ファースト×フェーズ
September 5th, 30XX.
Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep!
I groaned, that alarm continued to ring aloud in my room, face buried deep in my hands. Soon they slipped into my lap, eyes stared into the greige carpet floor. I repeatedly blinked to regain my vision, leaning back for a waking yawn.
I reached toward the intruding alarm, tapping it to cease its sound, only for it to fall off the nightstand and break into two pieces. "Ah… I'll get the warranty later."
Minor annoyance aside, at least the beeping finally stopped. Sluggishly I stood, slouching over as I dragged myself to the bathroom. I saw the mirror before me, taking a look at my rough appearance. A dark-skinned seventeen year old with a messy head of medium-width, chin-length black dreadlocks. Above average height at 187 centimeters, my eyes were a healthy green, sharing the hue of a rare four-leaf clover.
The sink was switched on, accidentally I splashed my face with hot water. Of course I recoiled in pain, stumbling back trying to regain my composure. While it woke me up, if only it weren't so agonizing. Having realized I hadn't eaten anything since waking up, I immediately raced to my kitchen across the hallway.
I lived in my own apartment, it wasn't big but it also wasn't small either. The essentials were there, a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room that hosted a $15,000 flat screen television I won from a lottery I didn't even enter. Its comfortability was its affordability, just right for a minimalist like myself.
"Let's see." I said to myself, opening up the cupboards in the kitchen scanning the contents to satisfy my hunger.
Nothing but canned foods apparently, I knew I should've gone grocery shopping yesterday, but my local store was struck by lightning after I searched for my apartment key for almost an hour.
The cupboards were closed, I proceeded to turn on my phone to look at the time being 6:20 AM. I remembered instantly, today was my first day of school. With time fleeing I opted for a simpler meal, a slice of bread was grabbed then I placed it in the toaster. I set the knob to two minutes, yet even I knew what the result would be. The toaster sparked, much to my annoyance, it was already malfunctioning again.
Walking away I snapped my fingers, on cue the now toasted bread flung into my hand flawlessly like it was routine.
"Of course." I nonchalantly said, it perfectly toasted with no room for error.
I decided to spread a good amount of strawberry jam on its surface, then inserted half in my mouth.
(This'll have to do.) I thought.
I hurried out after grabbing my belongings, heading to my balcony bearing witness to the busy view of Brooklyn. I stepped up to the gray bar on the balcony, in a squatted sitting with the toast remaining in my mouth. I could feel the warm breeze blow my hair, letting myself be present in the current moment. My apartment was on the seventh floor of a twelve story building.
My feet were carefully pressed down, carefully I braced myself. I quickly leaped from my balcony and soared some feet from the balcony, sticking a perfect landing with just a slight skid. As dangerous as this could be, I was used to jumping the height since I moved in a year or so ago. I walked the long sidewalk with my hands strapped to my backpack, a small yawn escaped my lips.
I crossed the supposed empty road, thinking nothing of it. My ears were suddenly ambushed by the piercing sound of rubber that tore through the road. My head snapped to my left, spotting a large white semi truck speeding in my direction. I couldn't make out the driver, but they must've been frightened due to how frantic the vehicle was moving. For every registered thought made the truck was closer and closer, I merely stood in place.
"Huh."
Through a sudden occurrence, before the truck could smash into my body and thus end my life instantaneously, it managed to somehow fly over me with three flips in succession. A quaking crash was felt beneath me, without any bothersome explosions however. It slid after the troubling landing on its side, the driver door immediately opening to reveal a climbing middle aged white man with his hat caught ablaze.
"Hey, kid! Your parents teach you to look both ways before you cross the street?!" He yelled at me.
"..." I didn't respond.
"HEY! I'M TALKING TO YOU!"
I blinked twice and zoned out.
"Eh?" I faced him with my mouth still stuffed. I think he said something about my parents.
"... No." I don't recall being told to look both ways, I looked down instead.
"SO THEY RAISED A LITTLE SHIT IS THAT IT? I COULD'VE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU'RE LUCKY I DIDN'T TURN YOU INTO ROADKILL!" His face was visibly red.
"Well. You didn't." I finally removed the toast from my mouth, I spoke aloud for him to hear.
"YOU… YOU…"
"Your head's on fire, by the way."
The man patted his head, immediately the fiery pain was felt after touching the small flame and began to panic into an incomprehensible shriek.
"He'll be fine."
I kept to myself then left the crash site and his profanities were drowned out. I was sure he called me an extremely inappropriate name. I put the toast back in my mouth, blinking as I continued the path.
From afar I could see the busyness that was the greater city, people littered the streets like scattered bugs that tended their own schedule. I was no different of course, I had to go to school. I stepped on the sidewalk, minding my business as usual.
Soon a collective of gasps filled the area, numerous strangers paused upon seeing an intruding figure dash at full speed. It was a masked man in a black trench coat being chased by three police officers, the man running and jumping off buildings as if he were a performer.
"Stop! Call backup!" One of the officers called.
"Watch out! It's him!" A male voice yelled.
"I thought they caught him already!" A woman cried out.
The public fled as fast as they could, leaving only me turned around to witness the chase.
