Chapter 1 - Fise Cherryblossom

Fise woke up. He sat up from his bed and took the time to adjust to the light. According to his interface's clock, it was 8:47 am, 13 minutes before the end of breakfast.

He sat up and went to his wardrobe. The door had a mirror on it and he could see himself.156 cm tall, lean and with messy hair, he looked like the usual 12, almost 13, year-old, though a bit taller. He was turning 13 on the 13th of October. That wasn't his actual birthday but since nobody at his orphanage knew his real birth date, they used the orphanage's.

He stopped looking at his dark brown hair and opened the wardrobe to find some clothes put into the side. Tiredly walking in he selected his favourite get-up; a black shirt with a white zipper hoodie spotted everywhere with very small black dots and with the opposite for his trousers, black ones with small white dots.

This was the most fashiony he could get as a 'double'. After the Fall the government made it so that everyone had a rank going from A to ZZZ. A 'single' is a person who is in the A to Z range, a 'double' is a person who in the AA to ZZ range and a 'triple' is from AAA to ZZZ.

And determined by those rankings, a person's food, housing and clothing were decided. 'Singles' are allowed bright and happy colours, going up in happiness and brightness the higher their rank. Doubles are only allowed a maximum of grey coloured clothing. Triples were only allowed white and black up to the FFF rank. Past that and people can't own clothes; just rags.

Fise rubbed his eyes to make them get used to the light easier, and him getting used to waking up. When his hands left his eyes he looked in the interior mirror to zip up his hoodie. To save time, this type of AutoMatical Wardrobe Robot or AMWRs ( said as am-uu-rs) were invented. Just pick your clothes on the interface, wait and bam, you're clothed and ready to go do work for the government.

Fise walked out of his wardrobe and headed towards his door. His room was small and identical with most others. If looked from above, it'll be a rectangle with the door on the bottom-right side with the bed in front of it and the foot of the bed pointed in the direction of the AMWR unit, a window in between that was as low as Fise's shoulders, the rest was space for other stuff, in Fise's case being a game console with VR.

Walking out the room he went down the stairs right in front of him, ignoring the '15-IS' printed in white letters on his door. IS stood for the rank he had and 15 standing for his room number. His orphanage, by law, was divided into sectors with certain ranks. In his orphanage, they had sectors go from IB to IV. Fise's name was based off his room number since he also came in without one.

They took the 5 from 15 and mixed it with 'is' to make 'Fiis' but they wrote it like 'Fise' which some say it like 'fizz'. As for his surname, every orphan in the orphanage takes the orphanage's name; Cherryblossom. And so, unluckily, Fise's name now sounds like a cola flavour so he told everyone to say his name as 'Faiz'

After reaching the bottom of the stairs, he took a right, since there was no other way, and then took a left at a corner. It led to a long corridor, about 200 meters total, running almost the whole width of his orphanage. There were hundreds of children here, all with their own caretakers, and 50 meters down the corridor there was a door on his right, opposite the windows, was a room which had his caretaker.

Emmy, as everyone in his group called her, was a blonde 40-year-old woman. She stood at the head of a table, watching as all other 24 children eat at 5 tables. She then turned to see Fise in the doorway, trying to walk in silently.

"Good morning, Fise." she said before looking at her interface, "You have 10 minutes left. Eat up."She stood up and went to an empty chair at the table closest on his right, pulling it out and mentioning for him to sit. Fise walked over and sat, tucking his chair in.

Emmy went over to the middle table where she picked up some food, before coming back toward Fise and placing it in front of him. It was a weird gel that had a little odour. Fise picked up his fork, made out of plastic, and tucked in putting it in his mouth.

'Jam. Jam sandwich.' thought Fise as he ate the gel. It tasted like a jam sandwich, strawberry jam.

The government made this gel, making it taste like something good, and making it have everything you need, quickly and easily. Fise finished his food and went to put his plates away at the middle table. Everyone did the same before they cleaned and put away the tables. They then began sitting down on a carpeted area towards the back of the big room. The room was 40 meters long and 25 meters wide.

