The July humidity of 2016 clung to me like a damp shroud. From the street, the world sounded obsessed with the trivial—the hook of a Drake song drifting from a passing car, the glowing screens of people chasing digital creatures, the mindless chatter of a summer Friday.
I sat in my room, encased in the sound of my headphones.
I was sixteen, i was an ordinary boy with dark blue hair and black eyes i played video games and hung out with friends i was normal, completely unaware that the five-century-old seal on my blood was about to fracture.
Then the vibration started. I could feel the vibration, in my bones.
It wasn't the erratic shudder of a tectonic shift.
I felt the thud. The thud was steady and heavy a pulse that passed my ears and struck my soul.
Thump. Thump.
I ripped my headphones off. The air in the hallway felt thick, charged with an oily, suffocating pressure.
I scrambled toward the stairs. I felt my heart pounding a beat, against my ribs.
"Mom? Hana?"
I reached the landing. The landing made me freeze.
The reality I knew had been peeled back to reveal something rotting.
Standing in the center of our shattered living room was a creature of nightmare—a Mirage.
The creature stood eight feet tall. The creature was a shape of moving shadows and cruel hate. The creature's eyes were two pits of yellow. The creature stared at the woman trembling on the floor.
"Mom!" I shouted, my voice turned into a strangled gasp.
Driven by a desperate, primal frenzy, my mother lunged at the beast.
It was a futile gesture.
I saw the Beast move with a grace. The Mirage backhanded the opponent with a force that went beyond physics.
I watched, frozen as someone flung she across the room, like a doll. She hit the wall with the wet thud.
The monster didn't linger.
I watched the gaze. The predatory gaze turned toward the playpen.
Hana.
She was one year old—a bundle of white cloth and confused cries. I saw the Beast reach down with fingers. I saw the Beast lift the one year child into the air.
"NO!" The scream rang out finally finding the legs and the legs rushed down the steps.
I was too late.
With a guttural sound that resembled a laugh, the Beast tossed my sister into its cavernous maw.
I heard a harsh crunch echo through the house. The sound told me about a life that ended before the life began. The sound felt like a loss.
I watched the monster step. The monsters heavy cloven foot came down onto my mother's chest while my mother lay broken, on the floor.
In that moment the thing, inside me did not just break. The thing, inside me went through a change. I could feel the change shaking my body.
The King's Dominion, a divine spark dormant for five hundred years, felt the catalyst of my absolute despair.
I knew the thing was not a gift. I knew the thing was a curse that demanded a price.
"I'll kill you," I whispered.
My eyes bled into a void-like blackness, then ignited with a crimson glow.
I will not stop. I will tear you apart!
I threw myself at the beast, driven by a killing intent so potent the air around me began to warp.
The Beast swiped. The Beasts claws cut into my chest. I fell to the floor. My blood sprayed across the wreckage of my home.
I watched the blood stay on the surface. The blood did not soak into the wood.
As I lay there, the world slowed. I could feel the fluid in my veins—the warmth of it, the iron tang of it.
I felt my life force shift. My life force was not a life force any more. My life force became my domain. I saw the blood, on the floor start to vibrate. The blood rose in droplets that seemed to defy gravity. The droplets spun into a vortex, around my arm.
I saw the Beast pause. The Beast sensed a shift, in the order of power. The Beast was too late.
My willpower, forged in the furnace of trauma, took hold of the crimson tide.
I saw the blood thicken. I saw the blood harden into a ball that was deadly.
"Die."
A huge wave of blood—, like a cannon of metal—burst from my hand. I felt the blood surge in my arm. The blood hit the Beast with the force of a falling building. The pressure, from the blood broke the monster's body. In a flash the monster was gone. The monster turned into a mist of ash. The blood left a scent of my own sacrifice.
The house went silent.
I could only hear the chirp. The chirp was a Pokémon GO notification, from my discarded phone.
I stared at the spot where my family had been, my vision tunneling into darkness.
The Cannon drained me to the brink of death. My knees. My body fell into the pool I made and the front door splintered inward.
I felt my mind slipping. I saw a man, with hair like fire. The man had a scar, on his cheek.
I heard a voice mutter, from away. "He is awake." Squad 7 there is a type. Secure the boy.
My eyes close. The world of 2016 fades into a tinted oblivion.