"Uh…" I was confused, again.
"Why are ya standin' there kid, Crawler's back!" A heavyset man called out to me, running past.
"W-Wait!" I reached my hand out, luckily it got his attention.
"Who's Crawler…?"
"You don't check the news do you? He's a serial killer!"
"Ah…"
Before I could ask, he left. Was this guy really that bad? People were beginning to stare at me thinking I was a suicidal idiot.
The masked man landed, revealing two knives from his coat pockets, he raced toward me. How shameless, he cared so little he was willing to shank someone in broad daylight. Of course, with my luck, I was his target.
The masked man picked up speed, readying to definitely stab me in the jugular. Right when he was about to impale me with his sharpened blades, his shoes suddenly came untied. In the midst of his falling I raised my hand up, chopping him in the neck and made him he fall on his face.
He smashed his face on the hard concrete, the mask cracked and shattered. I crouched in a low squat, patting his head so he didn't feel as bad.
"So you got the Wallcraw Inheritant, you'd do better in the circus if you weren't a criminal."
The now maskless man sobbed, he refused to show his face.
"... Okay, this is getting embarrassing." I stood up.
"Thank you for catching him sir, he's been on the run for months!" One of the officers thanked me as he handcuffed the defeated man. "How do we repay you-" I left.
"No thanks." I always avoided the police no matter what. I've had too many unfortunate run-ins with them to be on good terms, besides, I was on my way to school anyway. I didn't look back, it was said and done.
Eventually I walked to a bus stop, there I sat and stretched my entire body. That was a lot of walking, so sitting for a while wouldn't kill me. I leaned back and looked up at the bright, sunny sky. My eyes progressively got heavy, soon I went into sleep mode.
"HEY! HEY ZEN!" A random voice cried out my name. Well, not so random, I instantly knew who it was. My head instinctively arose and panned to my right.
A curly orange haired Caucasian boy with glasses was running to my direction, right hand frantically waving all suited with a face of joy as he saw me.
Oh, that's—
On cue, the boy tripped on air and fell flat on his face. His glasses went flying, but I managed to nonchalantly catch them with one hand. How lucky.
He slowly got up, though he stumbled a bit.
"You drop these, Julius?" I handed the glasses to him, even luckier they weren't harmed. That was his name, Julius Prince, my childhood friend… and my only friend for that matter. We were friends for as long as I could remember the first time I started consciously breathing, everything related to my past drew blanks except for him being there for me.
"T-Thanks…" Julius gratefully took back his glasses, putting them on adjusting them. Now he was complete. His outfit was simple, short sleeve striped T-shirt with two varied shades of purple on top of a dark gray long sleeve shirt, slightly baggy light blue jeans and all white sneakers, finally a silver Star of David necklace to tie it all together.
"Careful J. You get enough migraines already, don't want you dying on me now."
"I don't get them AS easily, I've been working on my telekinesis all summer!"
"So that's why I barely saw you?"
Julius was born with the Telekinetic Inheritance, being able to move virtually anyone or anything with just his mind alone. As literally mind-blowing as this could be, fate pulled a cruel trick on him and too gave him the condition of chronic headaches and migraines. While it doesn't stop him persay, overuse of the power already gives him strains to his brain, and it only doubled to where he's needed medication since he unlocked his Inheritance. Despite the hurdles placed in front of him though, Julius never let his limits define him, which I always respected.
"You say it like we never hung out this summer, I only took a few days off!"
"When you're with someone all the time it's easy to tell whenever they aren't there."
"You got that right."
Without saying a word, we instinctively fist bumped.
"Lemme guess, you going to Shine High too?"
"Yeah, I was surprised I passed the entrance exam myself… they said my telekinesis was impressive and my paper was expertly written. What did you do for yours?"
"I exceeded their expectations. First I wrote a digestive history on Inheritances, then I did the Inheritance exam… and that was the hardest."
To enroll in Shine High, all students needed to complete and pass their entrance exam. It was flexible, one could do either two aforementioned in any order they chose, they'd just needed to pass them to be considered. The higher-ups were testing these students based off two categories, academically and their ability to use their Inheritance. They were lenient on letting some students get on by with low scores on the Inheritance exam out of sheer potential, but scoring any lower than a 90% on the written portion resulted in immediate disqualification.
"Really? I did mine in the opposite order…" Julius scratched his head.
"The written part was easy, just butter them up with a history lesson and all, talk about humanity's will to evolve— yadda yadda leave out some wars, school controversies, annnnnd you got your passing grade with flashing colors." I shrugged the explanation off, doing research the month prior so many students before me did the same and they never once cared. As long as they could post them on the curriculum's refrigerator out of pride for sweeping things under the rug, they'd let anyone get in for good media press.
"Ah… so how was the Inheritant portion hard for you?"
"Well, I don't have an Inheritance I can just show off like anyone else's. My luck can't be switched on and off, it's always on no matter what."
"Yeah… I know that much."
"They had me do a lot of challenges centered around chance, a few I almost failed."
"How?"
"I had to tell them it wasn't just good luck, but that things could go equally as bad for me. I think one of the judges laughed… not that it matters, I'm in."
