I've never been too religious; obviously the idea sounds pleasant: the idea that the end is not really the end. But I didn't think it would be reincarnation.
Suppose I should be grateful that I wasn't reborn as a pigeon- well, guess they're not called that here. The Gravelhoffs would likely be the closest thing. But maybe being reborn as one of those would be interesting; with a wingspan of 60 feet and pressurized organs allowing me to fire rock like projectiles at my prey.
On second thought, nature doesn't sound pleasant in this world. There's always a bigger fish. Except here, the bigger fish is radioactive, immortal, and the size of a skyscraper.
Guess I'm back to being gratefu—
"Next!"
The thought dies as I step up to the counter. Two faculty members sit behind it, hunched over a list that looks long enough to qualify as a weapon.
"Name?"
"Saint."
She pauses, pen hovering.
"…Saint," she repeats flatly. "And?"
"And single?"
She looks up for the first time. "Do you really think you're that special?"
Pen snaps back down. "Last name."
Interesting. Guess no one clued her in.
"Saint Elysium."
She grunts, crosses something out, and reaches into a box beneath the desk.
"Did you bring any luggage?"
I glance down at my ragged backpack. Shake my head.
"Good."
To my left, a student sobs as their suitcase is forcibly fed into an incinerator.
"Your ID. A Plex17. And one hundred gold." She slides items across the counter without looking up. "Head to the medical lab before class."
Standing there with a sack of gold and a sleek device shoved into my hands, I raise an eyebrow.
She leans forwad. "Oh—shit. Hand me your old Plex before you activate the new one. We need to destroy it."
"What exactly is a Plex?" I ask, turning the device over.
She squints. Her expression softens—just slightly.
"…Wow. You're serious."
A beat.
"It's your phone. Currency tracker. Data center. Everything you do gets logged on it." She exhales through her nose. "If you're going to watch porn, buy your own computer."
"Noted."
I tap the screen.
It buzzes. A blinding flash goes off—click—like a digital mugshot.
When my vision clears, I'm staring at myself. Bed-disheveled blond hair. Dead-fish eyes. Eye bags deep enough to bury that mole under my eye entirely.
I tilt my head toward her. "Are we allowed to retake these?"
"Why are you still here?" she snaps. "Medical lab. Now."
I'll take that as a no.
I pocket the Plex and gold. The uncomfortable bulge makes me miss paper bills.
The tarp tunnel ahead makes me feel like I've wandered into a zombie apocalypse movie. Strange, considering we aren't even past the school's barrier yet.
I twist a massive vault handle.
Hiss.
Mist spills out.
The door slams shut behind me. The next sliding door doesn't open.
A sharp pop—compressed air. I'm misted with chemicals.
Hopefully not cyanide. Or Zyklon B.
The air smells sterile. Bleach-clean.
That's… ominous.
Before my imagination can spiral, the mist is sucked away, replaced with a heavy, borderline rain. My hair flattens instantly. Red harem pants cling to my legs. My compressed shirt somehow finds new ways to compress.
Then—without warning—
A jet-engine blast of air hits me.
Every last trace of moisture is ripped away.
Well. If they're trying to kill me, this is a very roundabout method.
Or maybe I'm immortal.
"Procedure Dirty Bird complete," a PDA voice announces cheerfully. "Please exit the airlock unless you wish to be sanitized."
If that wasn't sanitizing, I'm not sure I want to figure out what they define it as.
The sliding door in front of me zips open, forcing a blast of cool air to slap against my still-damp face.
The room beyond is pristine white and maroon. The walls are lined with a dragon's worth of blood bags, each one organized into neat rows, connected by a web of transparent pipes that pulse faintly, as if breathing.
A small roomba-like device repeatedly bumps into a woman's legs.
At the desk sits a mature, maroon-haired woman with her head down, a cartoonish eye mask stretched over her face. She doesn't move.
Nearby, a man who looks like an overworked, underpaid intern waves me forward. "Place your feet on the indicated circle."
I do as instructed. Glass rises around me, sealing me inside a cylindrical machine. Widgets and arms unfold, lenses click, and the entire structure hums to life as it begins scanning.
"May I ask the point of this?"
"Ms.Yaoki here uses these as reference for a healthy you. That way she is able to bring you back to your current state of health. As long as you are within the domain of the school, she will be able to use this checkup data set."
"Shouldn't it be pretty obvious what is healthy?"
