Year 2005.
The world changed overnight.
It began without warning—an invisible tremor rippling through the fabric of existence. One morning, ordinary people awoke to find the impossible at their fingertips.
A fisherman in Chittagong raised his hand toward the sea, and the waves bent to his will, crashing with a roar like a living beast. Whoooosh! Water coiled around him like a serpent.
In Dhaka, a rickshaw puller shouted in panic as flames burst from his palms. Fwoooosh! Fire licked the air, painting the narrow streets in orange light.
And so it spread. Across villages and cities, across continents, men and women touched powers that had once belonged only to myths. Some bent steel with their bare hands. Some whispered and made shadows crawl. Some snapped their fingers and called lightning from the skies.
With this awakening came a shift greater than any war or revolution. Nations no longer measured strength by armies or wealth, but by the awakened who stood among them. The world's balance of power tilted. Governments scrambled, religions wavered, and a new era dawned—an era where humanity itself was rewritten.
The Age of Awakened had begun.
The tiled washroom at Cumilla Modern High School smelled of bleach and old sweat. Light from a high, barred window cut across graffiti-scrawled walls in a pale strip. Teenagers filtered past the stalls with the careless cruelty of schoolboys; laughter and the clack of sandals on tile echoed.
A seventeen-year-old boy—round-faced, breath heaving, trousers disarrayed—went flying backward and slammed against the cold wall with a wet thud. Water from a cracked basin sprayed like a broken fountain. The boy's head bounced; the world tilted. Tiles cracked under the impact.
Another boy stepped forward, boot raised, the echo of his kick still vibrating through the air. The others clustered like vultures, grinning.
"Hahaha, look at that pig. He's looking even more pathetic now."
Voices layered over one another: mocking, hungry. The victim blinked, lips trembling, as he dragged his hands up to his face. Pain flared along his ribs; breath came in jagged pulls.
The boy who'd kicked him—Logan—moved closer, the grin on his face more of a sneer than a smile. He planted his feet and shoved his chin forward, measuring his audience.
"Hey you ugly pig, stand up."
Against the smear of blood on his lip and the dizzying spin behind his eyes, the fat boy obeyed. His legs shook like a newborn fawn's. Every motion felt rubber-band slow; bile rose in his throat.
Logan didn't give him time. With a soft, contemptuous thump, his foot drove into the boy's stomach. Air expelled like a snapped reed; the boy doubled over with a choking sound.
When he tried to straighten, Logan's boot slammed into his gut again—this time harder. The second blow folded him inward; feet skidded on wet tile. He collapsed and went limp, the world folding into gray.
"Huh?"
"Hey, Logan. You went so far this time. If he dies, what will we do?" A boy at the same age said.
Logan's grin faltered; a coldness threaded through his voice. He is a little scared.
"Check him quickly." Logan said, he is a little scared.
A taller boy pushed through and knelt beside the fallen form, palms hovering over the other's chest. For a heartbeat the washroom was only breathing and the distant squeal of a bicycle bell from outside. A boy's fingers found a pulse, then raised in triumph.
"He's alive."
Relief and irritation flickered across Logan's face, a brief storm. He jabbed a toe toward the fallen boy as if to prove a point.
"This pig! How dare he make me scared."
Logan readied his foot again, intention clear.
"Stop Logan. At this rate he will really die."
The hand that grabbed Logan's sleeve was small but firm. Around them, the laughter died away, replaced by a thick, awkward silence that pressed against the tiles. The fallen boy lay motionless, chest rising and falling shallowly, the light from the window etching him in pale blue—and just like every day that morning, nobody moved to help.
My name is Johan Navrann. Seventeen years old. Just another fat boy sitting at the bottom of the food chain in Cumilla Modern High School, class 10.
An orphan.
You're probably wondering why those boys beat me. Why their fists and feet find me every single day. The answer is simple, really.
First—this world isn't normal anymore. Since 2005, almost every person born has awakened some kind of power. Fire, water, wind, lightning—abilities that turn the weak into strong, the ordinary into extraordinary.
But not me.
I'm the exception—the only one without a shred of power. No flames at my fingertips, no storm in my breath, not even a spark to light a candle. Just flesh, bones, and a body too heavy to run.
That's the first reason.
The second reason? I'm fat. My body, my face—it makes me an easy target. To them, I'm nothing more than a pig to laugh at, to humiliate, to break.
So that's my life.
Day after day, it's the same cycle: the laughter, the insults, the beatings. Today? Today was no different. Just another ordinary day in the miserable life of Johan Navrann.
I trudged home with every step a reminder of the blows—stomach tight, breath shallow. The narrow lane to my one-room rented house smelled of wet dust and frying oil. When I pushed the door open I didn't bother to shut it properly; I tossed my bag onto the bed like it was another burden to be discarded. Thud.
I fell onto the mattress, clothes sticking to my skin from sweat and shame. The room hummed with the evening silence of a place that's always been empty. Tears came slow at first, then faster, tracing cold lines down my cheeks.
Why? Why does everyone treat me like this? It's not my fault that I don't have power or don't have a good face. Can't you all just leave me alone. I don't want to leave like this.
The words hung in the stale air and then—something else answered. The dust motes over the bed stilled, as if the room itself held its breath. A faint electrical whine built under my skin, a tiny high note that climbed and climbed until—
—ping. A soft blue light bloomed above my chest, painting the ceiling in cyan. A rectangular panel, edges humming with energy, hovered a foot from my face. Its glow felt cold and impossible.
[SYSTEM AWAKENING.]
[BINDING THE SYSTEM WITH THE HOST.]
[BIND SUCCESSFULLY.]
The letters pulsed once, then settled into a steady glow. My heart hammered against my ribs so loud I could hear it in my ears. I pushed myself up on one elbow, blinking as if sunlight had burst inside the room.
"Huh? W-What is this?"