Earth, Year 2430.
A young man stared into the night's darkness from his room's window in a daze.
Step! Step!
Suddenly, he heard the sound of soft footsteps coming towards his room and snapped back to his senses.
"Danny… Are you awake, honey?" A gentle voice softly asked.
'Sigh!' The young man, Dan, sighed inwardly upon hearing this.
It was his mother, Yuna, outside. He knew she was here to ask him to have dinner. However, he also knew that there was barely one and half portions of food left in the house.
If his father, Jack Brown, wasn't severely injured and needed enough nutrition to recover or at the very least remain stable, the three members of his family—His Father, Mother and he—could have had half a portion each.
Now, however, his father needed one full portion which left them with only half which would be barely enough to satiate one person's hunger.
Thus, even though he was hungry, he kept quiet, clearly intending to let her have it because unlike himself, she hadn't been eating much of anything at all for the past week and had become very weak.
He was worried that if she didn't eat today either, tomorrow, he might find her body cold.
There was silence for a few seconds. Just when he thought she would take the hint and go back and eat, the door to his room was pushed open.
"Come on, wake up, Honey. You can sleep after eating." Yuna called out as she walked over to Dan's cot in the faintly illuminated room.
Dan pursed his lips and stared at her thin figure, his heart churning with emotions.
'So this is what a mother is…?' The thought arose in his heart unbidden and immediately after, he felt at loss.
He had clearly felt the warmth, love and care of his father and mother all his life but ever since he woke up from the debilitating fever a week ago, he started finding even the ordinary things novel or strange. And many things which he had clearly experienced countless times felt foreign, for example, his mother's selfless love. On the other hand, some things which he had never seen or thought about… he started finding them familiar.
This was all too strange. Many times, he found himself wondering if he was no longer the Dan but someone else.
After wrestling with his mind for a week, he finally got himself together and reached one answer—he was still himself, but no longer was he the same. Something had changed. As for what it was or whether it was good or bad, he had no clue.
"Danny…" Seeing he didn't respond and had that lost expression on his face, Yuna grew worried, but before she could say anything, Dan sat up, looked her in the eyes and said, his voice firm, "Mom, I'll be fine if I don't eat, but you won't be. So, you go ahead and eat. Also, don't worry about food anymore. I've talked to Eric. For the next few days, he will bring us some food."
Tears welled up in Yuna's eyes when she heard him. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
"It's alright, Mom. Everything will be alright." Dan stood up and hugged her, comfortingly caressing her back. Once she calmed down, she left and Dan once again lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling.
"Hm?"
Before he could get lost in his thoughts, he once again heard his mother's footsteps. A few seconds later, she entered the room with a bowl.
"What are you doing, Mom? Didn't I say…" Dan frowned and began to say when Yuna cut him off, "I won't eat if you don't."
Sigh!
Dan stared at her and she stared back at him, her gaze firm. In the end, he sighed and sat up, "Alright. We'll both eat then."
Immediately, a brilliant smile appeared on Yuna's face. Then the mother and son ate together while talking about miscellaneous things which improved both their moods.
'Huh?' When Dan gulped down the last bite, his left eye stung which made him blink. Immediately, a small screen appeared in front of him which made his eyes go wide.
"What's wrong, Danny?" Yuna asked in concern.
Dan quickly gathered himself and shook his head, "Nothing Mom, I just remembered something."
Yuna stared at him for a moment before she nodded. After a short while, she left after wishing him a goodnight.
Now alone, Dan focused on the screen still hovering in front of him.
[Name: Dan Brown]
[Age: 17]
[Species: Human]
[Attributes] (Click to view)
[Vital Essence: 0.0001]
"What's this? My information?" Dan murmured while looking at the screen. Then, he clicked on the [Attributes] and immediately a smaller screen popped up.
[Strength: 6]
[Agility: 7]
[Endurance: 4]
[Vitality: 3]
[Spirit: 12]
[Note: 10 is the average of ordinary people.]
"I'm really weak." Dan pursed his lips upon scanning the first four attributes, especially Endurance and Vitality. However, he wasn't surprised because he had been seriously ill a week before and for the past week, he hadn't been getting proper nutrition.
His eyes trailed down to the last of the attributes, [Spirit], and he fell into thought.
'This must be because of my change.' He determined.
Then, he closed the attribute window and focused on the [Vital Essence]. His intuition told him this was the most important thing.
'It must have been zero earlier, but after I finished eating, it rose by a ten thousandth.' He thought and felt he was right about it because this window only appeared, or rather, was activated when he finished eating and got some Vital Essence.
However…
'If this window is related to my change, it should have appeared a week ago. Why didn't it activate when I ate previous times?' He fell in thought. However, without any knowledge of what this window might be, he couldn't make any guesses, so he stopped thinking about it after a moment and focused on the main thing.
Why did he feel this Vital Essence was very important?
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[Author's Note: Hello, I'm participating in the WSA2026 with this novel, The Gamebreaker.
I hope you would like it, if you do, please support it with Power Stones, Comments etc. Thank you!
Wish you a pleasant reading journey!]