awakened, she had rushed to tell her family, but they had told her to keep it quiet. Healers were extremely rare, and if the government had been told, she would surely have been forced to join an attack force. Her parents would rather that she kept it quiet and only help the privileged few people they chose.
Her parents had always been extremely aware of how people perceived them and worked hard to elevate their social standing. With her having awakened as a rare healer, her potential worth seemed to be all they could focus on. They had always favoured her sister, having only wanted to have a single child when they planned to get pregnant. They needed a child for their social standing, but two were a bother.
Of course, they never said this outright, but their actions had made this clear over the years. How she had to change the way she dressed, so her sister could wear what she wanted, or how they would only bring her sister to events, claiming she was sick at home if anyone asked.
She had grown accustomed to this, and started to wonder if this was just the way it truly was. Mybe she actually was weak since birth, but just didn't feel it herself? She knew it didn't make sense, but it was the only way she knew how to comfort herself. Acknowledging that her parents couldn't even be bothered with her and would rather not have anything to do with her just hurt too much. So, she bought into their lies and ignored anything that could disturb this frail reality that she protected herself with.
Then she awakened, and suddenly her parents were kind. They brought her to social events, parading her around as a loved daughter that had miraculously gotten healthy as she awakened. Though they held her awakened abilities secret for all but a select few they could gain enough from, she was happy.
They were treating her as a loved child, and all she had to do was heal a few people from various wounds and diseases. Her skill levels increased as her parents brought her along to the patients, having her use them repeatedly. And as she could do more, they spent more time with her and treated her better.
She had spent the last two years since she awakened like this; treating the patients they decided and getting love and attention in return. And every time she got a bad feeling about the situation she now was in; she ignored it.
Any feeling, comment, look or emotion that didn't fit into her carefully constructed reality was ignored. This reality gave her happiness. A feeling of belonging. A sense of being wanted. She would do anything not to get discarded or breaking this fragile construction.
Even when they suddenly introduced her fiancé, a man she had never met before, she agreed. She skilfully weaved him into her reality, changing her emotions and everyday life. She ignored all the signs of him not being a good match or a good man and focused on his seldom kind actions. She created a love for him that could overlook anything and everything that wasn't proof that he wanted her and their union.
And then finally, her sister got drafted through the lottery and she was made to take her place.
Her fiancé was already in the attack force, having made a great career of climbing the tower with the riches that followed such an act. The tower posed great dangers, but the rewards were even higher. The riches of the tower that came from defeating monsters and levels brought a change to society. The rewards were just too great. Some monsters dropped energy-crystals with powers so great inside them that new inventions, thought to be impossible to make, became possible. The laws of physics were being rewritten in real-time.
And then came the items. Items with stats and abilities locked to them. Simply by wearing a bracelet with a strength bonus a normal person was able to pick up a car. By drinking a potion, a person of the verge of death could become completely healthy. So, becoming a tower climber became a highly sought after job. But with the possibilities came dangers. The amount of awakened people that could survive in the tower was too low. The risk of death too great.
That was when the world leaders and different governments implemented a lottery system. If the tower wasn't climbed, the monsters would spill out, threatening the public. And now, Samantha had "won" the lottery. It was her turn to be forced into climbing the tower. Tackling a new floor, being a "discoverer".
The job of these "discoverers" was to find out what monsters lived on the floor, their strengths and weaknesses. And as one would imagine, the risk of death was highest among the "discovers" that had to go in blind.
Though professional tower climbers would join in on the attack force, it was well known that they would use the lottery winners as fodder to get a grasp of the floor and its monsters.
It was in most cases a death sentence.
Her parents had persuaded her by saying she should go with her fiancé, and that he would keep her safe. He was, after all, a highly skilled swordsman. So, she had agreed. And that was how she ended up here.