"Am i in heaven?" he thought.
Axel's nose twitched, his senses jolting awake to a thick, suffocating stench.
"What is that smell...?" he muttered, his voice barely a rasp against his dry throat.
He blinked, staring up at a stained, dim ceiling. Panic began to claw at his chest.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice low and uncertain. When no answer came, the silence pressed in, making his skin prickle. He pushed himself up slightly, his lungs straining. "Where am I?!" he shouted, the sound echoing harshly against hard walls.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his mind to piece together the sharp bites of sensory input. The sharp, biting tang of chemical drugs. The cold, sterile scrape of metal beds. The low, sickening undertone of fresh waste.
It was a hospital.
His eyes widened as the realization hit him like a physical blow. He wasn't dead. His heart was still beating, slamming hard against his ribs.
Then the memory flooded back, brutal and unyielding. The awakening hell. The attack of the Blue-grade Titan, hordes of monsters. The horrific, violent visual of awakeners and soldiers alike being consumed, their screams swallowed by the blood and chaos of the breach.
"Is anyone out there?!" Axel slammed his hands down onto the frame of the bed, his voice raw as it ripped through the room. "Hey! Somebody answer me!"
Footsteps hurried across the cracked linoleum floor. A nurse pulled back the heavy privacy curtain with a sharp metallic rattle, stepping into his cubicle with tired, blood-shot eyes.
Axel froze as the sight beyond the curtain rushed into view.
The ward was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of shattered bodies. Injured awakeners and soldiers groaned on gurneys crammed side-by-side down every corridor, while others lay directly on the cold floor wrapped in stained blankets. Beside several beds, motionless figures lay completely covered under grey sheets, waiting to be moved. The sheer volume of people crammed into the facility made the air thick and nearly unbreathable.
The nurse adjusted her gloves, looking down at his chart before meeting his eyes. "Save your breath," she said, her voice dry and flat from exhaustion. "Do you have anyone to call? Family, an emergency contact?"
Axel stared at her, his throat tightening.
"We're still sorting through the remains," she added quietly, gesturing toward the long row of covered stretchers down the hall. "Trying to identify the bodies of the awakeners who didn't make it out. If there's someone who needs to know you survived, you need to tell me now."
"How long have I been here?" Axel asked, his voice cracking as he swung his legs off the side of the narrow bed.
"Four days," the nurse replied, checking the IV line strapped to his forearm. "You were completely out cold when they brought you in."
Four days. Cold dread hit him square in the chest, making it hard to breathe. His mother. She had been left in the dark for four solid days, sitting alone in their apartment, probably sick with panic and assuming the worst. She was going to worry herself to death.
"I need a phone," Axel said, staring up at the nurse, his eyes wide. "Please. I have to call home."
The nurse reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, battered analog handset attached to a thick spiral wire—a mechanical rotary desk telephone modified for mobile line hookups. Modern smartphones were an unreachable luxury now, relics of a world before humanity's infrastructure regressed into hardline survival gear.
She handed the receiver to him. Axel snatched it, his thumb trembling as he clicked down the physical dial keys, punching in his home number from memory.
He shoved the heavy receiver against his ear. It didn't even complete a full ring before the line snapped open.
"Hello? Is someone there?!" his mother's voice erupted through the receiver, frantic and breathless, distorted by mechanical static. "Please, tell me—have you found my son? Have you found Axel?!"
"Mom, it's me. It's Axel," he choked out into the receiver.
"Axel?! Oh God, Axel!" Her voice broke into a flood of desperate, overlapping questions that tumbled over the static line. "Are you okay? Where are you? Are you hurt? What happened to you, baby? Where have you been?!"
"Mom, slow down—"
"Tell me where you are right now!" she cut in, her breath coming in ragged hitches. "Tell me which medical block you're in. I'm coming right now. I'll be there in five minutes, Axel, just stay right there!"
As Axel replied, a tall shadow fell across the foot of his bed. A man standing over five feet stepped past the heavy curtain. He had stark, pale white skin, paired with an unusual hair color that blended pure white with shimmering streaks of gold.
"Axel?" the man asked, his voice low, steady, and carrying an implicit authority that cut straight through the noise of the ward.
Axel lowered the receiver slightly against his chest, staring up at him. "Who are you?"
"I'm Ryan," the man replied, adjusting the cuff of his dark jacket. "I'm with the government."
He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he observed Axel's condition. "How long did your awakening take?"
Axel shook his head, his mind hazy as he tried to piece together the chaos of the breach. "I... I don't know," he admitted, his throat dry. "When that bug-type monster attacked the line, I was barely conscious after that. Everything went dark."
Ryan listened quietly, giving a small, pragmatic nod. "Then your awakening time likely falls into the same bracket as the rest of the survivors in this quadrant."
Reaching into his pocket, Ryan pulled out a dense, rough-looking crystal. He stepped forward and extended his hand, pressing the soul stone directly into Axel's palm.
"Take this," Ryan instructed, his tone turning strict and direct. "Focus. Push your aether straight inside it."
Axel gripped the cold stone in his palm, and a translucent window of floating text immediately materialized in his line of sight, drifting inches in front of his eyes.
"What is this...?" Axel whispered, blinking as he tried to look around the floating script.
"Only you can see that projection," Ryan explained, watching him closely. "A soul stone interfaces directly with your core. It provides precise information about your awakened ability and measures the current density of your internal aether."
Before Axel could process the floating text, Ryan reached back into his coat and produced a much larger, faceted crystal that glowed with a deep inner light. He held it out over the edge of the bed.
"Place your hand on this," Ryan instructed.
Axel reached out and pressed his palm flat against the smooth face of the larger crystal.
Instantly, the crystal hummed, sending a sharp spark of energy up through his arm. Across the room, a large wall-mounted diagnostic panel flickered to life, its bright surface casting a pale glare across the ward as bold glyphs locked into place:
AWAKENED ABILITY: RUNE SMITHING
Ryan turned his head toward the wall panel, staring at the readout for a long moment before looking back down at Axel.
"Rune Smithing..." Ryan mused, his voice thoughtful. "Based on the core structure, your potential likely lies in altering, engraving, or manipulating structural blueprints directly into physical materials."
He stepped back, letting the diagnostic crystal dim in his hand.
"That makes you a crafter," Ryan concluded, giving Axel a firm, approving nod. "You're in luck, kid. Crafters are in extremely high demand right now. With the sheer strain abilities place on people, the demand for gear that reduces that strain is high. Someone who can forge and maintain proper combat tools won't ever go hungry."