Present Day....
"Shit!" he swore as he jerked awake from sleep. He was sweating profusely and his breathing was quick and heavy.
"It's just a fuckin' nightmare," Andrew cursed as he calmed down. He grabbed a bottle of water from the desk beside his bed and took huge gulps of it before placing it back.
Andrew lay back down on his narrow bed in his cramped apartment. The small room was submerged in darkness, except for the little lights that entered through his windows; they barely drove away the gloom that suffused the space.
It was one of those nights again; nights when he had these kinds of nightmares, a curse, he believed, had plagued him for as long as he could remember.
Andrew stared at his ceiling for a very long time, unable to fall asleep again after waking from the terrifying nightmare. His mind slowly plunged into the silence, but that silence only lasted a brief moment before voices inside his head began whispering to him.
Andrew sighed; a sigh that carried weariness and frustration. "I'm really not in the mood for this."
Knowing damn well that those voices wouldn't quiet down unless he found something to distract himself, Andrew reached for the desk beside his bed and grabbed his phone.
Scrolling through the net had long become a ritual: his escape, his habit, his numbing comfort when those voices echoed. The dim glow of his phone soon became the room's lone source of light, cutting through the thick shadows and slightly dispersing the gloom.
Andrew scrolled through the net, passing post after post. The distraction was as effective as always; the voices had already begun to fade. Andrew continued scrolling mindlessly until, suddenly, he came to a stop.
His thumb froze above the post. At first glance it seemed ordinary, yet the longer he watched it, the more strangely captivating it became: it was a slideshow about abilities.
For someone like Andrew—an individual desperate to forget the real world and obsessed with fantasy and fictitious scenarios—it was exactly the kind of distraction he welcomed.
< Regeneration
Flight
Summoning
Nullification
Absorption
Copycat
Shapeshifting
Adaptation
Self-Causality Manipulation
Enhancement
Pyrokinesis
Visionary
Rift
Clairvoyant
Negation
Remember: only two. Choose wisely, O Chosen One.>>
Andrew's brows narrowed, intrigued by what he was reading. Normally, this kind of post was just background noise in the virtual world where interesting contents were being posted every moment, but this time there was something intriguingly different about the post.
Maybe it was the way the poster made it seem less hypothetical and more like an actual offer of these so-called "abilities". That impression was notable because the post had already garnered so much engagement so quickly.
Eager to rush to the comments but not wanting to go there until he had a clear idea of what the post was about, Andrew swiped to the next slide. This slide detailed each ability's limitations:
< Regeneration — Requires conscious control.
Flight — No limitations.
Summoning — Must remain within reality's framework.
Nullification — Works only against abilities.
Absorption — Three uses only.
Copycat — 10% percent success rate.
Shapeshifting — Only into creatures at least 100kg heavier or 20kg lighter.
Adaptation — Unpredictable. Caution advised.
Self-Causality Manipulation — "The strings of fate begin to weave around you. How audacious you were to seek..."
Enhancement — "Remember your humanity."
Pyrokinesis — Range limited to one kilometre.
Visionary — Requires Self-Causality Manipulation.
Rift — 5% chance of failure.
Clairvoyant — Only fragmented glimpses of the future.
Negation — Cancels your other ability as well.
Choose with caution. The next slide contains the passive traits that come with each chosen individual.>>
Andrew's interest in the post grew, fed by the lack of sleep and desire to keep those voices mute.
And so, once more, Andrew sank deeper into fantasy, allowing that numbing comfort to suffuse his mind again, distracting him from every discomfort.
_< Fated — Fortune or misfortune. Both belong to you.
Random Increment (All Stats) — May be minor, may be drastic.
Random Increment (Reflexes) — May be minor, may be drastic.
Tailored Equipment — Crafted to aid your chosen powers.
Sacrifice — At the end, you will burn brighter than the sun.
Corruption — God's power invites God's madness.
Rebirth — One use.
Now, decide, Chosen One... The Horizon stares back at you.>>
'Interesting,' Andrew mused, massaging his temple. 'What's my choice? Decisions, decisions, decisions...'
For a moment, he even forgot it was a slideshow. The gravity of it drew him in. Why was he putting so much thought into a random slideshow of fantasy abilities? Normally, he wouldn't have cared enough to think about participating. Maybe he just wanted to take his mind off real-life matters... Maybe.
Still, after a brief moment of deliberation, he smirked. 'Why the hell am I stressing over this?'
He tapped the comments, eager to see others' opinions, something he greatly loved doing. Andrew could say quite confidently that the best part about viewing posts was the comments. Hundreds of them, paragraphs upon paragraphs of strangers arguing their case, dissecting combinations with the fervor of philosophers.
Andrew chuckled. "People and their endless opinions…"
_____
Finally, after scrolling long enough, Andrew sighed, typed his own answer, and sent it off. After that, he simply continued scrolling... like nothing had happened.
The hollow silence returned.
'I shouldn't have forgotten my headphones at work,' Andrew sighed inwardly, frustrated by the grating voices that were beginning to rise again.
Andrew found the silence uncomfortable. He rarely experienced it. Usually, he'd fill the unsettling whispers with music to keep "them" at bay, but his headphones were unfortunately at work.
While he was busy sighing and thinking about his headphones, his phone rang, pulling him out of thoughts that had already begun to wander beyond his headphones and were quickly plunging into maladaptive daydreaming.
He froze, staring at the unknown number; his silvery-grey pupils glinted in the phone's glow. His pale face and long grey hair lent him a ghostly aspect as his facial muscles contorted into a frown.
He was nineteen years old, a "nobody" who was nowhere in life, and yet someone was calling him at this hour: a shocking situation that seemed very suspicious.
He hesitated for a while, then decided to answer it. There was no need to overthink, he thought.
A voice thundered through the phone immediately, loud and too direct, searing into his thoughts.
"EVENING, DEAR CHOSEN. YOUR DECISION HAS BEEN SEEN AND HAS BEEN JUDGED. FROM THIS MOMENT, ANDREW STARFIELD, YOU BEAR THE MANTLE OF A GOD. REJOICE, FOR YOU ARE NO LONGER MORTAL!"
"Huh?" he responded, perplexed, after a short moment of silence.
There was more he could have said to express his confusion and surprise, but this was all he could utter.