A Brush with Death

"Ugh," Ian groaned as he slowly opened his eyes. He brushed his hand through his hair, pushing back the hair in his face. "My head hurts."

Memories of his altercation with his new roommate and the stinging feeling on his cheeks before he blacked out flooded his head The memories caused tears to slowly trickle down the side of his face, down his ears and onto the pillow as he sobbed silently.

"All it took was one slap," he sobbed. "One slap and it was lights out for me. I couldn't even see the slap."

He squeezed his palms until his nails pierced his skin, causing blood to trickle down his palm. He covered his eyes with his right forearm, causing the blood to stain some of his silver hair and the pillow underneath his head. The blood from his other hand slowly soaked the bed underneath him as he continued to sob.

"Grandma," he sobbed.

In the bed on the left, Blake could hear the light sobbing coming from the boy and felt a little bad about it. He was asleep a few seconds ago but the sound of sobbing woke him up. He could hear loud snores from the other end of the room so he knew it had to be the silver-haired kid.

"Is he crying because of the slap?" Blake thought. "I didn't think he would still feel the pain from the slap when he woke up.

Blake sighed. "It's a good thing he woke up in the first place. Seeing the way he went down like a log after one slap, I thought we might need a doctor before he woke up again."

He stayed up listening to the sobs for a few more minutes before deciding to get some rest for tomorrow. "He'll be fine after crying a few more minutes."

Meanwhile, Ian kept sobbing and wishing for death until he noticed something strange happening to him.

He was losing blood faster at a very fast rate, to the extent that he could feel the blood draining from his veins. He quickly sat up in confusion as he stared at his hands using the light in his corner.

He noticed that while the hand above his head had smudges of blood on it, the other hand was completely void of any smudges and instead looked like all the blood was being drained from a single point which was weird. He could also feel that his left hand was shaking slightly which indicated that he had lost a significant amount of blood from it.

He looked around the bed and noticed that even the blood which was supposed to have stained the bed sheets was nowhere to be found. It looked just as clean as it was earlier, but the same couldn't be said for the top where his head was, as the sheets were still red with blood.

"What's going on?" he asked himself as he looked around the bed for anything that could have been the cause of such a weird phenomenon.

To his surprise, there was nothing on the bed to indicate anything like that. The bed was completely plain....that was except for the weird book with a patched cover.

"Seeing the book, Ian shuffled away in shock as the last place he remembered keeping the book was in his bag. He was surprised at how the same book was now here on his bed instead.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed that some pages of the book seemed red while the others were white. The book was still locked but he could see that the pages at the top part of the book were red, as if soaked with blood while the other parts weren't.

As he looked at the book, a thought flashed in his head.

"The letter," he thought as he rummaged through his pockets in search of it. Thankfully, it was still in his pocket, causing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

He immediately broke the weird seal on the envelope and peeled it open, revealing the paper inside.

"So this is a letter, huh?" he asked. "I've never seen one until now. We were taught in school that it was a way of communicating at some point in time but now nobody uses it when they can just send a holographic message."

Technology had advanced so much that even phones had been taken out of the picture now, with system watches being for communication and doubling as phones in the new age.

The military system watches were a lot different from the ones released publicly as those were only for communication and whatever normal function needed, but doesn't tell about status and abilities like the military system watches. Only military personnel or professionals related to the other Pioneer families, factions or registered explorers were allowed to have watches like the military.

"Even in the old age, it was said that this form of communication was considered outdated," he thought. "Who would even think of sending a message like this?"

After a few seconds of wondering, he sighed. "It's probably because I never had a system watch. I never needed it anyway since I had no one to talk to."

Both curious and cautious, Ian slowly opened the letter to check the contents but was surprised as it was only a short message.

It read, "I'm sorry it arrived late. This was supposed to be a present for your 10th birthday. Accept this gift and my deepest apologies, and live on. Be careful."

That was all the letter said and immediately after reading it, the paper started to disintegrate slowly until there was nothing left of it.

"What kind of gift is this?" Ian thought as he stared at the book with disgust. "What was the need of giving me a gift six years after the intended day?"

He picked up the book to inspect it again, but this time to his surprise, a needle from the lock stabbed him and started draining his blood at an incredibly fast pace. He tried pulling his hand away but to his utmost despair, it was stuck.

"What is the meaning of this?!" he thought in panic. "Was this gift meant to kill me? What did I do to deserve this?!"

He watched helplessly as his body grew weaker and the rest of the pages soak red with his blood. Faced with the promise of certain death, the same death he had always wished for. He realized how scared he was of death.

"I don't want to die," he sobbed as his body went limp from the immense blood loss.

Once all of the pages were soaked, the lock opened abruptly and the book itself melted into blood and flowed back into his hand through the needle which also melted and flowed into his wound once it had completed its job.

The pain of the blood loss and the forceful influx of blood into his body caused Ian to black out once again, but not before he saw something strange.

[Blood analyzed.]

[Congratulations, Ian Yaeger.]

[You have unlocked the system.]

He blacked out after that, but the images kept appearing.

[Race detected.]

[Race: Human]

[Error!]

[Multiple energies detected.]

[Race re-evaluating.]

[Race: Chimera]

[System name updated.]

[System Name: The Chimeric System]