The Lost Vampire System Chapter 1 - Just an Ordinary Tablet
"Don't die by falling over yourself Jareth," a boy shouted down the hallway laughing like a maniac after that.
Jareth ignored the comments like he always did as he continued to walk down the long school hallway. The harassment and bullying were a daily occurrence for him, but it still bothered him just like every other day. He felt angry that the world was like this and wanted to retaliate but thought better of it. He pushed his round spectacles back onto his face as it had slightly slipped down. You can tell the glasses were heavily damaged from earlier harassments and bullying, causing it to need repair. Jareth was going to keep walking like he usually would do after these comments, but he heard a shriek from behind. He turned around to see a girl pinned against the wall by the same boy. It was his sister Mia with jet black hair that was slightly wavy, and she had bright blue eyes. She was known for having a pretty face but in this world, it was about power and looks was not going to save her. Seeing his sister helpless anger flooded into his thoughts. He wanted to get the attention off of her.
"Hey!" Jareth yelled with confidence in his voice. He raised both of his middle fingers as the boy turned to look at him. "I bet you can't count how many fingers I'm holding up!" Jareth shouted at the boy.
The student's face started to turn red showing the visible anger. "Why you little turd!" the boy shouted letting go of his sister who fell on the floor. He ran towards Jareth at full speed.
"When will you realize that you don't belong in this world!"
The boy put the palm of his hands close together and a red energy ball formed within his hand. When the boy was only a few feet in front of Jareth, he thrusted his hand forward launching the red ball towards him. Jareth had nowhere to go, and the energy ball was too fast for him to dodge. For those reasons Jareth had to grit his teeth and bear through the pain. As the energy ball hit him, he was lifted into the air being sent flying back onto the far end of the hallway smashing against the wall. As he fell onto the ground the old paint chipped wall broke apart crashing down on top of him kicking up a huge amount of dust. Jareth started to go into a coughing spree. The situation caused a crowd to form around him.
"What's going on?" a guy asked running over to the dust cloud of where Jareth was.
"Are they really fighting on the last day of school?" another kid asked.
The dust was starting to settle showing the top of Jareth's curly light brown hair then his average face with dark blue eyes. The boy that had ran over to him then quickly backed away and joined his friends. They snickered at him.
"Why did you help him?" One of his friends laughed.
"I didn't realize who it was," he said. "Let's just go."
The group then started to walk down the hallway. At the same time his sister Mia came over and helped him up.
"Thanks again, Jareth." Mia said.
"Let's just get out of here," Jareth said with slight anger because he was still affected by that situation.
"But what about school?" Mia asked.
"Who cares," Jareth responded. "We will be taken by the military to attend military school since we will both be fifteen by June 10."
The two of them held hands and proceeded to exit the school. The two of them didn't live far away from school, only about 5 blocks away. They walked making sure to keep their heads down avoiding any unwanted attention. They narrowly bumped into a group of people, but they eventually made it to their rundown apartment block. It was 10 stories high, and they were on the top floor. The elevator was also broken. They had to take the ten flights of stairs at least twice a day to get to school since no one bothered to fix the elevator. Jareth and Mia were slowly making their way up to their apartment. When they finally made it, they were huffing and panting like they always did. Jareth took the apartment key out of his pocket and proceeded to open the door.
It was bad like always. A one-bedroom apartment with a couch, table, tv, desk, and their belongings. Their belongings were packed though since a military personnel member will be taking them to the military school at 6 o'clock pm. Jareth put his backpack on his twin bed and started to transfer his remaining belongings from his backpack over to his suitcase. His sister was doing the same thing on her bed. Even though Jareth and Mia had to share a bedroom, it has never been a problem with them. They were a close pair of siblings ever since the war.
When they were done, Mia went to sit on the couch and Jareth on the desk chair. He opened a drawer pulling out a normal but advanced looking computer. It looked nothing like the computers of this day and age. Written on the top was the word "Draven," whatever that is. According to his father, it had been in their family for at least several generations. The only problem was that no matter what he did, he couldn't open it. He had tried several ways to open it, more extreme than the last. It went from using his fingers, to a crowbar, and then attempting to burn it, but to no avail. It was like the book was indestructible. He was getting more frustrated by each attempt. He was going to do one last test before he would set off.
