Bleeeargh!
The young man hunched over the toilet, trying in vain to vomit up the contents of his stomach, which had been empty since last evening.
His insides burned, muscles spasmed intermittently, but his head felt the worst. It felt like it was being squeezed in a vise from both sides, with a drill boring down from the top. Through it all, he barely managed to hold onto the toilet to keep from collapsing onto the floor.
"Nikki, are you alright?" his mother's voice called.
"Yeah… I'm fine… don't need anything…" Nick managed.
He coughed a couple of times and struggled to his feet, realizing the nausea wouldn't pass easily.
Splashing his face and rinsing his mouth, the young man glanced at his reflection before shuffling back to his room and collapsing onto the bed.
He felt better today.
Yesterday, he seriously thought he might die. He'd barely resisted agreeing with his mother to call an ambulance. The family couldn't afford such expenses. Especially since the treatment needed would be specific, suited to the illness. If, of course, magical awakening counted as an illness.
Less than a week ago, the young man had Awakened.
He had waited for this for a very long time and was incredibly happy when he felt the streams of energy in his body. It was a very pleasant sensation, filling him with mysterious power. But just a couple of days later, strange things began to happen.
He was well aware that this wasn't typical; he hadn't heard of similar cases before, and all his Awakened acquaintances had naturally experienced improved health immediately after. But for Nikki… problems had begun.
Initially, he didn't know exactly what abilities had awakened in him. The next day at school, they performed a scan. It turned out his natural gift was related to the energetic data psychomatrix. It was a kind of informational environment connected to various types of communication, including the internet. Anyone with magical abilities could immerse their consciousness into it, which represented an interaction between the physical body and the informational field.
But people with abilities like his could not only enter it and interact according to the rules but also create their own rules. If an ordinary user was a player, then a person with his ability was a programmer.
People like him had learned to create special training simulators within the psychomatrix, which turned out to be in high demand among people with abilities. Hunters trained within the matrix, improving their abilities and even advancing in magical ranks. And although this system had only appeared a mere five years ago, it proved very popular, and the people creating such games came to be called Gamedesigners.
A funny word…
It stuck better than creator, maker, and the other terms they had intended to designate them with.
"Cough! Cough!" Nick hacked.
Coughing a couple of times, the youth nearly rattled his own brain, intensifying the pain. He had to grab his inhaler.
After using it, his lungs felt a bit better.
Bronchial asthma. A chronic illness that had plagued Nick since birth.
Because of it, he couldn't really participate in sports and constantly had to undergo not-so-cheap treatments, further burdening his family financially. His father worked from morning till night, almost without days off. His mother also spent most of her day at work, followed by household chores. His older sister had been away at college for a year now. Since she moved out, Nick had the room to himself. His parents had their own.
Living conditions were tough, but they could have been worse.
Not long ago, Nick had turned seventeen.
For all those seventeen years, he had dreamed of magical awakening. He waited for mana to fill his body so he could be cured of any illness. To become stronger and stop depending on expensive medications. To change himself and start earning well to take care of his family, who had been breaking their backs for him all these years.
And then… this.
He was lucky he hadn't died.
The other thing was surprising.
After awakening, he started seeing strange images. So detailed and unusual, he could never have imagined them himself.
At some point, it became incredibly realistic, as if another person's memory was being poured into his head. Almost all the information concerned games. All of it was accompanied by the emotions of the person who had played them. Nick felt joy, admiration, and a nostalgic warmth for things he was seeing for the first time in his life.
He couldn't find a logical explanation but decided it was the knowledge of another person from another world. Or maybe even… their soul…
Nick allowed this information to fill his own consciousness. It was very interesting. It was like watching movies, reading books… but these were games. He played them… or rather, he remembered playing them.
Everything was fine, but…
Quite unexpectedly, he noticed that along with the information about games, other memories began to appear. Not just about games. Images of people, events, and more personal moments from another person's life started surfacing in his mind.
To Nick's horror, they began to supplant his own.
He almost forgot his parents' names.
The alien consciousness was trying to overwrite his own. Another soul was seizing his body. His memory was being erased, replaced by a new one.
That's when Nick started to resist. With all his will, he fought against the foreign consciousness. This led to a struggle and plunged him into agony.
Nick would win.
He wouldn't let his body be stolen.
But the fight had been incredibly painful. So much so that he still hadn't fully recovered.
The young man curled up on the bed in a fetal position, trying somehow to distract himself from the pain.
The knowledge about games from another world was still with him. Recorded in the back of his mind, still evoking a pleasant warmth, it allowed him to forget his current state, at least for a little while.
…
Waking up in the morning, Nicholas Mor, or Nikki, as his family called him, felt that only a faint headache remained from yesterday's wretched condition.
Nick, as he referred to himself, went to the bathroom and took a shower.
He had to wash quickly to avoid wasting water unnecessarily. But he didn't want to go to school sweaty and smelly after being sick.
"Nikki, are you awake? Feeling okay?" his mom asked.
"Everything's fine, Mom. I'm better. It was probably something to do with the awakening, but it passed. I'm going to school," Nick replied.
Breakfast was porridge and bread.
The two most common and cheapest products. The government grew grains in large quantities, making them accessible to everyone. Essentially, it was food for the poor.
Mom placed another plate in front of Nick, this one containing a salad.
Nick was surprised.
Of course, greens were also a common product. Without the fiber contained in greens, the human body couldn't cope. The green leaves looked ordinary, as always. What surprised the young man was something else. Red slices of tomato.
