In my youth, I bore witness to the rot of the 21st-century presidency, a lineage of corruption that bled the nation dry. My family was no exception to the fallout; we withered under the weight of wartime inflation and hollowed-out pantries. But I'm not here to spin a tragedy for your sympathy. I am here for revenge, on behalf of every soul too broken to strike back.
A century has passed since the Great Awakening. While most of humanity tapped into a reservoir of hidden power, I remained a relic of the old world, unawakened. For a hundred years, the empowered elite have manipulated the gifted to harvest the world's riches, leaving the "Dormant" like me to starve in the shadows.
I intend to return the favor.
The rumors led me to a shop marked by a golden lion. I was told to seek a man in a "mysterious outfit," but the figure leaning against the doorframe looked less like a kingmaker and more like a corpse. The guy looked half-dead, like he hadn't seen a meal in weeks. Yet, despite the grime and the gaunt face, an unsettling sense of familiarity pricked at my mind.
"Are you the one selling the drug?" I asked, leaning in to catch a better look at his face.
"Yeah," he rasped, extending a drug. "Take it. You don't need to pay."
A suspicious offer, to say the least. "You sure about that, pal? Because I'm drinking this right now."
I downed the drug in a single gulp. Instantly, the world began to tilt. My vision fractured into a blur of light and shadow, and the floor felt like it was dissolving beneath my boots. As I collapsed, the stranger's voice drifted over me, faint and fractured, like a ghost in the static:
"P***se… this time… it ****"
"Damn it all... that hell-broth nearly killed me," I snarled, bolting upright in a bed that felt too small, in a room that felt too whole.
The air was different - thicker, lacking the metallic tang of the future's decay. I scrambled toward the mirror, staring at a face that hadn't yet been hardened by a century of bitterness. It had actually worked. The drug was the real deal.
"Status Window!" I barked at my reflection.
Silence. I stood there, arm extended like a theatrical idiot, waiting for a glowing blue screen to punctuate the air. Nothing. Not even a flicker.
"Great. Just a lunatic shouting at a piece of glass," I muttered, scratching the back of my head in frustration.
If the internal trigger didn't work, I needed a different angle. I reached for my phone, an ancient piece of tech that felt like a toy in my hands, and frantically typed into the search bar: How to tell if you've awakened?
The results flooded in. I clicked the first link that popped up, an official-looking site with a sleek interface. It was a comprehensive guide, complete with step-by-step instructions and sensory benchmarks. Whoever designed this was thorough, bordering on genius. If the power were in me, this site would help me dig it out.