Ash drove to the small studio apartment he rented out. He was seventeen, but due to his circumstances, he was able to rent the place legally after obtaining legal counsel to be considered an adult and to avoid being put in the system. He signed up for the Military service like anyone could do now after the emergency draft laws were signed, allowing anyone starting at fifteen to enlist. It allowed them to be emancipated early on, especially orphans. The time to be placed at the academies depended on which location would call them to start early for initiation.
The rent for the apartment was ridiculous, even for a small room. Still, it was all he could afford with the money his parents and sister-in-law left over, after the reports on his brother Isaac ruined the military benefits he could have had. Ash went upstairs to rest, avoiding the landlord who bugged him for rent or favors. He wanted nothing to do with that; he was too young to be used as a toy for some woman in her midlife crisis period to mess around with. The space of the apartment was barely enough; the kitchen had a small space for a fridge, a microwave, and a single gas stove grill next to the sink. The living room was big enough for a futon bed to fit; Ash had to buy a small one that could fold into a sofa so that he had something to make use of the space. And the bathroom was just enough to fit him in it, albeit a little compact, with no tub, just the curtain and drain in the floor for the water to go in.
Ash threw his bag against the wall, agitated; he didn't care if it got messed up, since it was practically ruined anyway and falling apart. He turned the small, barely functioning TV on for background noise to keep his mind off the day. His focus wasn't even on the program playing on the TV, but rather on his phone.
Struggling to scroll through his photos and videos on his cracked screen, he went through all the photos of his family.
His parents looked alive and happy, as they had before, when he was just a baby. They died when he was still young, barely two years old at the time; the photos his brother gave him were so he would know what they looked like since he barely remembered them.
He scrolled until he reached the video of his brother's wedding day. That was the happiest day of Ash's life; he was nine years old when his brother Isaac married his high school girlfriend Amelia. Isaac was cutting the cake in the video and feeding her a piece.
"Ash, come over and have some." The bride called over, inviting the young Ash to have a bit of the cake.
Ash watched his young self run over to the beautiful bride, who gave him a small piece to nibble on and a cake-smeared kiss on the forehead. Isaac picked up his baby brother, kissing him on his chubby cheeks as he held Ash, as if he were his own son, to show off.
"Look how adorable he is, babe. My real best man here to see me happy before I ship off."
Ash couldn't hold back his tears. Seeing his brother and Amelia in the video was painful; he missed them more than anything. He covered his eyes, holding the phone to his heart, hearing the video still playing.
He wiped his face off before turning the phone off, stopping his pity party. Since he left early from school, he decided not to go back, wanting to take a mental health day for himself. His grades were good, so missing a day or two wouldn't kill him.
Ash turned on some death metal music from the TV, took his shirt off, and put on some gym shorts; he decided to train to clear his head. Even with the apartment's living room being small, he still had room to do some basic calisthenics. There was even a dart board to practice throwing his knives at.
He never slacked off once; he did his routine every day to keep himself in shape. It was ingrained at this point to not miss a day, both for training and to help keep negative thoughts swirling in his head. Bad thoughts always festered inside his head, some of which even scared him.
He mostly thought that doing this would, in theory, increase his current level the long way. Level increases didn't happen easily without proper training with the military or an ascendance stone. On very rare occasions, one could level up through hard work, with little to show for it.
Ash did this every day since he lived alone now: coming home, looking at his phone, doing his training, or doing schoolwork.
Ever since the Kraegan came, he has never had a normal life. Fifty years after they emerged, no one knew peace.
They were monsters, demons, names humans had called over the years. They descended one night, the night everyone witnessed as a rain of lights. The Kraegans came but then vanished within minutes. They tried to take over Heaven and failed miserably. Soon Hell was next; there they reigned supreme, but even in Hell, they had taboo rules, and the Kraegans broke them. Punished for their actions and rebellion, they were fitted with collars around their necks. From the information a captive Kraegan gave in the early years, the collars could never be removed, as hinted to them by demons, unless they ingested a thousand souls; they could regain their freedom and transcend into higher evolution.
This turned out to be false, much to their dismay. They could evolve but never be free. If the collars were destroyed, they would permanently die; there would be no Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory; they would cease to exist completely. They could lose their heads, a limb, be burned to ashes, or be melted to a puddle of organic waste, but never die as long as the collars were still intact. The collars were linked to life force; it was a death sentence from the beginning.
It took humanity ten years of failing to kill them to find the stones, books, and scrolls to gain their powers. With all the power, though, the balance of war never changed; both sides remained at a standstill, going back and forth.
Ash wanted that to change; he wanted to help change it, as his brother tried to.
He stopped his training midway; he stared up at the ceiling, just thinking- so many thoughts in his head racing. Thoughts of stabbing his bully, setting him on fire, drowning him in a toilet. All of them felt good in the moment; he snapped himself out of them and then threw a handful of knives at the dartboard to distract himself.
Ash needed to do something else to help keep his mind clear, so he headed downstairs to clean the bike from the stains it had endured.
The bike was his brother's prized possession; it was a Harley-Dyna, customized by Isaac and Amelia. Isaac bought the bike when he was a freshman in high school; he had saved up for it over many years ever since he saw it as a kid. Saving his allowances and through three jobs middle his last year of middle school till his freshman year. He even got a loan before his parents died, with their help to pay the rest off. At the time, Amelia was studying mechanical engineering, wanting to build custom cars and other projects for fun; she was the odd one in her family, but Isaac loved her unconditionally. She worked hard with him, fixing up the Harley, even making a custom gas tank with a carved stencil of thorned roses and a bird skull in the center.
Ash scrubbed hard to rid the seat and tank of the coffee stains. Luckily, the scuffing on the frame was easily removed, leaving no permanent damage. It took close to nightfall for the bike to be clean again; the pride Ash felt fixing it brimmed bright. He lost his brother and later his sister-in-law, too, from a Kraegan attack. They raised him after his parents' death. The bike was all he had left of them; it was practically a part of him.