As they all sat, Emmy went and brought in a hologramic board, a weird device on wheels that can turn on a hologram which resembles a smartboard from the Before. That's when the 2-hour lesson started.

Emmy began talking about how the Fall began."Unlike many believe, not all Guarded are good, some are bad, like the one to cause the Fall."Emmy began but then she saw a girl had her hand up.

"Yes?"

"Who was he?"

"I was about to get there love. Now please keep questions to the end. Anyway, He started by killing all world leaders at once, it seemed his Guarded powers began to come into effect."

Emmy put pictures on the board with newspapers in different languages which all read along the lines of: 'President has died.'

"And during this time is when he struck, by planting biological, nuclear weapons under a city. He triggered them all and a huge radius was covered in this weird virus. The explosions also made it so that the radiation went into the viruses and somehow producing Guarded making spores."

She went on and on about it, somehow making the story seem boring.

"...Eventually, he died to the hands of our hero, a man by the name of Craig Harrison. He later fought to save many during the Fall. He, the Villain, had made Shrouds. The virus, as mentioned before, made people into these zombie things with great strength that then mixed together with Guarded aura, dark guarded aura, and turned into Shrouds. Fortunately, this can't be replicated because that dark aura belonged to Him and he was an Original." Emmy stopped and went through some tabs on the board, seemingly to switch topic.

Fise raised his hand. Emmy stopped on the correct tab and then saw his raised hand,

"Yes, Fise?"

"What's an Original?"

"An Original is a Guarded which was made In the Early Fall, first few weeks," Emmy answered before moving on.

The lesson eventually ended. Fise, as much as he wanted to go back to his room, went outside to get some fresh air. He walked down the long corridor and took a left when he reached a massive hangar door. This was the Wave room. On his left was a small kitchen and in front was a door to the outdoors.

Walking through it he arrived in a garden that spanned around the building. On his left was the green area on the left of the big corridor, and past that led to the front garden in front of the complex. To his rights, a few meters away was a tree. And 10 meters in front of him was a 6 meter tall, smooth stone fence. He took a left.

Walking extra slowly, he thought about what was happening right now.' In 5 days there'll be another Wave.' A Wave was an event that happened when an irregularly large amount of Shrouds appeared. And this usually happened on a dark and rainy day, predicted to arrive in 5 days. Rain is not relaxing, but stressful.

During a Wave they'll all need to evacuate to the Wave room; a sealed off part of the complex that is Shroud proof, everything is lit up. It was a large room with a wall running down its width 10 meters from the entrance, about a 1/5 of the room in. The wall had an opening on the right and it led to the rest of the room.

Fise also thought about what he was going to do. He was a few years away from being a 15-year-old and he barely studied to get a job. Since he lives at an orphanage, of course, he can't pay for education.' Maybe I'll be a soldier, no that's too much working out,' Fise had already been training a bit so that he can keep in shape

'Maybe a secretary, no. Oh I wish I was a Guarded. Then the money and education problem would be solved.'

He learned on a tree with his shoulder. 'There's only over half a year till the Guarded tests. Hopefully, something might change.' Every year, towards the beginning of spring, there are the Guarded tests, where people from the government come and check all those under 18 for Guarded abilities, by pricking their finger and seeing if it evaporates away, while some Powerless Guarded watch, to make sure no one infuses the blood with aura so it doesn't evaporate, just in case someone would want to hide being a Guarded. Fise couldn't figure out why they'll want to do that.

Fise sighed,

'Guess I'll go to some tutoring to study, maybe I'll get lucky and-huh?' Fise stopped his train of thought as he saw someone in a dark uniform that covered everything on their body, land in the garden, dropping from the wall. They barely bent their knees, but landed without issue, even though the wall is super tall. Fise froze. He wasn't the smartest at maths or science but he was intelligent enough to know that what just happened can't have been by a normal human or Extra. Normal humans would probably break a bone or 2 and an Extra would do more damage to the ground.

