A Family Heirloom

"Haa..."

Letting out a sigh, a young man was lying face up on his bed.

'...How troublesome.' Thought the young man.

What was affecting him was something that had troubled most young people at least once in their lives, the uncertainty of their future.

High school classes had already ended a couple of weeks ago, and now, it was time to start thinking about the next stage of his life.

It was time to decide what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, or at least most of it.

Unfortunately, this young man, whose name was Noah, was having a difficult time thinking about his options.

Coming from a lower class family where he had only his mother and grandmother, money remained both a concern and a constraint.

Coupled with his grades that weren't bad, but not outstanding either, it was hard to think he could get help for his higher education, not to mention that the career he was really passionate about was one that was only available at private universities.

'Though of course, there's always the option of going into debt and paying it all off later...'

With a sour expression on his face, sensing that his mood was beginning to worsen, Noah shook his head before jumping out of his bed.

Already standing, his His silver eyes began to survey his surroundings, exposing the young man's desire to find something else to occupy himself with.

To his bad luck, no matter how hard he searched, his room was still the same as it had always been, apparently, he had nothing to do.

"...Ah! Come to think of it, since classes are over and a cycle of my life closed, that means change, change everywhere!"

With those words, Noah left his room to find a few garbage bags and cardboard boxes.

He had found something to occupy himself with to avoid thinking about his future, and while he couldn't do this forever, it would do for the time being.

Soon, Noah's room underwent many changes, with the closets being completely emptied, the bed being moved out of the way and clothes on top of it, the desk tucked to one side, and many other small things being discarded.

In this way, a couple of hours passed, and both the garbage bags and cardboard boxes were now full.

Plop!

Sitting on the floor, Noah wiped the sweat from his forehead, "Woah, that was tiring!"

Unlike before, his expression was now more animated, proving that this little distraction had worked. Besides, it had been somewhat productive, as his room now looked much more spacious and cleaner than before, although this had also caused a small problem.

"Now... I guess it's time to get rid of this." Noah said looking at the full garbage bags and cardboard boxes on the side of his bedroom door.

Quickly getting up, the young man took the bags and threw them in the garbage bin outside the house, as for the boxes, they were going to go somewhere else.

Since they were full of things like books and clothes, plus other things he couldn't just throw away, Noah decided it would be better to keep them.

Clank!

With that sound, the attic stairs opened and Noah climbed up carrying the boxes.

The attic, like many others, was spacious and dusty, making it clear that no one really visited it other than to store the occasional item from time to time.

Because of this, there were already several cardboard boxes similar to the ones Noah had around the entrance, forcing him to look for a freer space where he could leave his boxes.

"This place is dusty as always." Noah couldn't help but comment after setting his boxes down. "Hm... there's a lot of stuff here."

Looking at all the boxes that were in the attic, Noah suddenly had an idea.

While his room now was cleaner and tidy, it also looked a bit too empty for his liking, something that could easily be fixed after a bit of rummaging through this storehouse of forgotten little treasures.

That was why, to improve the aesthetics of his room, and definitely not to further prolong not thinking about his future, Noah decided to take a look at what the attic was hiding.

Box after box, their contents were revealed before Noah's attentive gaze, who took the time to closely examine them, as if trying to see through their history.

Examining old clothes, broken clocks, old or broken tools, as the minutes ticked by, the young man's curiosity was slowly satiated.

Unfortunately, this did not mean that he was succeeding in his original goal, for while the things he found were interesting, none of them could really be used as decoration.

Closing the last cardboard box he had to go through, Noah stood up, "Too bad, I thought there'd be something else in here.... Well, at least a couple these tools might come in handy."

With a bit of regret and having left what he thought was useful in a nearby box, the young man then started walking towards the stairs, thinking about what he could make for dinner.

Chink!

"...Hm?"

Just then, however, Noah noticed something in the corner of his eye.

In the far corner of the attic, the part where the light was dim and the boxes seemed to want to hide something, a certain flash caught his attention.

The young man, neither short nor lazy, stopped his march and changed direction to head towards the flash.

Passing between the boxes, for some reason Noah felt how little by little, the rhythm of his heart, along with his nerves, were increasing, as if his body was trying to tell him something.

But ignoring this, the young man kept moving forward until the object that caught his attention was in front of him.

Taller than he was and with a surface much wider than himself, the object in question was mostly covered by an old and dusty sheet.

It was thanks to the latter that the flash was possible, for through a small gap in the sheet, a bit of the object reflected the solitary ray of sunlight that reached this corner of the attic.

Swoosh!

With a simple motion, Noah grabbed the sheet and lifted it without hesitation, revealing the object.

"...Wow."

Beneath the sheets, lay the largest and most majestic mirror Noah had ever seen.

The thick edges were made of a golden metal whose design seemed to imitate the vines of a grape, as for the surface of the mirror, due to the incredible sharpness of its reflection, Noah first thought it was glass, however, upon closer inspection, it was clear that it was metal.

