Chapter 1: Beginnings

In a lone alleyway, there was a small opening that was just large enough for someone to barely squeeze through, leading to an open, underground space. In fact, these openings were scattered all throughout the slums in many alleyways, but not a single person inhabited them, despite the conditions of the surface above. Well, all but one, single child.

Next to a wall, a small child sat with his knees to his face. He had his face buried in his thighs, with an endless stream of tears rolling down from them. To keep himself from feeling despair, he kept repeating the same words over and over again: "I will survive. I will survive. I will survive. No matter how hard it is, I will survive. I must survive. I will survive..."

As the child kept muttering this, he slowly fell asleep, dozing off into a land much safer than the one he was currently in.

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Isaac Elrod awoke in a cold sweat. "Haah, haah..." He panted, holding his chest tightly. Then, he frantically looked around and saw that he was in his warm, comfortable room. Across from his bed, he saw the many documents he had scattered the night prior on his table, which was a simple wooden desk. It had a small opening for a chair, two drawers on the right side of the opening, and a relatively large, flat space on the top.

He also saw his bland, beige wallpaper surrounding him, as well a small table sitting right next to his bed, with a lamp resting on top of it. Turning left, he saw his slightly opened closet door, through which he could see his sets of clothes, shirts ranging from tank-tops to full sleeves organized based on their sleeve size, as well as a few bundles of shorts and pants.

After making sure he was still in his room, which was filled with bright, golden rays of sunlight, Isaac took a few seconds to calm himself down before sitting up on his bed.

"What was that?" He muttered as he thought to himself. He knew that there was no way it was just an ordinary dream. No. The dream he just was far too realistic to be normal.

The smell of the wet dirt, the anxiety caused by the possibility of the ceiling falling on top of him at any second, the blisters on his feet from having to run through the rough terrain of the slums he lived in, the feeling of loneliness and helplessness that came from being all alone in the cold of the night, not knowing if he would live the next day. These feelings aren't feelings that could be faked.

'But if it's not just a normal dream, then what is it?' Isaac thought about the possibilities as to what the dream he had could be. 'Could it be my kinesis awakening early?'

But before Isaac could think about it any deeper, he felt as if his head had cracked open. He yelped from the excruciating pain as he curled up into a ball and clenched his eyes closed. Although the pain felt unbearable to Isaac, he could feel another sensation.

He felt as if something was being sculpted into his brain, some mysterious sentences. He felt every line in every letter, and every letter in every word, slowly being carved into his head. Although he couldn't quite make out what they spelled out, every one of his senses were telling him that these texts were something incredibly profound and mysterious, something he wasn't yet ready to come into contact with.

After writhing in pain for what felt like an eternity, Isaac slowly opened his eyes. The agonizing pain that was present just a few moments ago had completely faded away, but the strange writings that were ingrained into his brain remained.

Isaac, who was covered in sweat from the pain, just laid flat on his bed for a few seconds, panting heavily. Currently, Isaac was trying to process everything that had just happened. Up until now, Isaac's life was more or less normal.

"A dream about being an orphan...What a great way to start my day." Isaac mumbled sarcastically. "And not to mention the feeling of having words be inscribed into your brain...well, let's at least see what these texts are."

Deciding his next course of action, Isaac tried to comprehend the strange writings carved into his head to make at least a little sense about his current situation. Without anything else to base his thoughts off of, he could only search for clues in the texts.

However, when he tried to think about them, he realized that he couldn't. Although Isaac could feel the writings existing in his head, whenever he thought about the writing seriously, his thoughts get...cloudy, and he could no longer focus on them.

After trying for a few more minutes, Isaac dejectedly gave up and sighed. "I guess there's nothing I can do about this right now..."

Without any proper leads as to what his mysterious dream, as well as the text ingrained in his head, was, Isaac decided to worry about his other problem: his complete lack of knowledge on this world. In fact, he doesn't even know the basic table manners of this world, much less its norm. For all he knows, realistic dreams and having text imprinted into heads happens to everyone here.

And this isn't because Isaac was a shut in or anything. It's because Isaac isn't even from this world! In fact, he's from a completely different world called Earth, a world where mystical powers and ferocious monsters were nothing more than a figment of people's imagination, locked away behind the shackles of reality.

'If only that was the case in this world.' Isaac lamented with a sigh. But no, this world was completely different. Isaac noticed this almost the exact second he was sent into his current body due to the cracked sky. Quite literally.

