An unconscious man bound in chains unable to move suddenly snaps awake. In front of him a figure obscured by shadows begins to speak.
"Well..." before he could get a word out the man cuts him off.
He looks manic as he screams. "NOW! KILL ME NOW!" his voice dripping with the desperation of a tortured animal.
The figure watches the man for a brief second with realization dawning on him he pulls out a gun, Taking aim at the man's head. With a sigh he pulls the trigger.
*Bang*
"It seems I'll have to try again." The figure complains.
Suddenly the world fades away. The scenery is replaced by a endless body of water without the slightest ripple. In the center of this expanse stands a teenage boy looking around with confusion.
"Where am I?" The boy asks himself while looking around.
Suddenly as if to answer his question the water begins to ripple and bubble continuing to grow stronger. They quickly turn from a ripple in a lake to rolling mountains of water. The turmoil causes the boy to stumble and fall on his butt.
The surface in front of him suddenly breaks and bursts open in front him!
A colossal creature emerges from the depths causing gargantuan waves to rush out and crash into the boy. Luckily for the boy he was unaffected by the waves as they passed over him.
The giant creature that appeared before him was unbelievable large, the boy being little more than a baby ant to it.
As the boy regains his bearing his sees the appearance of the creature. A black serpent with green energy wisping off of it into air. The scales of it's skin shimmering with a cosmic radiance unlike anything the boy has ever seen. It's giant eyes shining like polished emerald gems.
The serpent begins to speak in a low booming voice coming from everywhere and echoing like it's in a canyon. "It seems I've enjoyed this tail to its fullest extent."
The boy covers his ears as the voice proves to be more than he can handle. The creature takes notice of him and looks down at the boy.
"It seems my new tail has already been found." The creature says drawing it's face closer to the boy.
He locks eyes with the creature's one eye. Terror fills his mind as his sense of dread increases. He's shaking uncontrollably but still he tries to speak, however before he can get a word out of his trembling lips.
The maw of the snake opens and...
*Bang*
The boy snaps awake and sits up straight to see his his teacher staring daggers at him.
"Did you enjoy your nap, Yoshido?" The teacher rhetorically asks with a stern face.
The whole class looks at Yoshido say gave him pitying looks well others let out light snickers. Only one girl looks at him with an unreadable expression.
The boy next to him on the left sits with his hand blocking his face from the teacher's cold glare.
"Oh ye... I mean NO! Mr. Tan I was just absorbing the information and processing it... with my face." Yoshido says with a looking down with embarrassment on his face.
"Is that so? Then continue from where we left off." Mr. Tan orders with his arms crossed waiting for him to mess up.
"Um..." Yoshido says drawing out trying to stall while looking around for any hints to what part the class was on.
Yoshido locks eyes with the unreadable girl, who gives him a sweet and bubbly smile before using her hands to tell him the page number 42. He lets out a relaxed sigh.
'Good something I've read before.' He thinks to himself.
Yoshido Renjiro has and is gifted with near perfect memory, which would be of help to his academic scores if he actually tried.
"Um... of course." He says recalling the information.
"1 A.C. The first year when the rifts opened and when humanity was forced to undergo a massive change." As he recites the passages off memory the teacher smiles and returns to the front of the class.
"The apocalypse humanity went through is called the beast rift appearance. This is where creatures similar to the ones already here but stronger, faster and mutated came through cracks in space they quickly overwhelmed humanity and pushed us to the bring of destruction. These creatures are now defined [deviant beasts]."
"Alright that's enough, good job. You've saved yourself from a detention." Mr. Tan says before pointing the boy next to Yoshido.
"Now its your turn, Shirai."
Shirai quickly swipes the page on his holo-phone and begins to speak. "Thankfully humanity's weapons were able to keep the beasts at bay, However they were barely effective against the stronger deviant beasts especially the more dangerous creatures, now termed [mythical beasts]. Humanity's luck did prevail as something else came a long with the beasts. A new type of energy that saturated the air called mana.
This energy was not only used to create defenses and weapons against the deviant beasts but it also changed an estimated 10% of the remaining human population's DNA evolving them into a superior human."
"Alright good job, Shirai." The teacher says stopping him. He looks at the time on his holo-watch.
"Alright for the last part of this chapter. Take it away, {insert unimportant name}." Mr. Tan says pointing at a background prop character in the next row.
'Of course, I only get lines for the info dump.' background prop character sighs thinking to themselves.
"Oh yes! Thanks to the use of and evolution caused by mana humanity managed to subdue 100 powerful mythical and deviant beasts and gain access to their specialized powers. People who gained these powers became [variant humans].
Later on, in the year 98 A.C. humanity created 8 sanctuaries protected by technologies and the 20 strongest variant humans. These sanctuaries protect the remaining majority of humanity which dwindled from 8 billion to a little more than 900 million..."
Ring* ring* ring*
"Alright that's the bell!" Mr. Tan calls out as students are already beginning to gather their things.
'Awe man I didn't even get to finish my paragraph.' The background prop character complains even though he got more than enough speaking words.
"Make sure to study pages 35 to 45 of your advanced history pdf. You have a test at the end of the week!" Mr. Tan reminds the students walking out of the room.
Yoshido quickly packs his things and walks out of the room hoping to prevent the ire of the teacher from befalling him.
'Man that was a weird dream.' Yoshido thinks to himself the memory of the gigantic snake still etched into his mind. As he is lost in thought his friend calls out to him from behind.
"Hey Yoshido, you want to hit the game zone today." Shirai asks draping his arm over Yoshido's shoulder.
"Um... yeah sure. It might help me get my head off that wicked dream." Yoshido agrees.
"AWESOME! Let's go I heard they got this new game called..." As Shirai continues speaking Yoshido is lost in thought staring at the girl from before who gave him the page number.
He knows her well just like every other boy of the same grade. Her name is...
"Hey Bro, stop staring." Shirai whispers loud enough to catch his attention.
"Oh was I... Sorry what were you saying?" Yoshido turns to him and asks feigning a smile.
As he turns away the girl glances at him for a split second her expression once again unreadable before returning to a smile and talking with her friends.
"I was saying you don't have a shot in hell with THEE Misako Ketsuna, so give up your unrequired love before you go to far and fall to deep." Shirai with exaggerated movements jokes.
The two pass by Misako and get ready to go at their lockers.