Fise turned around and ran, hoping the uninformed person won't come after him. The Guarded. Guarded get a power boost when their aura is activated and can reach speeds of up to 120 mph (~193 kph). Turning that into meters per second, Fise realised he was way too fast. The figure was about 50 meters away and increasing, taking into account acceleration, he had around 3 seconds before the person caught up, and that was a generous number.

Fise could see the door to get back in but right then he turned around and saw the person start to look at him. His heart fell. And then the person started walking towards him. Unguarded cant sees auras but Fise was 100% sure that the person had it on. Fise sprinted and reached the door before opening it and going in. The small kitchen extended a bit which made it so he was out of sight for a bit.

Fise went in and immediately took a right and right again before hiding with his back to some cupboards. He waited, holding his breath before standing up and looking over the cupboards, out of a window at a 90° angle from the door.

It.

Was.

Right.

There.

The person was there and about to reach the door handle to get in. Before something fell from the sky.

Fise took in a breath when he saw a blond boy the same age as him fall and land with both his feet straight on the person's head. He then kicked off of it towards the building, pushing the person back. His feet landed on the side of the building and contracted. They then expanded so hard he cracked the stone walls and Fise needed to fully stand up to try and follow him.

The blond boy punched the person right in the face, sending them flying into the ground, making them roll and creating a small ditch before being abruptly stopped by the stone wall. The boy had landed and Fise saw something on the boy's hand, the one he punched with. It looked like some black flames.

"So, another arrives." said the boy. Fise heard it quite muffled so he opened the window a crack to hear better. The person coughed before standing up. A black or dark red spot could be seen through his costume where its mouth would be. Blood.

The boy and the person stood opposite each other, waiting for the other's move. Fise held his breath. He was about to see a fight between 2 Guarded. How would the boy damage a Guarded if he wasn't one himself? He didn't want to miss a moment. The person quickly extended his hand and opened his fist wide. From his palm, a spike formed and extended at fast speeds towards the boy.

The spike seemed to be made from the man's glove. As the spike rushed towards the boy, it started to visibly weaken and bend, allowing the boy to catch it. Before catching fire. It was a black fire and it seemed to not only burn the spike but the air around it as well. The spike disconnected from the man and eventually burnt to nothing. The man seemed surprised and he backed away.

"Haha!" the boy laughed.

"Surprised that my fire can burn your aura? Well, so were the others." The boy stepped forward and the man stepped back. From what Fise could tell, the man's power seemed to have a short range, when the boy's seemed to have a longer range.

The man turned around and ran towards the wall. The boy ran toward him. As the man reached the wall, spikes could be seen forming out of it, big enough to climb, and he started to ascend." Oh no, you don't!" the boy said sprinting towards him," You won't get awa-AAGh-" the boy screamed before putting a hand over his mouth to stop.

He looked down and saw little spikes made from grass and dirt penetrating his feet. He couldn't move, it hurt too much. The spikes must have been made when the man was standing there. The man almost got over the fence before a ball of flame slammed above him, causing him to flinch and fall. He landed heavily but he immediately shot up by making a big spike appear under him.

He dove before the spike he just made exploded as another ball of flame hit it. The boy seemed to be concentrated on making another ball of black flames by waving his hands in a spherical motion, so the man crouched down and placed his hand on the dirt.

From under his hand, 5 long spikes shot out and bent around to face the boy before rushing towards him. He smiled. The flame he made rolled away from his hands, past his shoulder, down his leg and flattened around his feet before exploding and shooting him up 2 meters.

The 5 spikes impaled the spot he was before. The boy landed on 3 spikes, breaking them, before grabbing the other 2 with both hands and shooting flames down them. The flames travelled down them towards the man. He stood and ran towards the garden, away from the fight. The spikes disintegrated as the flames ate them and the boy started to run after him before flinching and stopping.