All this alone was enough to captivate Noah, but there was another detail that could not be overlooked when looking at this mirror.

And this was, that the entire upper left corner of the mirror was not in good condition, with both the wood and metal being wrinkled and corroded.

However, this detail, instead of ruining the aesthetics of the mirror for Noah, brought a big smile to his face.

"I love it!" The young man exclaimed, thrilled to have found such a beautiful and peculiar adornment for his room.

After saying that, Noah inspected the back of the mirror before nodding his head, satisfied with its condition. He then began to remove any obstacles in the way of what he was about to do... take the mirror with him.

Now with the way clear, Noah positioned himself in front of the mirror before lifting it from the sides, "One and.... TWO!!!"

Noah's expression changed to one of exertion, showing that the mirror was not light at all, which was no surprise considering it was not coated in metal, but made of it.

Still, step after step, Noah approached the stairs, focused more than anything else on not dropping the mirror for fear that it would suffer any damage.

Finally, after much effort, the young man was already only a step away from the stairs, something that made him cheer up and look at his reflection in the mirror again as he moved forward.

Although he wouldn't say it out loud, he thought he looked good while lifting something so heavy, "A few more steps and..."

Clanck

However, at the same time he felt he stepped on something that wasn't smooth, Noah felt his body suddenly lose his balance.

"!"

At that moment, things seemed to slow down for Noah, who bringing his gaze downward, realized what it was that he had stepped on.

Near a cardboard box, a small hammer with rusty edges was lying on the floor.

'I could have sworn... I put it away.' Noah thought before his body began to tumble down the stairs followed by the mirror.

BAM!

A loud sound echoed through the house as a heavy object crashed to the floor of the second floor at the foot of the rooftop staircase.

However, there was something odd about the scene.

Because of the way Noah fell, the mirror should have ended up right on top of him, which it had not. Instead, the mirror was stuck straight down to the ground, leaving no room for anything to be underneath it.

As for Noah, whether in the vicinity of the attic staircase, or in the attic itself, he was nowhere to be found.

***

"That... that hurt, agh."

Sitting down on the floor, Noah began rubbing the injured areas, which in truth was almost his entire body.

"Ah, the mirror!"

Looking around quickly, the young man was relieved to find no mirror nearby, meaning it hadn't fallen. But before he could start looking for it in the attic, he noticed something strange.

Whatever direction he looked in, although everything looked the same, there was a certain something that had changed in the surroundings.

Whether it was the wall, the floor, the stairs, and even his own clothes, everything seemed to have largely lost its color to give way to a light gray.

"-I, can't smell anything either...?"

Just as he had said, it seemed as if any odor had not even diminished like the colors, but had directly disappeared.

This evidently worried Noah, who was now no longer concerned with the mirror, but with what was happening to him and his surroundings.

In an instant, several possibilities flashed through his mind, with the most likely and worrisome being that perhaps one of the blows he received to his head when he fell hurt him.

Tss!

"Argh!"

Interrupting his train of thought, Noah then felt a pain in his left arm, so intense that he practically ripped off his shirt sleeve to reveal his arm.

"What the-?!"

On his forearm, the young man could see how seemingly out of nowhere, several black lines had appeared and changed shape, each and every one of them causing him great pain.

Suddenly, the lines stopped, with them finally choosing a shape in which to remain.

At the same time, Noah could hear something in his head, a voice reading the letters that the lines on his arm had come to form.

__________________________

[The Outer God System has been activated.]

["That which fell from the sky" recognizes its new host.]

[Welcome: Noah Winter]

__________________________

Reading and hearing these words, the young man was greatly surprised, not knowing exactly how to react to this unexpected event.

In just a moment, his head was filled with several questions, most of these being how was it possible.

But whether it was for the words on his arm or the voice he had heard in his head, neither of these lingered long enough for him to give it any more thought.

It was barely a couple of seconds before the words were erased from his arm, with the black ink of the words disappearing into his arm and the voice quieting down never to speak again.

"..."

Still, the shock Noah had taken would not be taken away by anyone, now seriously thinking that something had happened to his head when he fell from the attic.

"...I... I better drink something." Noah said, rubbing his arm as he made his way down the stairs.

Right now, nothing would be better for him to process what had happened than a glass of water, so his goal now was to get to the kitchen.

Clang!

Suddenly, as he was in the middle of the stairs to the first floor, he heard a metallic clang coming from the kitchen.

Hearing this, Noah was glad, as that familiar metallic sound meant that his mother had arrived and was about to prepare something, since he had not yet done so.

With that in mind, the young man moved to go downstairs and ask for help about his current condition from the person someone would usually confide in when they were in trouble.

"!"

However, just as he was about to enter the kitchen, Noah stopped in his tracks, his gaze settling on whoever was making noise in the kitchen and that, no way, was his mother.

Standing near the kitchen table was something Noah couldn't describe in any other way than "Non-human".