"Mom. You shouldn't have spent the money," Nick said.
"Your health is more important than anything. Finish eating and head out. You need to catch up with the others; you've missed two days," Mom replied.
Nick ate everything, although the lingering feeling of malaise still suppressed his appetite.
Thanking his mom for the food, Nikki got ready and left for school.
He exited the apartment and walked down a stone corridor lined with dozens of identical doors. At the entrance to the floor, he passed a massive door with a sturdy mechanism capable of sealing the floor in less than twenty seconds. A similar door secured the entrance to the building.
Stepping outside, one could see a large, grey apartment building. Completely featureless, but reliable. The narrow doors didn't hinder people. There were no overweight people among the poor. But against monsters, it was an effective measure. Many beasts could be quite large. If they broke into this part of the city, people could take shelter in such buildings behind secure doors. The ventilation was equipped with grates and could also be blocked. And if something did break inside, it would be constrained by the narrow passages.
Furthermore, the stone structure served as fire protection. Such a building would never burn down completely, even if the fire suppression system failed.
Nick always felt oppressed by these walls. It felt good to be outside.
He quickly reached the bus stop, where the bus was due any minute.
There weren't many people inside. Most adults left for work earlier than Nikki got up. For the same reason, the streets were also not crowded.
Taking an empty seat, Nick stared out the window.
Unfortunately for him, the young man got the left side of the bus. It currently faced the slums and the wall surrounding the city.
The wall was forty meters high. Wide, sturdy, with watchtowers equipped with automated turrets, as well as a dozen bastions along its entire perimeter. The last line of defense against the outside environment filled with numerous horrific creatures.
Although… there was one more line of defense. The slums.
The government had run water pipes and cables there. Even the poor had access to water and electricity. They were also given food at distribution points. Even those who didn't work received their rations.
It was the government's peculiar payment for them living by the wall.
If the monsters broke through, these people would be the first attacked.
Artillery and magic strikes would also land here. For this reason, all the houses were assembled from a special type of plastic. It didn't burn but melted. This was also fire protection, so the slums wouldn't burn down. But when monsters invaded, the entire area would be engulfed in fire. The plastic would melt and turn into a sticky mass. Those monsters that survived the impact and flames would literally get stuck, slowing their movements. Then they could be hit again.
And people lived here, having little choice.
None of them had magical abilities, although who knew…
Nick looked at it all and understood that one day, he himself could end up here. His parents weren't getting any younger. His sister had her own life; she'd be lucky if she found a good man and married him. But Nick, with his health, could truly become a resident of the plastic houses.
To prevent that, he needed to study. Regardless of his weak health or the difficulties of studying.
The magical awakening hadn't been the panacea he had so hoped for…
Glancing to the right, behind the roofs of the grey multi-story buildings, he saw the gleaming windows of very tall structures far ahead. Entirely different people lived there. Among them were many Awakened. Hunters, officers, independent workers, businessmen, politicians – people whose lives were better than Nikki's and his family's. Much better.
And it wasn't just about wealth.
Magical power, in essence, had a beneficial effect on the body, so such people aged slower, lived longer, possessed strength, and were generally better in every way. While people like those riding the bus with Nick came and went. They were like expendable material.
It wasn't always like this. The world wasn't always this way.
Closing his eyes, the young man recalled his history lessons. It was amusing to compare it with the information from the stranger who had almost taken over his body.
At the end of the twentieth century, in the early nineties, a mysterious energy began to appear in the world.
Some called it magic, others spiritual power, and some psionic energy. The name didn't matter; what mattered was that the world began to change. Not only humans but also animals felt it. Nature changed. Science took a new turn. But despite all this… inevitable conflicts began.
Nations fled from mutated beasts; others tried to protect their homes from both mutants and other humans. Borders fell. Governments too.
One day, a virus mutated that began turning people into zombies. Even the dead rose under its influence. But even that wasn't the most terrifying part.
It turned out that magical energy could saturate bodies and change them so much that weapons became useless. Tough skin, hides, scales, plus regenerative abilities that healed any wounds. The higher the monster's rank, the more useless conventional weaponry became.
But magical abilities worked flawlessly.
A limb severed by air magic didn't grow back. A bullet made of magical iron pierced a beast's skull. Magical fire burned plants against which napalm proved useless.
This was especially noticeable against hordes of zombies, which gradually mutated into increasingly dangerous creatures.
The Earth's population shrank from six billion to less than one billion.
People managed to take refuge in fortified settlements. Most people lived in cities. Like this one, for example.
Edmonton.
Nicholas Mor's hometown.
Actually, this city was considered relatively small, especially compared to megacities.
One and a half million people lived here. Not counting several settlements outside its borders, although they technically belonged to it.
People survived and even found advantages for themselves.
The number of those undergoing magical awakening increased year by year. But population growth was not so encouraging. Some cities experienced population decline or aging, with fewer young people than old ones.
The bus stopped, and Nikki got off.
A gust of wind invigorated the young man.
He was alive.
And he had Awakened.
Although he had dreamed of something completely different, even this wasn't bad.
Moreover, he had something that could loosely be called a trump card. Information about another world. Of course, it was limited to various games, but that wasn't bad at all.
Entering the school, Nikki mentally reviewed them. It lifted his spirits. Who knew, maybe a part of the other person's consciousness had remained in the young man's head after all?
Nick didn't have many good memories of his own, so he didn't mind, even if these new memories weren't his.