Chapter 6 : Return

James, lying on a bed, slowly opened his eyes.

He moaned in pain, then looked up and saw a woman in her sixties sitting on a chair beside her bed with two children asleep on her lap.

"Mom! Kara! Will!"

Hearing James' screams, the old woman and the children opened their eyes and seeing James wake up, the two children immediately jumped on him.

"Dad, are you okay?"

"Daddy, you scared us so much!"

"Karla even screamed in fear!"

"That's not true, I wasn't even scared!"

"Haha if that's true you were scared to death."

"That's not true I wasn't scared, unlike you who was crying!"

"I didn't cry!"

"Yes, you did!

"No, I didn't!"

Seeing them arguing, James was paralyzed, he wanted to hug them and cry all the tears of his body, say a thousand words, kissing them, he had dreamed of this moment countless times.

But at that moment, he could do nothing, no words or deeds could express what he was feeling.

He just slowly raised his arms and put his hands on the heads of his two children.

He gently stroked their hair and said in a hoarse voice.

"I love you."

The two surprised looked at their father who smiled at them as never before with tears in his eyes and could not help but cry strangely at that moment.

They threw themselves into James' arms and both cried, hugging him tightly.

"Daddy we were so scared, we were scared that you'd become like the people who slept in school and on the streets."

"Daddy...."

"Daddy we were so scared."

Judy seeing this scene, had a smile on her lips ​and wiped the tears from her eyes as well.

Several minutes after the children had calmed down, he went to eat in the kitchen with his mother Karla and Will, during the meal his mother began to tell him what had happened.

Almost a month ago the children found him passed out on the living room floor and called her.

According to her, the world today was in unprecedented chaos.

All over the world, everyone had suddenly seen a blinding golden light before losing consciousness, after hearing a strange voice.

This caused many accidents, airplanes crashed, patients in the operating room died, construction workers fell from dizzying heights, some passed out in the bathroom and drowned, countless fatal car accidents happened.

The current death toll was already over 1.9 billion and the scientific community could give no explanation for this phenomenon.

"My little brownies, go brush your teeth, its time to sleep."

"Yes, grandma."

"We race whoever gets to the bathroom first!"

"You cheat Will, wait for me!"

"Stop running or no more cookies for a week."

"Yes, Grandma."

Seeing the children leave the room Judy suddenly had an serious expression, she pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it before taking a big puff of smoke.

"But that's not the worst."

"What do you mean?" James frowned as he saw his mother's serious expression.

She suddenly raised her right hand and whispered in a low voice.

"Fireball."

In front of James' astonished eyes, a familiar energy appeared from his mother's palm and then slowly transformed into a small ball of fire.

"The aura! Mom, you can use the aura?!"

James shouted out loud, suddenly rising from his chair, looking at the fireball in his mother's hand.

The ball of fire suddenly disappeared from his mother's hand, who looked at him with a lost look.

"Aura? Do you want the Mana?"

"Mana?"

"Yes, after everyone woke up, the whole planet acquired special abilities and some kind of superpower called Mana."

Judy said as she took a puff of smoke before putting out her cigarette.

"But that's not all, overnight monstrous creators started appearing in different corners of the globe, killing and destroying everything in their path, the army is fighting them now, every country in the world is in a state of emergency and a curfew is mandatory everywhere in the world".

James was speechless for a few seconds before slowly sitting back in his chair.

But he soon regained his composure, sat back down and looked at his mother with a slightly depressed expression.

He had spent several hundred years training and meditating to master the aura but someone suddenly learned him that this energy was called Mana and that everyone on the planet could use it, including his old mother who had always hated sports and smoked like a fireman.

Seeing James remain silent for a long time Judi slowly shook her head and said nothing else thinking he was in shock.

"In addition to this we learned of the existence of extraterrestrials, there is also a gigantic citadel of several light-years that suddenly appeared in our galaxy, in which any person can increase his strength and power by passing several tests...."

Judi continued talking for more than ten minutes before looking at the time and getting up from the chair.

"Well I've given you the resum of this month, the kids are waiting for me to tell tthe a story, have sweet dream son."

Then she left the kitchen, leaving James sitting in the chair staring at the emptiness with a dubious look on his face.

Aliens? Citadel ? Mana ? Monsters ?

Have I gone crazy? Where is this world gone mad?