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The sun dipped low beyond the distant hills, bleeding orange and gold across the sky. The town of Velridge, small and modest, hummed with quiet evening life. Lamplight flickered on cobbled streets, and shadows stretched long over the walls of old brick buildings. To most, it was just another peaceful evening. But for Kai, this night would change everything.
He stood at the edge of a forgotten forest path, his breath sharp in his throat, heart pounding with something he couldn't quite explain. The woods before him were still—too still. Not the stillness of sleep, but something deeper, heavier, like the calm before a world-ending storm.
He stepped forward.
The trees loomed overhead like sleeping giants. Light barely trickled through their thick canopy. But as Kai moved deeper into the woods, he saw something—something that didn't belong.
Floating in the air, just a few feet ahead, was a flicker of... light? No, not light in the usual sense. It wasn't fire, or reflection, or anything normal. It was a presence. A thread of pure brilliance, twisting and turning in a slow, deliberate motion, glowing with faint hues of violet and silver. Kai stared.
"What the hell is that...?"
Then it hit him—not like a breeze, but like a memory he never had. His chest warmed, and a pulse surged through his body, flooding his senses. The world around him seemed to shift. The shadows bent in strange ways. The air vibrated. And suddenly, more of them appeared. Threads. Dozens of them. Dancing, writhing, flickering in and out of sight as though they lived in a different dimension entirely.
But Kai could see them now.
This was **Core Energy**—not an element of Earth, not fire, water, wind, or stone. It didn't belong to any of the natural laws humans knew. It came from somewhere else. Somewhere older. Somewhere deeper than even space or time.
And it was alive.
The truth was simple yet terrifying: Core Energy was always there. Around them. Inside them. But only those who awakened to it could see it. To the rest of the world, it might as well not exist. Like a parallel layer of reality.
Kai reached out instinctively. One of the energy threads hovered just beyond his fingertips. As his hand came closer, it shifted color—turning from silver to deep blue—and then wrapped gently around his finger.
Pain and clarity shot through him like a storm. Memories that weren't his. Voices that didn't belong to this world. Visions of ancient beings speaking in forgotten tongues. None of it made sense, yet all of it felt right.
Then he collapsed.
---
Kai awoke hours later in his bedroom, the old ceiling fan spinning slowly above. His clothes were damp with sweat, and his limbs felt like lead. Yet, when he sat up, the world hadn't gone back to normal.
The energy was still there.
It flowed lazily through the walls, over the floor, weaving through the air like a river of glowing silk. His mind couldn't comprehend why or how he could see it—but his instincts whispered a truth older than language:
**He was now Awakened.**
---
The next day at school, nothing felt the same. The hallways, the students, even the teachers—all looked dimmer somehow. Duller. The world he'd lived in for 16 years now seemed like a faded painting next to what he could now see.
He passed other students, wondering—*Are they like me? Can they see it too?*
But the truth revealed itself in their eyes. They didn't see it. Couldn't. It was like he lived in two worlds now, and everyone else was stuck in one.
Then, he saw her.
Amara.
She walked past him in the courtyard, the wind catching strands of her black hair. But it wasn't her beauty that caught his attention—it was the faint golden thread wrapped around her wrist. A Core Thread.
He blinked.
She paused, ever so slightly. Her eyes flicked to his for just a second. And he saw the flash of recognition.
*She can see them too.*
She kept walking. So did he. But in that brief glance, everything changed.
---
That night, Kai couldn't sleep. His room was filled with moving strands of Core Energy, lazily spinning in patterns that seemed random but felt meaningful. He watched them for hours, trying to understand.
He'd tried touching them again, but the pain hadn't returned. Instead, the threads responded—changing color, bending toward his hands, almost like they were reading him. His emotions. His thoughts.
And when he focused hard enough, one of them dissolved into his skin.
A wave of power rushed through him. He gasped. His skin tingled. His veins felt electrified.
And then it happened: a soft, glowing symbol appeared over his chest—right where his heart was. A mark. Ethereal and complex, shaped like an interlocking spiral of light and shadow. It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He understood then—this wasn't just sight. This was *connection*.
Kai wasn't just seeing Core Energy. He was becoming one with it.
---
In the days that followed, Kai experimented in secret.
He discovered that the threads had different colors—and each color seemed to react to him differently.
* **Silver threads** healed cuts and aches.
* **Blue threads** boosted his strength.
* **Gold threads** sharpened his reflexes and made everything slow down around him, like the world was moving in slow motion.
* **Crimson threads**... he hadn't touched those. Not yet. They pulsed with something dangerous, something alive and angry.
But more than that, he noticed that the energy wasn't just around him—it *responded* to his emotions.
When he was calm, the threads moved slowly, gently.
When he was scared, they writhed like snakes.
When he was angry, they became sharp, jagged, volatile.
The power was real. But it had rules. And consequences.
---
On the fifth day after his awakening, he was cornered after school.
Three older students. Bullies.
They shoved him into the alley behind the cafeteria. One grabbed his shirt. Another raised a fist.
But Kai was no longer the same kid they used to push around.
As the fist flew forward, time slowed.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
He saw the movement like frames in a film, clear and separate. A golden thread spun beside him, wrapping around his neck like a scarf. His eyes glowed faintly.
And he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He ducked, grabbed the attacker's wrist, twisted—and suddenly, the bully was on the ground, groaning in pain.
The other two froze.
Kai didn't say a word. He didn't have to.
He walked past them, the golden thread uncoiling slowly from his body, flickering like a dying flame.
That night, he sat on the roof of his house, staring at the stars.
"What is this power…?" he whispered.
Behind him, a voice answered.
"It's not power. It's truth."
He spun around.
Amara stood there, hands in her jacket pockets, a soft smile on her lips.
"You've Awakened," she said. "Welcome to the world behind the world."
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