"Listen man, I just work here."
Suppose you wouldn't ask one of the knights for the king's logic.
The cylinder spins rapidly, then stops so abruptly my stomach lurches. I step forward—only for the door to remain sealed.
A beat.
Then four syringes slam into my back.
I wince, shoulders jerking as blood is siphoned from me. A bag slides into view, slowly filling with dark red liquid. Another mechanical arm snaps forward, its lens glowing as it laser-engraves my name into the plastic before tossing the bag into a growing pile.
The door finally opens.
A vacuum thrusts me forward and out.
"Next."
That's the last thing I hear before I'm standing alone.
As I stand there... theres nothing. Before me is a vast open plain, the grass flutters in the warm evening breeze. Yet- something is unsettling about the atmosphere, as though a building were towering over me as the grass doesn't move the way its supposed to.
I remain idle, uncertainty is the achiles heel of an overthinker like me. Information, without information it is nothing more than guess work- no, gambling.
My prayers are answered when a boy rushes past me.
Like an animal being first to drink from a watering hole, he charges straight into the unknown—ignorance or indifference, I can't tell.
He collides with something invisible.
His body bends against it, resistance rippling outward like water. With effort, he pushes through. For a split second, the illusion tears open—revealing towering structures hidden beneath the false horizon.
Then the surface seals itself again. The plain returns.
Uncertain of my next steps, I'm left with only two options.
So, I step forward.
The barrier gives way under pressure, viscous and elastic, swallowing me whole.
The "plain" morphs into a city.
A colossal one.
Steel walls rise like those of a fortress, layered in pristine white polymer. Massive metal towers sprout upward, each ringed with glowing bands that release a constant cooling mist.
Atop these towers are mechanical turrets, yet they don't look military grade, more like something out of Dr.seus book, with nozzles folding outwards, spheres in illogical places and a needlessly vibrant color palette.
Despite their cartoonish appearance, they don't fail to do their job; a Limply Fly attempts to perch atop, yet its instantly evaporated by the whirring turret.
The ordeal reminds me that there is a reason I came to this school, to learn how to use my parasite.
The ordeal is a reminder of why I came to this school in the first place: to learn how to use my parasite.
My birthday was two weeks ago. Parasites only activate on the eighteenth. That gap might as well be a canyon. While I'm learning left from right, my classmates are already sharpening their teeth—preparing to summon something on the scale of a Griffith-level eclipse.
Well, no one said life was fair; but it certainly likes to be comedically cruel, especially to me.
This is the part where I get excited, right? My future livelihood depends on this, I could be the next Pro Luminary. For some reason there is no giddiness to my next steps, it simply feels like getting to the next thing on my to do list.
Well, no point procrastinating; the first thing I've got to do is figure out what my ability even is, I could have the ability to manipulate grass and there would be no point even attending this school.
"Your wills were as worthless as you, so lets hope you at least left me good genes." With parasites being heavily based on DNA, I start by trying my fathers ability, the ability to create anything he knew the composition of.
"With parasites being genetic…" I mutter, lifting my hand. "Let's start with you, Dad."
He could create anything whose composition he understood.
I strike a dramatic pose. "Sword!"
…
…
"Huh."
I dreaded as much, that means my mothers genes were likely dominant: the ability to sell herbs...
Squatting down, I grab a nearby flower.
"Sell!"
...
"Hmmm..."
Looking down at the useless flower I cant help but sigh. So instead, I simply close my eyes and imagine gold in my hands.
This time the flower does disappear... but it leaves nothing in its place. Maybe it wasn't enough value.
Now reaching for a plutheral of flowers, I fill my hands. This time the flowers vanish, in their place two copper coins.
"Fantastic." so even if I picked flowers all day I would still make less than minimum wage. This is going to make my pro luminary goal a lot...lot more difficult.
Reaching into my pocket I grab a single gold coin from the pouch they initially gave me. "I guess I don't need a parasite, I have money, so I wont be helpless. I can just got to the store and buy weapons like a swor-"
The gold coin vanishes in my hands and a sword takes it place.
Oh?
Perhaps my pipe dream is not as far as it looks.
Tightening my grip around the handle, I inspect the blade, its real metal no doubt. Swinging at a nearby tree it cuts a shallow line yet the blade doesn't shatter.