In this world, cracks appeared in the sky one day, At first, they seemed harmless, but everything changed when the first piece of the sky fell off. This formed a hole, and from this hole, monsters popped out. These monsters ran rampant until a group of people called Psykers stepped in, using a strange and almost magical power called a kinesis to fend off these monsters.

As time went on, these holes in the sky continued appearing. However, the situation had already been stabilized by the many Psykers who taught the world about the power of kinesis, leading to the rise of more Psykers, forming a strong army that could contend with the influx of monsters.

Isaac also learned that everyone in this world possessed a kinesis, and that they awaken it when they turn 16. As it just so happened to turn out, Isaac was turning 16 today, and this made him nervous. From what he had heard, having a bad kinesis was basically a ticket to poverty.

Isaac knew his information was most likely correct because he had heard all of this from Psykers, who had come by yesterday to debrief him on the awakening process as well as a little bit of a history lesson on kinesis powers.

Of course, this is an incredibly bare-bones explanation of it, but that's all the information Isaac had managed to gather, especially since he had only transmigrated into this world a bit more than a day ago.

The more Isaac thought about it, the more he felt that his situation was truly unfortunate. After all, he never asked to be transmigrated into this strange world, nor did he ask for writing to be written on his brain. 'I guess life doesn't really care about what I ask for anyway...' Isaac thought as his thoughts drifted towards his life on Earth.

'Well, no point thinking about the past. Might as well try to live an ordinary life here at least. Who knows? Maybe this is just life's way of apologizing for the life I've had to lead so far.' Isaac just shrugged as he got out of his bed and took a glance at his phone to check his notifications and whatever other notifications he had.

8:30 AM - June 2nd, 2024

[One new Message - Levin]

Seeing a message on his phone, Isaac opened it and quickly read through it.

[Yo what's up bro? It's your bud, Levin! Although I guess you already knew that since it shows my name when you receive the message haha. Well anyway, it's your birthday today, isn't it? Happy birthday bro! Sorry I wasn't able to make it in person, but you know how it is. Ever since the kinesis I awakened turned out to be a bit overpowered, I've been treated as the hero of humanity. Well, what can you do, I guess. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility haha.

But enough about me. How have you been lately? Hope you've gotten over it. Listen man, what happened to them? It's not your fault. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't keep beating yourself over it. It's been over 6 months...you can't keep thinking about it. You gotta move on bro, live your own life or whatever, you know? Especially today! It's your big day man, you finally awaken your kinesis today! Good luck, and I hope you get better!

Your only friend (like seriously bro, you need to start making more friends, I can't keep taking care of you by myself), Levin.]

As Isaac read through the message, a smile slowly creeped onto his face. One thing that Isaac felt was a bit annoying about his transmigration is the fact that he didn't get any of the original Isaac's memories when he did. He only got hiss feelings. However, from hiss feelings, he could tell that this Levin guy was someone he respected, and someone he felt was a true friend. From this message, Isaac could easily understand why.

'It must be nice, having a friend that cherishes you like this.' Isaac sighed as he read through the message, fully feeling the worry of its sender. However, he wasn't planning on sending a response. After all, the one Levin was worried about was the original Isaac, not him.

With that thought, Isaac moved on to a more pressing matter: awakening his kinesis.

"They said they'd come by to pick me up at 9? Alright, lets get prepared then." Isaac stepped out of his room as he started preparing for the day. The Psykers who had come by the day prior mentioned that they'd come pick him up at 9 in the morning for his awakening.

Adjacent to his bedroom door was the door to his bathroom, where he washed his face to fully wake himself up. Then, he went through the rest of his morning routine before taking another glance at his phone.

8:55 AM

'Hm, I should have enough time to eat an energy bar or something. Better hurry though, they'll be here any minute now.' With that, Isaac headed to the staircase in order to grab a quick yet filling snack before heading out to his awakening.

The stairway down was dark and gloomy, which directly contrasted the bright, golden rays filling the upper floor. As he slowly made his way down, he felt slightly melancholic. At first, Isaac had no idea why, but he soon realized that it was because of the influence of his body.

'This happened the other times I went downstairs too...why does this body feel so sad whenever I go down these stairs?' Isaac pondered as he made his way to the kitchen, which was similarly as eerie and dark as the stairs. However, when he reached his destination, he felt his body fill with goosebumps.

In front of him stood a man who was just about as tall as Isaac, wearing a business suit...except something was wrong. The man had no face. He didn't have a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears, nothing the area where his face should have been was just a blob of flesh. At that moment, Isaac knew that he had just encountered his very first monster.