The ride to the precinct blurred by in a haze of sirens, fog withdrawal, and raw exhaustion. He sat in the back of the unmarked vehicle, wrapped in a thin blanket someone had tossed over him, trying to ignore the way his hands still shook.
The city outside wasn't the same one he remembered—assuming he remembered it at all. Patrol cars raced past on every street. Helicopters thumped overhead. Roadblocks. Crowds. Panic.
Whatever was happening… it wasn't isolated.
By the time they reached the station—a fortified building with extra guards at the doors—his legs felt like sand. The agents guided him through bustling hallways filled with other dazed survivors, officers shouting about containment zones, and medics checking for "secondary awakenings."
Someone handed him water. Someone else took it away for fingerprinting. He was moved from room to room, questioned about symptoms, and then placed into a monitored room with a single table.
Six hours.
Six long, dragging hours.
They gave him food. More water. A blanket.They checked his vitals twice.They took a blood sample.A psychologist asked him what year it was.Another asked him to draw a clock.
He fell asleep twice in the metal chair.
By the time the door finally clicked open again, he was ready to collapse onto the table.
A woman stepped inside.
She wasn't like the others. No frantic energy, no hurried movements. Calm, composed. Dark red hair pinned neatly back, suit jacket sharp, ID clipped at the belt rather than displayed.
She closed the door softly before sitting down across from him.
"Obei Draven," she said—not as a question. As a certainty. Her voice was cool, steady. "My name is Agent Nicole Farrin. I'll be overseeing the remainder of your intake."
She set a thin folder on the table.
His name was printed across the top.
He felt a chill.
Nicole didn't open the folder. Didn't flip through it. She simply folded her hands over it.
"I've reviewed your initial statements from the hospital," she said. "As well as the eyewitness accounts of what happened in the corridor. You handled yourself better than most awakened Performers we've encountered so far."
Performers.
The word hit him like an echo of the holographic screen.
He cleared his throat. "I—I don't really know what that means."
"And I'm not going to overwhelm you with details until I'm sure you're stable enough to hear them," she said. "Right now, I need to establish basic facts."
Her tone softened—only slightly.
"Let's start simple. What do you remember about your life before the coma?"
He stiffened. The question sank into him like a cold hook."…Not much," he admitted. "It's all… blurred. foggy."
Nicole nodded "And your living situation?" she pressed, voice gentle but precise. "Where were you staying? Apartment? Campus housing? With family?"
He couldn't remember exactly where he came from "I remember… a care home? Maybe?"
Nicole didn't look surprised.
She made a small note on her pad, then asked:
"Any close friends? Anyone we should notify?"
He searched. Nothing. Faces slid away like reflections on water.
"No," he whispered. "No one."
Her eyes flicked briefly to the folder "All right."
Looking back up after a pause Nicole asked. "Marital status?"
He blinked at her. "What...? I'm eighteen."
"Stranger things have happened this week," she replied flatly, jotting another note.
Despite his fatigued body, he managed a weak laugh.
Nicole continued, unfazed. "Do you recall your education? Last school attended? Any job experience?"
Bits of memory bubbled up—half-formed, fragile.
"Tests. Books. A workshop… maybe physics? Or woodworking? I can't tell. It's all mixed."
She nodded. "Good. Even fragments help us assess cognitive stability."
"And what if my cognitive state isn't stable..." the worry carried through his voice as he asked.
Nicole's pen stopped mid-stroke.
For the first time since she entered the room, she let silence settle—not uncomfortable silence, but the kind she used before saying something that mattered.
"Obei," she said quietly, "I'm going to answer that honestly. Because you deserve honesty."
He exhaled shakily, bracing himself.
Nicole folded her hands together on the table. "People whose cognitive states are too unstable with the powers being as strong as they are, we can't safely release them into the public. Not yet."
His heart sank. "Meaning—?"
"They're sent to a rehabilitation facility," she said plainly. "A secure one.
"They're not prisons," she added. "They're treatment centers. Medical, behavioral, neurological. But…" She hesitated, choosing her words. "Some of the experiences people had in the coma were… vividly traumatic. More real to them than their actual lives."
"…like what?"
Nicole opened the folder just enough to slide out a page—she didn't show it to him, but her eyes scanned it briefly.
"One woman woke up screaming in Akkadian," she said. "She believed she was trapped in an ancient city, hiding beneath a collapsed shrine while soldiers searched for survivors to… finish off."
Obei's audibly gulped.
"Another man became violent when touched. In his Narrative he was a slave being transported across desert caravans. He thought we were handlers trying to chain him again."
"And those are the mild cases," she said softly.
Nicole lifted her gaze, steady and unwavering. "But you? Your memory loss—your amnesia—functions like an anchor."
"An anchor?"
"Yes. A stabilizer. You came back with a blank slate. No overlapping identities, no delusions bleeding through. That makes you easier to reorient. Easier to integrate into the real world again."
A newborn mind in a collapsing world. Obei had no idea whether to be horrified or relieved. Nicole closed the folder. "Now… you asked what awakened performers are. And what we know."
"I didn't really ask as much as have no idea" He said amusingly
She looked at him annoyed then leaned back slightly in her chair—posture still perfect—before continuing.
"For two months now, millions of people worldwide have been waking up from the same shared coma event. We've confirmed the presence of..." she paused, as if the word still felt foreign, "...Narratives."
He frowned. "Like stories."
"Stories you lived through," she said. "Entire worlds with their own rules, timelines, monsters, structures, stakes. You survived one of those worlds long enough to 'clear' it. And coming back…" She motioned to the air. "You brought part of it with you."
"My fog."
"Yes. And others brought their own manifestations. Strength, elemental manipulation, distortion fields, prophetic bursts—every ability is rooted in the Narrative the individual survived."
He leaned forward slightly. "And the goblins? In the hospital those weren't human abilities, right?"
Nicole's expression darkened.
"We've confirmed at least twelve species of biological incursions in this city alone. Entities native to the Narratives. We don't have a complete answer but we do have an idea, those who fail or died in their narrative are corrupted, and transformed rapidly until they themselves are a new being."
A cold ripple crawled down Obei's spine. "You mean the goblins... were?"
"Former humans," Nicole finished. "Yes. Or at least… what's left of them. Their bodies adapt to the Narrative they failed. Sometimes violently. Sometimes grotesquely. The term we use is corrupted returns."
The image of the small green creatures—tiny hunched bodies, huge yellow eyes—burned into his mind. He remembered the shriek. The claws. The way one had smelled the fog and turned toward him with predatory awareness.
"How many people... don't come back normal?" he swallowed
Nicole didn't sugarcoat it.
"Too many. Enough that we've had to build containment sectors across the city. Enough that we're redeploying military forces we can barely afford. Enough that some countries are quarantining entire districts."
Nicole continued, "The world outside isn't collapsing, Obei. But it is… transforming. Faster than our institutions can handle."