The morning air felt thin.
Arin walked to school, his feet moving on autopilot. The streets were familiar—the cracked pavement, the smell of street food, the honking of cars.
Normal.
Sickeningly normal.
To everyone else, this was just an other Usual Day.
To Arin, it was a graveyard waiting to be filled.
"Fifteen years," he thought.
It sounded like a long time. It wasn't.
To build a shelter, gather weapons, learn magic that didn't exist yet... Fifteen years was a blink of an eye.
He stepped into the school gate.
The noise hit him instantly. Screaming students, laughing groups, the sheer volume of ignorance.
He looked at faces he remembered.
Some would become doctors. Some would marry.
Most would die in the first wave of the Calamity.
He gripped his bag strap tighter.
Focus. Don't look at them as corpses.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
[Time until First Event: 15 Years, 11 Months, 14 Days.]
The blue text floated over the school entrance, invisible to everyone but him.
Arin walked to his classroom. 10th Grade, Section B.
He sat at his desk—the one near the back, by the window. The "invisible seat."
A few students glanced at him. Most looked right through him.
Just like before.
Except this time, Arin wasn't looking down.
He was looking at the air in front of him.
"AXIOM," he thought. "Show me my status."
[USER PROFILE: ARIN VALE]
[Rank: None]
[Strength: 0.8 (Below Average)]
[Agility: 0.9 (Average)]
[Mana: 0 / 0 (Locked)]
[Sync Rate: 0.01%]
Arin frowned.
"Locked?" he whispered.
AXIOM:
"Ambient mana density is zero. External magic is impossible."
Arin stared at the board where the teacher was writing math equations.
"Then what good are you?" he thought. "If I can't use magic, I can't protect anything."
AXIOM:
"Correction. External magic is impossible. Internal generation is viable."
Arin paused.
"Internal?"
AXIOM:
"Protocol: Bio-Conversion."
"User may convert biological energy (ATP/Calories) into temporary Mana."
Arin blinked.
" biological energy... you mean fat? Muscle?"
AXIOM:
"Affirmative.
Warning: Efficiency is low at current Sync Rate."
Arin looked at his hand.
He wanted to test it. He needed to know if this was real. If he truly had the power to stop what was coming.
"Just a little," he thought. "Enhance my vision. Just for a second."
He focused on the teacher at the front. He imagined his eyes sharpening, zooming in like a camera lens.
[ACTIVATING: SENSORY ENHANCEMENT (GRADE F)]
[CONVERTING FUEL...]
It didn't feel like magic.
It felt like starvation.
In an instant, his stomach cramped violently.
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
His hands started trembling uncontrollably.
But his vision...
It snapped.
The world turned HD.
He could see the chalk dust floating in the air particles near the teacher. He could see the scratch marks on the blackboard. He could read the text on a student's phone three rows ahead.
It was incredible.
It lasted for three seconds.
Then the nausea hit.
Arin gasped, slamming his hand over his mouth to stop from retching.
His head spun. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision.
[ALERT: CALORIC DEFICIT DETECTED.]
[GLUCOSE LEVELS CRITICAL.]
He slumped forward, forehead hitting the desk with a thud.
"Arin?"
The teacher's voice sounded miles away.
"Arin!?"
He couldn't answer. His body was screaming. It felt like he hadn't eaten in three days. The hunger was primal, clawing at his insides.
He had used magic for three seconds.
And it nearly knocked him out.
"I..." Arin croaked, his voice dry. "Infirmary."
He stood up.
His legs felt like jelly.
The class watched. For the first time in years, thirty pairs of eyes were fixed on Arin Vale.
He didn't care.
He stumbled out of the room, ignoring the teacher's call.
He didn't go to the infirmary.
He went to the cafeteria.
He bought everything his wallet allowed.
Three sandwiches. Two chocolate bars. A bottle of sugary soda.
He sat in the empty corner of the canteen and ate.
No, he didn't eat. He devoured.
He tore into the wrappers with shaking hands, shoving food into his mouth without tasting it. The sugar hit his bloodstream, and slowly... slowly... the shaking stopped.
He leaned back against the cold wall, panting.
AXIOM:
"Recovery complete. Bio-fuel restored to 15%."
Arin stared at the pile of wrappers.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"That was... Grade F magic?" he whispered. "The weakest kind?"
AXIOM:
"Affirmative."
Arin laughed. A dry, humorless sound.
"I'm going to need a lot more money for food."
"I nearly passed out from looking at a blackboard," Arin muttered. "If a real fight happens, I'm dead in ten seconds."
His gaze dropped to his wallet.
Empty.
The food had cost him his last bit of pocket money.
He was broke.
He was weak.
And he had fifteen years to stop the world from ending.
"AXIOM," he said quietly, fingers curling around the thin leather. "I can't train if I can't eat. And I can't eat if I don't have money."
Silence.
Arin frowned. Something stirred at the back of his mind—pressure, urgency—but no image formed. He tried to focus, to remember.
Nothing.
"…I know there was something," he said. "Something important. But it's gone."
AXIOM:
"Confirmed. User cognitive access to future data is restricted."
Arin let out a slow breath. "So it wasn't just me."
"What do I actually have, then?" he asked. "If I can't remember the future, what's the point of seeing it?"
AXIOM:
"You retain emotional imprints and threat awareness. Tactical data access is system-mediated."
Arin's jaw tightened.
"So without you," he said, "I'm blind."
AXIOM:
"Correct."
That answer sat heavier than the hunger.
Arin straightened.
"Fine. Then guide me."
He glanced down at the wallet again.
"You have future financial data, right? Stock markets. Lotteries."
AXIOM:
"Affirmative. However—"
"Lottery payouts require extended processing time. Stock market participation requires initial capital and legal age."
A pause.
"Current user status: Minor. Insufficient funds."
Arin exhaled sharply. "So slow, safe options are off the table."
He lifted his eyes."I need something now. Fast."
Another beat.
The air in front of him pulsed faintly.
AXIOM:
"User objective identified: Immediate resource acquisition."
Text began to assemble—not a memory, not a flashback, but a selection.
[SUGGESTED EVENT]
Location: Old District — Sector 4
Type: Minor Anomaly / Dormant Artifact
Discovery Window: 48 Hours
Intervention Risk: Low
A map unfolded before Arin's eyes.
A single red point blinked beneath a half-collapsed construction site.
"What is it?" Arin asked.
AXIOM:
"A construction accident scheduled to occur in two days. A subsurface collapse will expose an inactive artifact. In the original timeline, it was classified as debris and lost."
His pulse quickened.
"If I reach it first," Arin said slowly, "it never enters the public record."
AXIOM:
"Correct. Future certainty will Degrade."
Arin smiled faintly.
"That's fine."
He checked his phone.
October 12th.
Two days before the site was officially excavated.
He pushed himself to his feet. The weakness was still there, coiled low in his stomach—but now it had direction.
"So this is how it works," he said quietly, picking up his bag. "I don't remember the future."
He looked at the blinking red point.
"You guide me to it."
AXIOM:
"Affirmative."
Arin turned toward the exit.
School could wait. History class could wait.
The Future Couldn't.