"That's Zen I guess, you always find a way. So when is our bus supposed to get here anyway?"
Right when Julius asked me, a beam of light sped towards us and solidified into a large burgundy bus twice the size of a regular school bus. Its doors automatically opened to no driver in the seat, it has its own sentience of artificial intelligence.
"H-Hey! Aren't these the warp cars that only billionaires have?!" Julius frantically pointed at the bus, pure shock on his face. I couldn't blame him, we only recently got flying cars for millionaires a couple hundred years ago. I only saw two in person, and one of them was stolen.
"Yeah. But Shine High has access to all the new stuff, y'know?"
"Makes sense…"
Julius and I walked the steps in the bus, there we saw it was already crowded with our would-be classmates. Everyone was talking and screaming at once, if you weren't involved in a conversation everything came out as incomprehensible noise to you. No matter how advanced things got, the one thing that always stayed the same were teenagers on a school bus.
"Please take your seats."
A clear feminine voice came from one of the speakers, it was the bus itself talking to us.
"'Kay." I said nonchalantly, walking down the row.
"You sure there's even one seat left?" Julius anxiously asked, trying to maneuver around the sea of students while I had no problem doing so.
"Yeah. I heard they don't send out new buses unless the ones they already have are full, guess we got lucky."
"Looks like you came prepared for this place, huh?"
"Haha. What's gotten into you? It's usually you doing the research and I'm asking you this kind of stuff, you were so caught up on your Inheritance you forgot to read up!"
I squinted my eyes, seeing two open seats together in the far back.
"Hey. I see some over there, to the right."
"Alright!"
We made our way to back, we were just a row before the complete end of the bus, I sat first then Julius followed and he sat near the window on his side.
"Capacity has been reached… next destination, Shine High."
An uproar of cheers were heard upon the announcement, some were more animated than others though. I leaned back with a relieved sigh, glad that my unpredictable morning had come to an end.
"I think I'm gonna nap. Wake me up when we're there." I asked Julius, immediately shutting my eyes closed.
"Sure… but I've never been in one of these warp cars before what's it like—WHUAAAAAAAA!!!" Julius' question abruptly ended in fear as the bus took off, launching forward in light speeds as his face stuck to the window.
Seeing a warp car was one thing, but being in one was completely different. They were out of convenience for transportation to get to one's destination in little time, its convenience came from being able to take you anywhere in no time. It did this by entering a specific "warp zone", the zone mirrored any area of the real world with the difference being only authorized cars were allowed in the warp zone.
These were not commonly used so we were currently the only ones in here, crashes were minimized if not impossible with this new mode of travel. Interestingly, warp cars were change the perception of anyone that was in them. While we were going at the speed of light, the drive itself felt like it took only five minutes in total meaning Julius was screaming for just as long. He wasn't the only one though, so were most students with the exception of a handful including myself.
Finally the bus stopped in its tracks near a giant gate consistent with a large crowd, Julius fell out of his seat and everyone simultaneously went quiet as well.
"Destination found, welcome to Shine High dear students. Let the beginning of your new school year be one to remember." The bus kindly said.
"Nice, we're here. Let's go J."
I stood up, walking out with everyone else as Julius laid flat on his face, weakly getting up and following me out the bus. After everyone got off the bus sped off into the distance, unable to be seen.
The one thing that separated us from the school was a wide gate holding off at least a thousand students, things weren't opened just yet.
"It's… way bigger in person." Said Julius.
"Some people go their whole lives without seeing this place, and we haven't even walked in yet."
"What do you think they have?"
"No idea… we'll see what they got for us."
"Attention, everyone! Please, may I have your attention?" an authoritative voice alerted everyone, ceasing chat from the students. We all looked, the voice was loud but no origin could be made.
An American bald eagle landed on the gate, flapping its wings. It wasn't a typical bald eagle however, it wore a golden Great Seal of the United States necklace around its neck, uncommon blue eyes, and reddish brown feathers.
"Up here, you all!"
A plethora of confused sounds left us, what was this bird doing here?
"As you all may know, the bald eagle is what represents America! But not just that, I've come to announce I will also be administrating Shine High as your principal!"
"Well why don'tcha become our President while you're at it?" I sarcastically whispered.
Like the bird said, the bald eagle had always been associated with the United States since the beginning. This one in particular was special, being the only known animal born an Inheritant, having the absurdly rare Communication Inheritance that allowed him to speak any man-made language. No one knew how this was possible, some theorized he was a lab experiment, others figured he was a genetic outlier.
I was more inclined to believe the latter, anyway. Funnily enough, despite his position, the other students looked to be more annoyed by his presence if anything.
"For now on, I'd appreciate my dear students to now address me as Mr. Eegul. E-E-G-U-L."
His name was just eagle spelled wrong? Oh boy.
"... Without further ado, the gates of opportunity have been opened! Enjoy your stay in the world's most prestigious school!"
As he said so, the gates opened themselves. The students had to wait no more, this was where our new life was headed.
"You ready, Julius?"
"Yeah, just a little nervous… but I'm ready."
"Let's go." We both said in unison.
Like the rest, we walked the path of our future…
