Year 2008.
There wasn't any particular problem with that year. Nothing wrong with the date either. The problem was that the world decided to fall apart that year.
To be more precise, the world became overrun by monsters, and humanity was forced into a desperate struggle for survival.
But what's with this heavy opening all of a sudden?
Admittedly, it's not the best way to start an introduction. Some might even call it cringe. I know, I know, it's a flawed introduction, but I'm a flawed individual. So it's only natural my introduction would be flawed too. Try not to judge me too harshly, alright?
Anyway, putting that aside, let me introduce myself.
My name is Dante Morvain, but my close buddies just call me Dante. I'm a 25-year-old guy with slightly above-average looks and hobbies that rarely involve stepping outside my comfort zone. As you might have guessed, I'm not officially employed in any capacity, and while I've occasionally thought about attending college, that's been well outside my budget.
I know this is not a good first impression but this is my life.
For that matter, nobody in the world could be called perfect so I wonder why I'm putting this much effort into something trivial like a good first impression.
...Ahem. What was I saying? Let's continue from where I left off.
My parents and relatives... well, they weren't around for most of my life. To put it simply, I'm an orphan. From what I was told by the nuns back then, my so-called parents had dropped me in front of the orphanage gate one rainy night and never came back. There were no more or explanation. Only a soaked blanket and a baby who wouldn't stop crying.
Pretty dramatic, huh?
At least that's how the nuns liked to tell the story. Personally, I never cared much for the details. Whether they abandoned me because they couldn't afford me, or because they simply didn't want me, it didn't make much difference in the end.
Growing up in that orphanage wasn't all bad, though. The food was decent on good days, the beds were hard enough to straighten your spine, and the nuns were kind. Some of them, anyway. I learned early on that "faith" didn't fill an empty stomach, so I started doing small errands outside whenever I could. Deliveries, cleaning, odd jobs, you name it.
That's how I learned to survive.
Then, when I turned fifteen, the orphanage shut down. Not enough funding, they said. Not enough faith, I thought. From there, it was just me and the streets. Life wasn't kind, but it wasn't unbearable either. I got by, barely.
And then came the day everything changed.
The day the sky turned red, and the world began to scream.
That was the day the monsters came.
I remember that incident vividly. Consumed by terror, people ran without a sense of direction, buildings and structures crumbled, and the air was filled with the sound of screams and the stench of blood. There wasn't a single place on Earth untouched by those otherworldly creatures, and for a long time, nowhere was truly safe at all.
Governments tried to resist as they could, but their efforts were rewarded with senseless deaths. The monsters were immune to all man-made weaponry and machinery. In other words, it was a situation where one side could slaughter as many as they wished like an all-you-can-eat buffet , while humanity could do nothing but serve as their meal.
I gritted my teeth at the memory.
Those were the hardest times of my life.
Some people like to say that "life is nothing but a struggle," but they clearly have no idea what real suffering — or true misfortune —looks like.
Have you ever run because your life depended on it?
Have you ever watched everything you loved burn right before your eyes, knowing there was nothing you could do to stop it?
Have you ever felt the weight of a hundred screams behind you, praying you wouldn't be the next to join them?
Have you ever stolen scraps from a ruined convenience store just to stay alive?
Have you ever lied, deceived, or betrayed someone because survival left you no choice?
Have you ever been harassed by cruel, immoral thugs?
Have you ever been used as bait, thrown to the monsters so someone else could escape?
Have you ever eaten dirt?
Have you ever held a gun within your hands?
If you've done none of these things, then you have no right to say those words to me, not while you rest in your comfortable bed, inside your safe, warm home.
Who the hell do you think you are?
…Ugh.
Sorry about that. I tend to get a little grumpy whenever I think about the past. Anyway, let's just forget it.
As terrible as things were back then, the chaos didn't last forever. If it had, I wouldn't be sitting in this apartment right now, living without a constant sense of fear or danger.
Five years after the monsters descended and plunged the world into ruin — around the year 2013 — special individuals began to appear. They called themselves Awakened.
These people wielded powers beyond human comprehension. With those abilities, they fought back against the monstrous horde, pushing them to the brink and restoring a fragile sense of peace and order to our broken world.
They became the real-life heroes humanity had been praying for.
Following that event, humanity began to take back what was once lost. Cities were rebuilt, trade slowly resumed, and life, if you could call it that, started to resemble something close to normal again.
Of course, "normal" was a stretch. The world would never return to what it used to be. Every person alive had seen too much, lost too much. Even now, the scars of that era run deep, etched into our land, our minds, and our history.
Nonetheless, thanks to the Awakened, we survived.
Nations began establishing special organizations to manage them. Such groups were internationally called "Guilds" like in an RPG. These groups were responsible for hunting down monsters, maintaining order, and preventing humanity from repeating the same mistakes.
And for a while, it worked.
Humanity began to thrive again, adapting to this new age where strength determined status. People started idolizing the Awakened, treating them like celebrities or gods walking among men. Magazines, documentaries, even fan clubs, all centered around those who could destroy a monster with a single blow.
Do you know the greatest punchline among this?
I wasn't one of them.
I didn't awaken to any special ability, nor did I wield any mystical power. I was just another face in the crowd — one of the countless survivors scraping by in a world rebuilt from ashes and corpses.
After everything I went through — after every time I was beaten, stabbed, and shot; after every moment I was forced to crawl through the dirt just to stay alive — I thought it was only natural that I'd be rewarded for my suffering. That fate, for once, would show me mercy.
But life doesn't work that way.
If that was the case, then everyone would have been an Awakened.
No one knew the exact criteria for a person to awaken.
Only five years had passed since then, meaning the current year was 2018. On paper, that wasn't nearly enough time to properly analyze or understand the so-called "Mysterious Phenomenon." The Awakened themselves were shrouded in mysteries with powers and secrets that science had yet to decipher.
In the end, all I could do was continue living an ordinary life.
Maybe that was the root of my depression.
…Well, at least that's what my very vocal therapist kept insisting.
Ugh.
If only I had been one of them.
If only I had awakened —just once, even by accident — maybe things would've been different. Maybe I wouldn't be stuck in this suffocating way of life.
But "maybe" doesn't change anything. "Maybe" doesn't pay rent, or erase the memories that still haunt my dreams. It doesn't stop the world from reminding me every day that I'm powerless in a familiar yet uncanny place.
In a world full of monsters and heroes, I'm just another nobody.
…Or at least, that's what I thought.