Now the moment of truth... imagining the blade turning into money... it does, except I don't get one gold back, instead only three silver.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I cant decide whether I should be ungrateful or optimistic. "A twenty five percent tax. My goodness, nothing is safe from the government."
On the opposite side of the path, a boy catches my attention.
Seems I'm not the only one with a late birthday. The air warps around his outstretched hands as a void begins to form, leaves and debris tearing free from the ground and spiraling inward.
Like a baby scorpion, he clearly doesn't understand his own strength.
The pull intensifies. His breathing grows frantic. In the next second, the two voids collapse into one another, space folding like wet paper.
A warped portal blossoms open and yanks his body forward.
He lets out what might be a scream, but the sound is swallowed—drowned out by the deafening distortion of his parasite. Then he's gone, erased as cleanly as chalk from a board.
Scratching my head and taking a deep exhale, I decide today I will be an optimist.
Having at least my parasite to aid me in my uncertain future allows me to take the next steps without hesitation.
Finally approaching the wall to the school, it towers over me with the top being unseeable through the mist.
The door is a sky scraper tall. "Suppose they are going to make a big deal out of my arrival; as they shoul-"
A sudden rush of movement cuts me off.
A large figure breezes past.
"If you're not going to move forward," a voice snaps, "then move out of my way."
The boy's hair is a violent red, spiking upward like the flames of a campfire.
"The fuck are you looking at?"
I hadn't been. Apparently, my exhausted stare counts as a glare. He stomps back toward me, his unjustified malice bubbling up.
Confidence… or compensation?
"Nice shoes," I say at last.
His eyes somehow narrow with even more distain.
"The fuck do you mean by that, smartass? You looking for an apology?"
Huh... compensating.
"it certainly wouldn't hurt."
"I will crush you into the dirt."
"Well thats an unorthodox way to apologize. I'm not a plant."
He opens his mouth to respond—then thinks better of it. With a sharp motion, he yanks his sword free. Flames race along the blade.
No warning. No cool line. Just intent.
I'd been idly playing with a string in my pocket this whole time, tying it around one of my gold coins. I flick it into the air. With my free hand—two copper coins—I form a pool noodle.
As his blade comes down, the heat slices through my...sword, like butter.
"STOP! Both of you! Theres no need to senselessly fight."
Striking a very heroic pose, a boy now stands between us. A very average looking guy, brown hair, leather lined clothes. He wears a very noble expression as he blocks both of our blade- well my limp noodle.
The flames immidtly extinguish, the blade caught in his metallic gloves.
"I understand the excitement of this new school makes everyone nervous, but please don't fight..."
As the boy continues monologuing something about something, I reel in the gold coin from the string it is attached two and put it back into my pocket.
The red-haired boy clicks his tongue and yanks his sword free.
He storms toward the entrance, then pauses just long enough to glare back
"My name is Fuego- I don't say that so we become buddy buddy. I say that because I want you to know the name of the next big Luminary."
The boy scout brown haired boy suddenly shifts his expression to a blindingly positive smile. "Fuego! Its nice to meet you. My name is Fletcher. I look forward to studying together."
With another annoyed click of his tongue, Fuego continues his stomping and tromping.
Like a personified sun, the brown haired boy beams at me. "So, whats your name?!"
"Saint, thats my name."
"Well nice to meet you Saint! I apologize that Fuego didn't get to hear it- I will tell him next time I see him.
"parasite nullification, it must be difficult, requires you to touch the target." I wonder, does it have to be directly? Is he able to do it from a range?
He gives a charismatically polite chuckle as he puts his hands up. "Well- looks like you already figured me out. You're right."
Strange- most people hide their abilities, but not only did he use it in front of us both, but he didn't even try and lie; unless this too is an act.
Looking at those vibrant green eyes and the respectful smile it becomes obvious: he's telling the truth. That is unless he's an even better actor than I am and this is yet another lie.
"I hate to admit it, but your statement is very true, I only turned eighteen a month ago, but I am already facing countless fun and thrilling challenges!"
Like a animal stranded out in the desert, his sunny smile is blinding my Lament gaze.
"So," he asks, tilting his head, "what was your plan with the pool noodle?"
I look down. It's mostly melted now, just a thin sliver of foam connecting the ends.
Slowly raising my gaze to him, knowing very well I was about to kill Fuego, I attempt a close eyed smile. "I guess its a good thing you showed up."
He laughs awkwardly, concern flickering for just a moment. "Happy I could help."