The city of Veridium pulsed with life under the afternoon sun. Towering skyscrapers cast long shadows over the streets, where the scent of coffee, exhaust, and blooming flowers mingled in the spring air. The distant hum of traffic and chatter filled the space between hurried footsteps, creating a rhythm Charles Taylor had long grown used to.
He moved with purpose, backpack slung over one shoulder, the weight of textbooks pressing against his spine like a physical reminder of his impending failure. Finals loomed over him like a storm cloud, and despite his best efforts, he could already see the wreckage of his grades forming.
"Hey, Charles!"
He turned just in time to see Jake weaving through the crowd, waving him down with his usual easygoing grin.
"You coming to the study session later?"
Charles sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I'll be there. Probably."
"Probably?" Jake scoffed. "Dude, you either show up or flunk out. No in-between." He smirked, nudging Charles with his elbow. "Or are you finally accepting your fate as a washed-up university dropout?"
"Tempting," Charles muttered. "But my mom would kill me."
Jake chuckled. "Alright, see you later then, maybe-man."
Charles kept walking, but the momentary distraction did nothing to shake the strange sensation creeping up his spine. A prickling unease, like the air itself had grown heavier charged, expectant. He exhaled sharply, pushing the thought aside. Stress. That's all it was.
By the time he reached campus, the feeling had worsened. Conversations seemed more hushed, movements slightly more hurried. It was as if everyone else could feel it too, even if they weren't sure what it was.
The lecture hall was a welcome escape. He slid into his seat just as the professor launched into a flurry of equations, forcing himself to focus. Hours passed in a blur of half-understood concepts and frantic note-taking. But even as the lesson wrapped up and students filtered out, that same oppressive weight lingered in the air.
Then, it happened.
The moment Charles stepped outside, the sky—once a clear stretch of blue—turned red.
A deep, suffocating crimson bled across the horizon, swallowing the sun whole. The light it cast wasn't warm; it was wrong. The shadows stretched unnaturally long, twisting over the pavement like grasping hands.
People around him stopped in their tracks. A girl on her phone lowered it slowly, her face drained of color. A man on a bench muttered something under his breath, staring up in disbelief.
"That's... not normal," someone whispered.
Then came the first shard.
It sliced through the sky like a falling comet—sleek, crystalline, glowing with a pulse of eerie blue and violet energy. A second followed. Then a third. They rained down in rapid succession, striking the ground with deep, resonating thuds. Each impact sent ripples of energy crawling across the pavement, like reality itself was cracking.
Then came the sound.
A deep, guttural roar that rattled bones and sent birds scattering from rooftops. The air turned sharp, electric, thick with the scent of something acrid—like burning metal mixed with ozone.
Screams followed.
Charles turned just in time to see the first of them emerge.
The creature wasn't just a monster—it was a violation of nature itself. Its body was elongated, its limbs too thin and jagged, as if something had taken the silhouette of a human and stretched it like wet clay. Its skin was dark, almost black, but shimmered with an oily, shifting texture that refused to settle on one form. Its mouth was too wide, splitting open in a grin filled with jagged, uneven fangs. Its too-long limbs flexed as if testing new muscles, each movement accompanied by a wet crackle. Worst of all were its eyes—glowing red, too many of them, blinking out of sync as it surveyed its prey.
Then it moved.
Not like an animal. Not like a human. Something in between.
People bolted. Others stood frozen, caught between terror and disbelief. A few, in a desperate attempt at self-defense, grabbed whatever they could—umbrellas, backpacks, even textbooks—to use as weapons. It made no difference.
Charles's breath came short and fast. His instincts screamed at him to move, to run—but before he could take a step, something else materialized before his eyes.
A window. Floating. Translucent.
[World Awakening]
Mana surge detected.
Another window blinked to life beside it, displaying something even more impossible.
[Character Information]
Name: Charles Taylor
Race: Human
Level: 1
[Stats]
Strength: 10
Agility: 7
Mana: 70
Magic: 70
Health: 9
Stamina: 8
His pulse thundered in his ears. He blinked rapidly, but the screen remained, hovering insistently before him.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This wasn't a dream.
This was real.
He looked around wildly, hoping praying that someone else was seeing the same thing. But the world had erupted into chaos. The monster lunged at a screaming man, its jagged claws slicing through flesh like wet paper. The street was already slick with blood.
Charles barely registered his own voice.
"What the fuck?"
The windows flickered once before vanishing.
It was happening to him.