Chapter 0 - Prologue

The noises of suburban Sydney were drowned out by the rain and thunder racing to see which would make me break something first, this wasn't the first time that the weather was, to put it lightly, terrible. Recently the weather, the climate and most importantly the strength of magnetic and gravitational fields had taken a U-turn on the status quo. Life has become a maze you have to navigate to achieve the simplest tasks, like driving to work, picking up groceries or even attending social events, though little social events are still held. This day was one of the more "tame" ones, usually lighting would set everything around you alight, this was so commonplace that everyone was mandated to have access to the nearest fire hydrant at all times. An extraordinarily terrible day would usually result in discrepancies in different things necessary for daily life, blackouts for no reason, and changes in the gravity of the world, you would see some of the lightest things flying and the heaviest digging into the ground like they had found a long-lost sibling buried in the Earth's embrace.

"Skylar come down for dinner," I heard my grandmother call in a cheerful voice, she was a nice person and had raised me ever since my parents died when I was 1 year old. They died on one of those "extraordinarily horrid" days. My grandmother didn't give me many details but what she did tell me sent shivers down my spine and made me grow up hating life as it was.

The "wind of change" as the scientists studying this phenomenon dubbed it was the bane of my existence, it took almost everything from me. As I walked down the stairs to where my grandmother was, I reflected on everything that had changed in this past decade, from the various governments of Earth congregating into a centralised power, to the discovery of "mana" a type of catalyst which allowed the science fiction and fantasy of yesterday to come true. Mana allowed people to make flying cars, warp terminals that allowed you to travel anywhere on earth, and even the prospect of magic.

"Skylar are you there?" My grandmother worriedly asked, "you were spacing out, are you ok?"

"Yeah, what is for dinner?" I was starving.

"Pasta, just like your mother used to make," she answered… I looked at the face of my grandmother, she looked as if she experienced the pain of learning what happened to my mother and father all over again. "Let's eat, no point just staring at the food."

"Do you know when I will awaken grandmother?" I asked, usually, people would awaken at the age of 13, yet I wanted to awaken early so I could go and explore the world, and most of all, blow off some of the hate I had been building up for the past years.

"You shouldn't be worrying about these things Skylar, it will happen when it happens, and that is the last time we will discuss this, now eat your dinner and then go to bed." My grandmother replied I had spent the last few weeks asking her the same thing every time.

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The next few days flew by in a flash, and before I knew it my 12th birthday had come, in retrospect, it wasn't the birthday I was expecting. I woke up to an empty house, with a note resting on the dining table, it read "Skylar, I am going out for groceries, I will be back in a while, love you, your grandmother." Leaving the note back on the table, I was going to go outside for some air, and that is when it started, sharp pangs in my sternum grew stronger with every passing step… Until it finally happened. Black and orange light pierced my body as it was flooded by mana. In retrospect, it wasn't black light that had entered my body, but rather a void, a place lacking light nestled itself in the epicentre of the orange light pillar. It felt like my bones had turned to dust, and my veins and arteries had popped, my brain was barraged with so much mana that it felt as if my brain had fried. My grasp on reality became tenuous at best, I felt like all the energy had abandoned my body. I could feel my body refining itself with mana, as I returned to my senses I could feel the difference, with my newly mana-refined body I could see better, hear better, see more colours, and my cognitive abilities improved to the extent where it had felt like a damp towel was stopping me from interpreting anything for my entire life.

As tried as I was, I still wanted to see what else had changed due to my transformation. As I climbed up the stairs to my room, the energy that I required to move was halved yet it felt as if my own body was foreign to me. After an arduous and tedious journey, I had finally made it back to my room, I opened the door and stumbled in, I had to work on my coordination again. The reflection I found waiting for me in the mirror was both mortifying and yet at the same time it was somewhat euphoric. My usual blond hair was replaced with pitch-black hair that seemed to devour all the light surrounding it, my green eyes changed to orange with grey tinting. The most unsettling thing was the black and orange symbols that now ran down my body, starting at my neck and stopping just above the ankle. I was never fond of long-sleeved shirts and jeans but it seemed as if I had to wear them now to avoid my grandmother thinking I am going through some rebellious phase.

As I put on the before-mentioned clothing items, I finally understood to what extent the foreign mana now animated my body. Before I never had muscles, yet without going to the gym a single second of my life, I now had muscles that might put some of the regulars at my local gym to shame. After covering all of the symbols with a turtle neck and jeans, I realised that I had to do something about the change in hair and eye colour.

"Skylar I'm home," my grandmother announced from the living room

"Shit, what am I meant to do, damn it!" I ran different scenarios in my head, though processes that would have usually taken me minutes were sorted by pros and cons in a few seconds.

"Skylar are you in your room? Are you still sleeping?" I was worried about what my grandmother would say, but what worried me more was if she could recognise me, cause I sure as hell wouldn't. "Come on out Skylar, it isn't good to be sulking in your room on your birthday, don't tell me your mad that you didn't awaken today." The door of my room nudged open slightly allowing my grandmother to enter my room. "Skylar…" my grandmother asked with a look of plain and unimpeded horror on her face

"Hi grandma, it looks like I awakened today," I replied to her, with a jovial face that was the polar opposite of hers.

(Author's Note: Sorry if this and probably the next few chapters are poorly written, I'm new to writing novels, thanks for reading The Dawn of the End also I am sorry if this chapter was a little bit of an info dump. Also, the cover is just a stand-in, I will replace it with something more relevant to the novel later.)