Izumi jolted awake as water had been poured on him. He was soaked with sweat, and his heart pounded against his chest. For a moment, he was back in his apartment, and then the scent hit him, wrong for his apartment in every way damp rock and a metallic taste that curled his lip in disgust.
He sat up suddenly, which was the wrong move. Pain lanced through his entire being like a streak of lightning. His hands immediately went to the area the monster had struck him, and he expected to encounter. whatever. An open wound? But instead, he followed the outline of a thick scar that traveled across him. It felt like it was already months old, when in fact he'd been out for only God knows how long.
The area he was in was what looked like some dude's sorry excuse for camping. There was a thin bed, what looked like some sort of fire pit with cold ash, and the sound of dripping water nearby. He turned his head, noticing an underground stream running through the rocky wall, with water so clear he could see the bottom.
"That's when he noticed her."
There was a girl, around the same age perhaps, squatting beside the water as she was filling some sort of cup. She was wearing a silver-colored hairstyle; she was all bandaged up like a mummy. He could see the scars along her arms and face even from this distance. She was carrying a sword as well at least, what was left of one.
Izumi attempted to stand up, and he instantly was sorry for the action. A burning sensation shot through his legs, forcing him to cling to the wall to keep from collapsing. This noise made the girl look up.
The look on her face struck him. Disgust, as if she'd just discovered a dead rat in her meal. Her eyes were a sort of pale blue that seemed to see right through him.
"Hey," he says in a voice that sounds like a croak. "Where. Where are we? And thanks, I guess. For taking care of me."
With her mouth, she shouted a phrase consisting of a series of words that could easily be described as angry. Definitely not Japanese, definitely not English, and honestly, not anything he'd heard before. But she was definitely angry.
Izumi backed up, unable to use his legs either. "Whoa, okay, I don't know what I did but"
The girl cut him off with foreign cursing, then stood up and began stuffing things into a battered leather bag. She moved like she couldn't get away from him fast enough.
Just as she disappeared into what seemed like a tunnel that led further into whatever they were in, she turned back and tossed something at him. A rock-hard piece of bread, that bounced off his chest, hitting the ground beside him.
Then she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness, leaving Izumi alone with the sound of dripping water and his own breathing.
He picked up the bread and turned it over in his hands. It was stale but his stomach was cramping with hunger.
"Great," he muttered to himself, looking around at the empty campsite. "Just great."
Izumi sat there for what felt like forever, staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared. The silence pressed in, thick and alive, almost breathing with him. Water dripped somewhere, steady and loud, each drop slicing through the quiet. He tore off a bite of bread just to fill the emptiness in his stomach, but it was so dry it scraped his throat.
After a while, the exhaustion hit him again. His nerves still screamed, but the pain had dulled, fading until he barely felt real. He slumped down against a rock, let his arms fall, eyes half-open but seeing nothing. His thoughts bounced all over—flashes of that monster, Elena's face, that terrible smile, the wound meant to end him.
Then everything just went blank.
At some point, sleep pulled him under.
When he woke, the world had shifted. The fire ring was only a faint shadow now. His whole body felt stiff, and the scar on his side tingled, alive with something he couldn't name. The sound of water faded to a hush, but then—something else.
"Izumi."
He froze. That voice—steady, calm, painfully familiar.
He turned, slowly, toward the sound. The stream glimmered in the dark, green veins of light crawling along the cave walls. Nothing moved, but the air pressed heavier against his skin.
"Izumi…"
He forced himself to stand, every muscle telling him not too. Each step to the water's edge sent hot jolts of pain through his legs, but the voice kept calling, gentle, drawing him on. He crouched by the water, chest heaving.
His reflection stared back, wrong and hollow. Gaunt. Pale. Eyes sunken deep. And for a split second, his lips curled into a smile he didn't make. Then Elena's face floated up in the water—her old sadness looking back at him, just the way she used to before she died.
His throat clamped shut.
"Elena?" He barely managed the word. It sounded small, broken.
He blinked and she was gone. The water smoothed out, then shivered again, deeper this time. Something glowed underneath soft at first, then brighter, throbbing like a heartbeat. A tiny orb of light. And it called his name again.
"Izumi."
He couldn't fight the pull. It was like gravity, dragging him forward. He leaned in, forgetting the pain, and when the light vanished, he tipped straight into the water.
Cold ripped through him. The world spun, all shadows and brightness and nothing else. The orb glowed ahead, blazing now, nestled in the chest of a half-buried skeleton. Izumi reached out. His fingers brushed bone, then found the light.
Heat shot through him, wild and overwhelming, burning away everything—the water, the pain, the dark.
And then, just white. Nothing else.
"System Awakened"