1 The World as We Know It

This world is corrupted beyond belief, not corrupt in the figurative sense of political parties or corrupt politicians getting away with scandals or deeds that are enough to put a man in jail for life, no it was something else. The world is quite literally corrupt with something unnatural that plagues the world brings about the destruction of many lives by infecting people. No one knows when this thing appeared first in the world but it was eventually dubbed as the 'miasma' by those who knew of its existence with those who did of its existence know of the effects that it had on people causing them to change.

The miasma was an intangible thing that once done with successfully invading a person it will speed up their progression to death's door. It would not shorten their life span or take their life, no that would be too easy on those infected, the person will act abnormal to their current behavior to the point the deviation becomes violent that the person dies eventually as a result of their actions or through taking it by themselves. However, death is only for the lucky ones as some who were already messed up will change into something different. Monsters born from the miasma of those who are unlucky to be released to the embrace of death end up changing into some sort of abomination which will create more masima in the air to increase those infected.

As a result of its existence, there was a bit of good that came from it as naturally there would always be some good to combat the bad and that came in the form of essence. Essence was a counter to most of the tricks of the masima, but it was not omnipotent and this essence was only discovered a few years after the appearance of masima so it had the advantage. Still though not that many people knew about it through the manipulation of media across the globe through blaming the deaths on natural causes or making the people out to be addicts or emotionally unstable that they took themselves out on their own terms.

Statistics formed by the governments of the world found that mostly men were affected by the miasma while women were the ones who happened to gain access to the use of essence. Now there were a few cases of one or the other being affected by these substances but they were indeed rare to happen for some reason with some theories circulating about why people changed due to the substances. The theory was that miasma affected men as a result of their testosterone and hormones that made them easier targets of the miasma whereas for the essence it was the complete opposite for women who were usually calm and collected. This theory had no real scientific findings or proven anything as to how can someone discover anything about something intangible so all that was stated were theories on both of them.

Now both essence and miasma seemed to be two sides of a coin but each had different effects on whoever was affected. Masima changed the physical body of those unlucky individuals with a few being able to develop other powers that came with the change. Essence was different in that it created no physical change but could instead be used to strengthen one's body and could resist some of the miasma's effects to a degree. One fact was that the essence in someone's body could be increased steadily through training and tempering it through various methods which miasma could not thus limiting the growth of miasma-infected individuals.

That is the general understanding of this world and while there is a whole lot more out there to explore and discover it would not be revealed now. So let us move on with our story then.

...

[Location: Los Angeles (The city of angels)]

It was a regular day here in the city of angels with the traffic being the usual hell that it is, with people going about their business in the early morning whether it be moving around through the busy streets or going up elevators to their floor in the massive skyscrapers of the city that look down on the people below. However, everything was not as it seems in this city. In an alley further away from the bustling of the city were two people standing at the entrance of this unnaturally dark alleyway.

These two each were equipped with medieval-looking shortswords that were both drawn and pointing down the alleyway. These two were on guard against something within the alley that prompted them to draw forth their essence from their bodies to strengthen their bodies and cause them to glow slightly with their swords.

"Well... well... well... what beautiful specimens we have here..." A hoarse voice from within the alley calls out from within

The darkness advances as if it has a mind of its own with the two at the end of the alley getting scared and attempting to retreat as they cannot deal with this creature of shadow as they had just recently begun to utilize their essence. Trying to retreat was pointless at this point though as they were soon easily caught with their fates being sealed and remaining a mystery.

Moving away from the city angels to a home in Trousdale Estates neighborhood home to many famous actors and people in Beverly Hills that held a lovely family consisting of a husband and wife couple with their two elder daughters and youngest son they both were going about their day with their son moving about the million-dollar home in search of his school supplies for the day in the early morning. All was well with this family getting ready for the day before each departing respectively with their father being a film director in Hollywood and their mother being a famous designer for a variety of works that made some crumbling clothing brands become famous and wealthy overnight. Both of them meet on one of the movies that they were working on and as a result of that, they hit it off eventually marrying and having two beautiful daughters.

