Marking Phenomenon

A dirty looking boy with long brownish-grey hair was trudging around an old and broken down city. His tired eyes were emotionless as he slowly walked forward, looking around to see people starving or even deceased under the rubble which served as their makeshift homes.

But Yune had no time to feel any sense of compassion for these people as he was in the same situation as them. Right now the only thing occupying his mind was moving forward, it already demanding all his focus just to take one step at a time.

After trudging around for a while more, the boy finally stopped in front of another broken building and sighed at the sight of it.

"I guess I won't be eating today again"

Yune had walked around all day visiting the traps he laid out in hope of catching a rat or a mouse, but today again, for the fourth day in a row, he had no luck.

Not wasting a single second to even be disappointed, Yune turned around and started walking back the way he came from.

After Yune had walked back for some time, he crouched down and maneuvered his way into an open space in between a few especially large pieces of fallen over debris, which served as his shelter, his home.

Lying down on a bed of dirt, Yune grabbed a plastic bottle that was covered in filth, no longer see-through. Putting the bottle to his lips, Yune took a big gulp of the little water he had left. Setting the nearly empty bottle to the side, the boy closed his eyes as he slowly fell asleep to appease his hunger once again today.

---

Suddenly, Yune was woken up by the screaming of an angry sounding man.

"If you filth don't come out right now, you are dead meat!"

Despite having been woken up by loud screaming, the boy wasn't the tiniest bit scared as two thoughts popped up in his head.

'Is it that time of year again?' and 'Dead meat sounds pretty good right now.'

After a heavy sigh, thinking it is a bother to go outside and wasting energy, the boy stepped outside his shelter.

Not even fully out of the debris, someone forcefully grabbed Yune's wrist.

"There you are, took you long enough! You should have been ready the moment I got here!"

Looking up at the man who grabbed his wrist, Yune saw a muscular soldier standing at over two meters tall with a disdained look on his face.

The soldier blurted out another few angry and vile words directed towards him, but Yune didn't bother to listen and ignored the soldier.

Suddenly, Yune felt his arm getting yanked forward as the soldier began to walk towards the edge of the slums, gripping the boy's wrist tightly.

Yune just barely managed to stay on his feet after he was yanked forward, but that didn't last long as he couldn't keep up with the soldier. Even though the soldier was walking at a normal pace, Yune couldn't help but not being able to keep up with the soldier due to the build-up of fatigue and his frail constitution, and eventually he stumbled to the ground.

Noticing the weight on his arm increasing, the soldier looked back to see that Yune had fallen. But despite seeing this, the soldier kept on walking, now dragging the boy with him, sliding through the rough surface of the slum grounds.

With every step the soldier took, Yune was getting more cuts and bruises on his body, but the soldier didn't seem to care one bit.

Being dragged on the ground, Yune's expression remained the same, emotionless, as a single thought entered his mind.

'They really don't see us as human at all.'

Finally having arrived at the building near the edge of the slum, the soldier threw Yune inside. Now inside the building, he was lying in front of another soldier who went to grab Yune's wrist, but pulled his hand back last second. Not because he felt bad, but because he just didn't want to touch the boy who looked especially dirty, even for slum standards.

The soldier looked at Yune the same way, with disdain.

"You! Get up and go over there!"

Despite the numerous cuts and bruises on his body and his skinny wrist having turned purple from the soldier's strong grip, Yune stood up and lumbered over to where the soldier pointed.

After a short exhale, the boy mustered up the energy to look around to see the sight he sees precisely every year. Around a few thousand people, nearly every residence of the slums, were gathered in this building for something called the marking phenomenon.

Yune himself didn't know much about this so called marking phenomenon, the only thing he knew was that precisely every year he, and everyone else in the slums, would be forcefully brought here and that a few people would randomly receive some kind of marks on their body, making their body glow before being taken away by the soldiers.

The building, despite being filled with a few thousands people, was completely silent for over an hour before the silence was finally broken by the unnaturally loud sound of footsteps.

The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the whole building, drawing in everyone's attention, almost demanding it, making the room feel even more silent as a cold aura fell over them after looking at the person who was producing the only sound in the whole building.

Standing at over two meters tall, a well put together man could be seen wearing an attire more elegant than that of the soldier's. The man didn't look brute like the soldiers, instead the man could be described as good looking, even sophisticated, giving off an alluring effect on the people who laid their eyes on him.

But this alluring effect quickly came to an end when the man halted his stride and turned to the people in front of him, yet again revealing an expression of disdain and even disgust as he began to speak.

"I am only going to say this once, so listen up you filth. I shouldn't even have to explain something like this as this is a yearly occurrence, but I will just explain it anyway knowing how stupid you guys are. Today is December-31. At exactly midnight, which is in a minute, the marking phenomenon will take place where a small amount of people will get a mark on their body, which will bestow a random supernatural power on that person. And with how generous I, Aldrich, and the government is, the people who receive a mark will be taken out of the slums."

Everyone in the building was silent until they heard that they had a chance of leaving the slums, which caused a quiet murmur to form in the building.

But at that exact moment it had turned midnight, from somewhere in the front row, a girl began to emanate a golden glow, which was so bright it blinded everyone who caught a glimpse of it.

With the full attention of everyone being drawing to the girl and the beautifully bright golden light she was emanating, nobody seemed to even notice that Yune, who was in the back of the building, also faintly started emitting a purple glow from his body as a mark started to form in the middle of his chest.

'What is happening? Am I receiving a mark?'