Zach's mind snapped back. He gasped for air, sweating as his tired gaze surveyed his surroundings.
The humming of the machine, the background noise of he television, and the smell of antiseptic.
He was back at the hospital.
The room were filled with nurses, as they all starred at him, some help towels, the others gripped tazers.
"What's going on..?" Zach hoarse voice broke the silence.
"S-sir how are you feeling" one of the nurses asked.
The surrounding area felt clearer, Zach's body brimmed with energy, as he stepped off the bed.
He held the transparent tubes off of him, snapping it off.
The pain was gone, completely. His ribs felt untouched, as of they had never been broken in the frist place and his warm feet met the cold tiles with a jolt of awareness.
The nurses watched in horror was Zach's looked at his palm.
"S-sir your not supposed to be off of bed for at least a month.." a nurse spoke, eyes wide.
Zach too was surprised, he felt like his body brimmed with energy.
His ears felt sharper and the view from his perspective felt clearer.
"Whoa.. what is this..?"
****
Later that evening, Zach sat up on the bed.
He has told the doctors and nurses he was fine but they insisted he should take a scan, before they could discharge him.
Zach sat on the chair, as he looked as his palm again.
Like black ink etched on his skin, the image of a black circle surrounded by countless runes rested on his skin.
Zach couldn't tell what it is... he just woke up and the tattoo was on him, he slowly rubbed his palm and a series of golden lines burst out of it.
The lines hovered in the air as is slow drew something..
A set of words.
Zach eyes widened as the golden lines morphed into actual words.
[Name: Zachariah Keal]
[Current realm: Earth]
'Earth..?..'
[Soul weapon :Aragoth
...There was once a child who stood alone at the edge of existence, where the stars refused to shine, enveloped by the black void.
He gave himself no name, only silence... nothingness.. emptyness...
But the winds of death whispered one into his hollow hands. Aragoth.
The king who never ruled but remembered every war, the name clung to the child's grief and when his will was forged into steel, the blade was born yet again...
And so was his name.]
Zach could have sworn as he was reading those words he actually saw something, like a flashback or a vision. He couldn't describe it...
[Weapons ability:
..Aragoth does not hunger for death... it listens. In the stillness between breaths, it learns the truth men hide within their twisted hearts.
Once Aragoth knows a soul it becomes a reflection of it...
Forever.
But be warned...
To steal is the steal a piece of who they are, and every piece must be taken through blood and pain, to finally find it's resting place within you.
Effect: Aragoth can permanently copy the ability of another.
Current capacity: 2 imprints
2 slots remaining.
Zach read the words hovering on the air.
"What..?"
He stared at the glowing word floating in front of him, he reached forth his hand instinctively, but it phased through, the words weren't real, the world pulsed softly like it was alive.
"Aragoth?, Child at the edge of existence?, what does that even mean..?". Zach frowned.
Patients came and went in the hospital, nurses were alert, people were coming into the hospital more frequently.
In the chambers of the medical facility Zach sat on his bed baffled.
His mind raced about this. Aragoth, was it a soul weapon, Zach's mind wandered to the blade Haruki wielded against that monster.
"Zach... are you alright..?"
Speak of the devil.
Haruki stood at the doors entrance, worry plastered on his face as he strided to the seat besides Zach.
"Zach.. we need to talk", he said drawing the season backwards.
"Yeah..", Haruki sat besides Zach.
"I know you have a lot of questions about me but before you start asking why don't you ask how.." haruki spoke.
"How..?"
Zach honestly haven't asked how anything worked. Ever since he was taken out of that orphanage and raised by the old man, Zach had just accepted the world the way it is.
Now that he thought about it, had things always been like this.
A few decades ago.. when the skies began to split open, human were living without even understanding the flow of the world.
But that soon changed when the monsters arrived, they didn't come from the shadow those days, they were the shadow, every single one of them, we called then demons, beast of horrors, nightmares, but that couldn't Chang one fact, they were unstoppable."
Zach listed as haruki continued it seemed the old world was a primitive one. A place we're no human understood flow seemed like a paradise, but the monsters appearing was what started this whild thing.
"Guns didn't work, nukes didn't even leave a scratch on them, our science had failed us.."
He paused..
We lost billions, whole counties were swallowed, but no one talk about that anymore. But I personally lived through that hell.
"Human couldn't do anything against them so they did the only thing they could do.."
"That is.."
"They listened.."
"Listened..?"
"To the flow of the world ..
Flow is the undercurrent of reality, the current that holds time, space, void, matter and memory in place, you can think of it as a song..
And the more you can predict it, the more capable you are of surviving this world."
Haruki's voice toned down a bit.
"Flow was always there by in the world but at the time humans were deaf and blind to it"
He held up a finger.
"Until twelve of them appeared".
"Who.?".
"The origins.." Haruki replied. The old man seem enthusiast about the story he was telling him and Zach could feel his energy which made him intrigued.
"The origins..."
Haruki replied.
"They weren't gods, not quite... but they weren't human either, they sprung from nowhere, and began spreading their teachings, this was about 70 years ago, about 2001. Before humans had anything to combat these forces.
****
The night pressed down like a tombstone in the vibrant city... muffled and still. Wind slithered across the dark and damp rooftop of the twelve story hospital, hissing against vents and antennas.
In the shadows cloaked figures appeared out of the shadows, no footprints, no sound only their looming presence.
They stood motionless, like gargoyles beneath the cloudy veil of the night sky, their cloaks did not even even flutter under the influence of the wind.
One of them stepped forward, a figure draped purely in black layered robes woven with deep sigils.
"Confirm it", he said.
A second figure dropped besides him dropping to his knees in her hand a shard of rainbow glass flutter as her blood dropped on it.
"It's him.." A feminine voice spoke. "The original frequently match the residual vibrations.. No Mistake"
The frist man narrowed touched the ground the ground crunching beneath his black boots.
"He's not alone.." he said.
Another figure scoffed. "The boy..?".
Zain didn't look away from the rooftop hatch. "Irrelevant, but unnecessary complication attract unwanted attention. We're not here to make noise the grand elder gave a single order".
"Observe, we watch, if he makes move we end it before breath leaves his lungs.."
Lighting flashed somewhere off in the distance, outlining their vague silhouettes.
And then they were gone, no traces, no sounds, no whispers.
Just gone.