Their son was an unexpected joy that had entered their life, at least that was what their parents said whenever the boy asked them why they looked weirdly at him sometimes. Still though as he grew up he began to see that was only a fabricated lie to make themselves out not to be monsters to him that never wanted a son in the first place since their daughters were going to receive everything they needed and when he came along it just complicated things further than necessary for them in many aspects. So his parents did not give him much attention for him a growing boy thus leading him to find someone to look up too which happened to fall upon his sisters who adored him. Thanks to them the boy's life was better with his sisters teaching him many things and helping him learn right from wrong and guiding him as best as possible with what they could.

Continuing on the boy had found what he was looking for in one of his sister's rooms left on their desk from the night before from when they were helping him with homework for school and making sure that he was understanding the curriculum that was being taught now and days in schools. Their dad would drive to work in the morning to the production studios to handle a variety of tasks to make sure whatever movie he was working on would actually release on time or make sure that they would use the budget wisely. Meanwhile, their mother would drive their daughters to school before heading to wherever she was needed for her job. That left their son to get to school... by himself... at 12 years old.

Still, it was not that bad as it had been made out to seem since his school was a fairly decent public school not that far from their home so he tended to walk there and back since he would rather not waste his funds. He did not work since he was not of the legal age to work so his sisters were kind enough to split their allowances to give to him to use every two months to avoid the suspicions of their parents. So with that, he was able to pay for the items that he needed to use such as new clothes, transportation, and sometimes gifts for his family (yes even his parents).

The boy made the hour-long walk to his elementary school in the early morning as usual passing by the familiar places and streets along the way. Even though he was young many people out of the Trousdale Estates area knew of him and how much his parents paid little attention through conversing with him or just seeing that he does this every morning, leading to the local people to try and help him as much as possible to help the sweet child as much as possible. Such kindness would not go unnoticed in the future as the boy promised to help them once he had the means to do so.

Still as to why this was brought to the attention of any type of authority in the city was because the child parents were not so negligent as to leave him all alone so he was given a bottle of pepper spray after being told the basics of how to use it as well as a contract stating the parents had some people watching over the child whenever going to or from school. That was a lie and everyone who found out knew that but what could they do as they were just some regular people whereas the boy's parents had connections with a lot of people around the globe that could help them. Even then though the boy asked people to not make a big deal about it since he said that he did not mind that he was given this type of freedom and privilege. Seeing that they could not do anything about it people just kept quiet and decided to make sure that the boy was safe at least, that lead to people in the surrounding neighborhood of the Trousdale Estates viewing the boy as their responsibility until he grew old enough to provide for himself.

The day went by as usual with the boy going to school and arriving on time to his class, not standing out too much in class during lectures nor hiding, like some do, working hard to keep his grades at a solid A during the day and making sure to complete his homework as quickly as possible to have time once school was done. School ends and the boy would head to the neighborhoods around his own since he was told not to return until two hours after school ends since his parents said that they would be too busy to look after him while his sisters would usually still be in school at this time. So normally he would kill the time helping out in the surrounding neighborhoods trying to make sure that their kindness was returned as best as possible for now by helping in different things that the people were doing. They were all glad for the help and as a result of that the boy built connections with the people and got to see the perspectives of 'normal people'.

Eventually, he returns with his sisters greeting him as usual at the door and asking how things were at school with him telling them what had transpired throughout the day. Then dinner would happen with him being ignored while his sisters would take the limelight of every family meal to result in him being ignored by everyone so he would usually eat some food leave the table, clean his dishes, and head to his room where he would spend the evening exploring the internet intending to learn about something new.

School was interesting and all but it was difficult to become engaged in the subjects they taught since they were oriented in making sure that the children would learn only the basic subject material that the government deemed as necessary for the workforce and so as a result the urge to find something else to take up his time came and he searched around the internet quite often to devour new knowledge and understand it to its fullest. That was his hobby and pass time which no one in his family knew about, not even his sisters, so he grew a strong mentality and sense of reason for the natural world all thanks to the internet.

He still pretended to be struggling with subjects in class so that he could spend time with his sisters and make them feel appreciated since they had been doing so much for him since his birth.

The next day however would change everything...