Jareth went back to his backpack and grabbed a vial that was half full of Sulfuric acid. He already tried Hydrofluoric acid last week, so this time he was going to try this. He proceeded to pour a little bit on the computer. It just flowed right off onto the wood desk causing it to be carbonized. Jareth did not care about the desk because he was going to be forced to leave anyway. He then poured the entire thing onto the computer. Still nothing happened.
"Agh!" Jareth yelled. Why won't anything I use work?"
"It's a weird computer." Mia agreed.
She flipped on the tv and what came on was an ongoing news report.
Anchorman, "it has been 7 years now since the peace treaty had been signed with the Lyracken race, but now officials are saying that the tension is rising once more, and we must prepare for another war…"
The mention of war starting back up has been on the tv non-stop since that day, but it has become worse since Monday of that week. Around 20 years ago, the Lyracken came to visit Earth. They had a humanoid shape with elongated limbs and sharp claws. Its skin is pale and slightly translucent, revealing veins beneath, and had fur on parts of their body.
The Lyracken's demanded that the humans work under them as slaves as support for their god. The human race, being who they are, chose to fight back. Very quickly they figured out that the modern weapons didn't work on them. They were bigger, faster, and bullets bounced off their tough skin. Tanks, ships, and planes were useless because they had spaceships. Every eligible man and woman were required to fight, including Jareth and Mia's parents. This caused both of them to not really know their parents.
Unfortunately for the humans, all the countries previously got together and banned nuclear weapons, worried that they were going to destroy themselves. This would've been the cause of humanity's downfall, as they were on the brink of defeat. If it wasn't for the fact that a group of people had stepped forward.
The group had different abilities. The number of abilities per person ranged from one to seven. Most had one, some had two, and three or more was rare. They fought back and eventually made a truce with the Lyracken's. After the war, the group who called themselves as the Evolved, talked about an ancient god that decided to go into a slumber on Earth. They described that his power allowed all humans to be able to learn at least one ability and their descendants.
The group of people wrote down their techniques used to learn the abilities, and a power was activated onto the book upon the completion of each book. They were baffled themselves that a power went onto the books. They did this a couple more times. Right after that most of the group that was still alive after the war just vanished leaving only a handful. After that, along with the war, the rest of them split off. Some displayed their power, and people wanted to follow them since the U.N. was no more and chunks of land were gone.
A human not a part of the Evolved, managed to get a hold of all the plant, wind, and water evolved books and united the world's remaining military. And instead of the top sharing their powers with the world, greed got the better of them and the top kept it to themselves. Only people with money were able to learn the more powerful abilities, while everyone else was left with pieces of scrap.
Jareth and Mia were left with nothing when their parents died during the war. They were not able to find their parent's bodies. The only thing that was delivered from a self-storage place was this computer that wouldn't open. The military provided them with this apartment and some money since they had no living relatives and were not adults. They both are currently 15 but they were 7 when their parents were taken in the war.
Hours had passed and Mia got up and went to use the bathroom.
"You should use it to," she said smiling at him, "this will be our new beginning."
This comment made Jareth smile. Maybe this is when everything can finally get better, Jareth thought as his sister closed the bathroom door. He pulled off his round glasses and noticed that the right side was slightly loose and the thin rope to temporarily fix his glasses had unraveled.
"These stupid glasses," Jareth said. He got up and got a pair of scissors from the drawer and went to sit back down. He held his glasses up in his left hand and tried to cut the rope. That was when his pinky slipped, and he sliced his pinky causing a cut.
"Ow!" He yelled as the blood dropped onto the tablet.
Immediately the tablet glowed red and suddenly it lifted itself into the air. It then opened up.
"What is this?" He yelled.
The computer now glowing brighter started to cause a windstorm to rotate across the room. Jareth couldn't look away from the mesmerizing computer. Holograms projected information from within itself all across the room. His mind was going crazy from all that was happening.
"What's going on out there?" Mia asked worried about her brother's safety. Her brother was all she had.
The computer started to hum loudly. As this happened the information and the computer started to turn into what looked like energy and went into his chest. His mind started to hurt, and his body felt like he was on fire as Jareth began to scream. Moments later his eyelids felt heavy and began to slowly close but before he did, he heard a message.
"Congratulations, you have been granted The Draven System. Error unable to…"
Before he could hear the final message, he had passed out.
*****
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