Fise moved to a window overlooking the battle and tried to stay low under the windowsill, with only his head peeking over. The boy's feet were full of holes and blood, steam rising from the drier blood. The boy built up flames again, before exploding forward, catching up to the man. The man looked to his right to see a fiery punch come right for him. At that moment, 3 spikes rose from under his foot to block it before being destroyed by an explosion.

It sent the man flying and Fise had to relocate again to a window opposite the first one he speculated from. The man was on the ground, bleeding, while the boy walked towards him slowly, black flames covering most his body. The boy raised his hand when he was close and threw a punch covered in flames. Fise could see the light bend a bit from the flames and the amount of aura in that punch. The man threw all he had left in punch too. The 2 collided.

And the man's punch was deflected to his right, his aura flying threw the air and smashing through a window leading to the kitchen. The boy's punch travelled through the man's shoulder, pulverising it, before bending to hit the side of his head, which exploded. The rest of his body was starting to be covered in black flames that began to burn him away. The flames surrounding the boy stopped and he started to walk back around to go inside, though not before grimacing at the broken window, he had to fix that or make a good excuse.

Inside the kitchen, Fise stood up against the stove, looking at the bent-in island table in the middle of the kitchen. He was spectating the last punches when a bit of aura broke the window and he ducked away. He heard the sickening crunch and splash as the head of the man splintered, blood and brain matter flung across the yard before turning away. He scooted over a bit more before standing up. He checked himself for any injuries and saw he was relatively fine, but he checked the floor, especially the broken glass, just in case he had been injured.

He found no blood on any glass so he should be okay, though his shoulder was aching. He walked over to the oven and looked at his reflection. He saw that his jumper was torn at his shoulder, probably clipped by the aura. He stood up and went around the other way round the island and quickly walked back towards his room, adrenaline pumping. He was going down the long corridor and he was about halfway down it before he leaned against the wall with his hand, the adrenaline washing away and leaving him feeling dizzy.

His head hurt and he felt like he had a fever. He was burning. Holding on to the wall, he tried getting down the corridor but he was moving slowly. He heard footsteps behind him and turned his head. A boy ran up to him and asked, "Are you okay, you look tired. Here let me help you."

Fise nodded and the boy started to assist him, holding him up by his arm and guiding him down the corridor. That's when Fise got a good look at him and saw he was blond. He was the boy from the fight. Fise's heart sank

'He might see my torn jumper and start to suspect something. I don't know what hell to do if he knows I know he's a guarded but... it won't be good.'

"Hello?"

"Huh?What?"

" I asked, where is your room."

"Oh, uh, down here on the right, then up the first set of stairs. Number 15-IS."

The boy's and his voice sounded muffled. He started to feel sleepy. They got up the stairs and the boy leaned Fise next to the door.

"Can you get on your bed? Start your med unit when you enter." the boy said before going down the stairs with a friendly wave.

Fise opened his interface and he waved his hand in front of the door. It opened to let him in and he wobbled to his bed, the door closing behind him. He went into the AMWR and got changed into his pyjamas before getting into bed, he knew he'll have to sleep a bit and probably miss dinner. He started his med unit, which measured his vitals and kept him in a good state before he fell asleep.

Fise dreamed.

Descriptions

Interface: A device everyone has placed in their body that is basically a smartphone. It projects holograms only visible to the user so they can search for stuff. It is used in facilities, agencies, hotels or, as we see here, in orphanages to make sure someone can't enter someone else's space without permission. Also used to keep track of people since it's also a tracker. It helps the user by saying their vitals (Heartbeat, blood pressure, thirst, hunger etc.) and can also warn the user of dangerous diseases, environments or activities.

??? (REFERRED TO AS "THE PERSON")

GUARDED,

DEAD,

KILLED BY ??? (REFERRED TO AS "THE BOY")