A User?

"Why did you let that kid go? I could tell he was injured from all the way over there, hes probably the culprit we're looking for." Detective Barnelli said with an annoyed tone as she arrived beside her partner.

Detective Kon turned to face his partner and spoke "I'd hardly call him a kid, he looked to be about eighteen to me..."

"Don't dodge my question Kon, why did you let me leave without questioning him properly?!" Barnelli said, her annoyance becoming heavily apparent.

"What makes you think I didn't question him?" Kon asked with a sarcastically indignant tone of voice.

"You spoke with him for all of thirty seconds, there isn't much questioning you could have done." Barnelli's tone was starting to get accusatory as her annoyance peaked.

"I didn't think he was the culprit so I let him go, that's all there is to it." Kon said as he walked away, heading back to his car. He looked back towards the street the boy had walked down and remembered the glow behind his crimson eyes.

'I'm sorry, Barnelli, but I'm not getting involved with arresting a User. I'd rather not be on the news tomorrow because they found my body under a bridge somewhere...'

***

'They're definitely glowing... why are my eyes glowing?' Alex thought as chills ran down his spine. 'I've never had an ability and I'm years past the point of being a late bloomer.'

Alex was now staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror at his house. At first he believed the window he was using to see his reflection might have had a weird glare or something that caused his eyes to glow a bit, but after checking his reflection in every window on the way home and now seeing it in his mirror, he was certain.

'This must be why everyone was acting so strange, they were avoiding me because they thought I was a User. This can't be happening... there's no way I just suddenly got an ability at eighteen, that's never happened before! Everyone gets their ability at, like, six or something!'

Alex felt a strange mix of emotions building inside of him, causing his chest to feel like it was under immense pressure. Out of all the feelings mixing around inside his heart, one stood out among the rest. Excitement.

'Could I really be a User? I mean, I imagined this happening almost every day of my life but now that it has it doesn't feel real.' Alex had a massive smile on his face while looking at his reflection when he suddenly remembered something.

'I could be hallucinating again...' The smile on Alex's face vanished as quick as it had appeared. Disappointment replaced the excitement as Alex thought back on what he had seen last night to try and prove he wasn't hallucinating again.

'I was running and then there were these words that appeared in front of me, but I don't see anything like that now... that should be good, right?' Alex let out a sigh relief.

'Yeah, I can't be hallucinating. I mean the words i was seeing were so random too, something about 'devouring' and a 'system', like wha-'

The words suddenly appeared in front Alex once again, cutting of his sentence mid way. Alex jumped back in surprise, the wound on his leg flaring up with pain as he slammed into the wall behind him, bumping his head with a thud.

"Ah! Fucks sake!" Alex shouted as he quickly sat down on the closed toilet while rubbing his head and lamenting his stupidity. He opened his eyes and saw that the words were still floating in front of him. Unlike last time, Alex could actually read what the words were saying.

[Stats] [Abilities] [Notifications]

Those three words were all Alex could see at the moment. The two words he could remember seeing from the previous night, System and Devour, were nowhere to be seen.

'What is all this. Stats ,Abilities and Notifications... it's almost looks like a home page on a website.' Alex looked at the three words and focused on one of them like he was clicking on it with his mind.

The words suddenly vanished, only to be replaced instantly after with a different set of words, confirming the 'home page' theory. Now, a different page was visible to Alex.

[Stats]

[Physique - 1] [Mind - 1] [Constitution - 2]

[Available - 0]

'Whoa, it worked...but what do these mean exactly? I can gather from their names what they're related to but is there a more detailed description? Assuming I'm not hallucinating and this is real then...' Alex imagined himself clicking on 'Physique' and another window opened up.

[Physique]

- The representation of the Users physical capabilities such as strength, speed, stamina and agility.

Note: Increasing this stat may affect the Users appearance.

'It may affect my appearance? Like improving my muscles, right? Doesn't sound so bad to me.' Alex thought as he moved on to the next stat description.

[Mind]

- The representation of the Users defense against mental attacks, as well as the representation of the Users energy reserves when using abilities.

'Energy reserves? So like stamina but for abilities specifically, gotcha.' Alex thought as he went on to the last stat description.

[Constitution]

- The representation of the Users defensive strength. Improving this stat will affect the following aspects of the User: Healing speed, damage negation, life span.

'This one will make me live longer? That's pretty cool. An improved healing speed is nice, maybe that's why I didn't die last night. The damage negation is just my ability to take a hit, right? All in all, this stat seems really useful.'

Alex felt satisfied with the stat descriptions and decided to move on to the next optionthe 'home page' had. Alex was starting to accept this as something that was actually happening rather than it being some kind of dream or hallucination. It just felt too real.

Alex thought about returning to the home page and was instantly taken there just as he wanted. He imagined opening the next category he wanted to check out and was instantly taken into the [Abilities] page.

'Holy shit...' These were the first words that came to mind when Alex began reading the words in front of his eyes. The excitement he had felt earlier returned as he continued to read.

'This is Amazing...'