Changed earth.

"Do you know who we are, huh?" A man spat at Ivan as he punched Ivan in the face, causing Ivan to fall back and his nose instantly bled.

BAM!

"We are Nexulytes, you hear that?" Another person voiced out and kicked him hard.

BAM!

" Without us, the dreamscape would have long swallowed the whole world and the earth would be ruined. Where do you think trash people like you will live?!" Another kick.

BAM!

" And you dare to resist us? You should be glad we bother to send you on errands!"

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Kicks and punches rained down on Ivan as the four men surrounded him and beat him up, they hit him ruthlessly all over his body without holding back.

Ivan did not dare cry out or retaliate, he gritted his teeth and endured the pain while covering his head with his arms.

This had been his lifestyle for as long as he could remember and he was already getting numb to their harsh words, only their hits served as a constant reminder for him that not all Nexulytes were heroes. In fact, Nexulytes were no heroes; they were just filthy humans with abilities.

After five minutes.

" We should stop, I think he's had enough. He's not moving anymore, we won't want to kill him since he can still be of use to us" One of the men said after seeing that Ivan wasn't moving anymore no matter how hard they hit him, he seemed to have lost consciousness.

The other three stared at the motionless Ivan and realised that it was indeed the case, so they stopped beating him and stood up.

One of them spat at Ivan and kicked him one last time,

"We'll let you off with this light beating for today, make sure you get your acts right next time" they said scornfully before they left Ivan alone on the cold floor.

Another two hours flew by. It was already getting dark outside and pretty dark inside the uncompleted warehouse. Ivan's body moved slightly and a painful hiss sounded the next moment before Ivan's body grew still.

Five more minutes later, Ivan resumed movement as he forced himself to sit up and rested his back on the cold wall of the warehouse. A dull look in his eyes as he stared at the empty space in front of him.

Ivan slowly raised his hand and touched his face with his fingers before quickly retracting them after a sharp pain assaulted his senses, his face was bruised and swollen resulting in the pain when he tried to feel his face.

Dressed in ragged clothes that barely covered his body from the cold, Ivan looked even more miserable than beggars on the streets. His chest rose and fell at a slow pace as he forced his hurting lungs to take in air.

His dull eyes flashed with hatred when he remembered the faces of the bastards who beat him up, he clenched his fists despite the pain as he cursed under his breath.

Those four men were Nexulytes who were tasked with protecting this part of the city, they had been assigned here for years now and this had become a sort of entertainment for them; torturing the homeless Ivan.

They turned Ivan into their errand boy over the years and found an excuse to beat him up whenever they were in a bad mood or just felt like it.

Ivan's stomach growled while he shivered at the same time. He was hungry and cold, but most importantly, he was tired and his body was aching all over. With one last sorrowful sigh, Ivan rested his head on the cold wall and…fell asleep.

That cold night, inside the uncompleted warehouse, Ivan had a very strange dream.

...

Ivan, a 19 years old boy lived in a world that could be described in two words: dying mirror.

Yes, earth was currently a dying mirror that was being eaten up by its reflection; the dreamscape.

Many years ago after the birth of Nexulytes; people who awaken magical abilities at a certain age, the dreamscape appeared. The dreamscape, which was also called the reflection of the earth, was a strange place that looked just like earth. Everything about these two worlds were the same with even the slightest change of earth affecting the dreamscape in unexpected ways, their only difference was that earth was a world fit for humans and filled with life while the dreamscape was the opposite of it.

No, it wasn't a place of the dead or like some underworld. The dreamscape was a world of horrors, a place that only Nexulytes could go to and where even the strongest Nexulyte could face the risk of dying without knowing how.

Along with the birth of the dreamscape came the 'link' also known as the bridge that connected both worlds.

Habitants of the dreamscape could invade the real world, earth, through the 'link'. The same was for the people in the real world who would try to conquer places in the dreamscape.

Of course, going to the dreamscape or even getting close to the link was dangerous but humans were greedy beings who would die for anything of value, the case of the dreamscape was no different. After discovering the value of the resources inside the dreamscape, humans had been ambitious enough to force their ways into this world of death and create strongholds for themselves.

Of course, only the Nexulytes could achieve this feat  since they were the only ones who could pass through the link.

But things were not always as easy as they were now as despite humanity's success in creating habitable and safe places in the dreamscape, they had suffered a disastrous defeat to the dreamscape; losing more than half of the planet to the habitants of the dreamscape, only less than twenty percent of humanity was left by the time humans were finally able to fight back.

What was left was now being protected by the Nexulytes who were now regarded as heroes of humanity by ordinary people.

But to Ivan who had no family or a place to call home and had wandered the streets for as long as he could remember… Nexulytes were no heroes, they were despicable scums who took advantage of the weak instead of going to die obediently inside the dreamscape.

…..

Morning came sooner than expected as the chilling breeze of the morning woke him up from his dream only to meet the wave of dizziness caused by hunger and aching all over his body due to sleeping on the hard floor and the beating from yesterday.

Ivan opened his eyes and stared into space, his eyes filled with confusion as he stared at the empty uncompleted warehouse that seemed familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Though the combined feedback of hunger and pain quickly woke him up from his confusion.

"So it was a dream, huh?" Ivan mumbled to himself. His voice gave a faint feel of disappointment and relief.

He had dreamed of being a powerful Nexulyte and had brought the destruction of the real world which the dreamscape had been unable to do for a long time.

Ivan shook his head and forced himself to stand up, his legs felt weak and trembled under his weight while his whole body felt sour.

"Those heartless bastards, I hope that they die gruesome deaths" Ivan said with a cold flash in his eyes as he stumbled toward the exit of the warehouse.

The sun wasn't up yet, leaving the sky as blue and beautiful as a blue blanket that covered the world; Ivan could not comprehend the beauty of this as he slowly made his way through the desolated street, he had to look for something to fill his stomach with so it could stop annoying him.

Ivan lived in the rundown part of the city which housed a few poor and managing families who could not afford to live in better parts of the city, a few old houses with washed paints and cracked walls were what one could see everywhere in this side of town. Ivan had once heard kids saying that their roofs used to rain along with the sky during rainy days.

But none of these actually concerned Ivan who used the ground as his bed and the sky as his blanket. He would sleep wherever the night met him and walk until he felt tired but he always had a limit to his movement and did not go places that he shouldn't.

A link had also appeared close to the city once and a lot of horrors were reportedly still roaming about beyond the borders of the city, it would be bad if he wandered into one of them.

Not a lot of people could be seen on the street as Ivan walked through, most of them had gone to work in the upper part of the city which housed all the best things in the city; Ivan had never been there before so he did not know what it looked like.

Ivan walked until he saw a trash bin on the side of the road, a somewhat relieved and satisfied smile appeared on his face as he stared at the trash bin with fleas and cockroaches crawling all over it. The sight of the insects did not disgust him in the slightest as he was used to it already.

After all, most of his meals had come from here until he met Ralph and Glen.

He stood rotten in place with his eyes fixed on the trash bin but his mind had wandered off, he was thinking about the strange dream he had last night after being beaten up.

He only came back to his senses when he suddenly heard someone call out his name.

"Ivan!" 

A voice pulled Ivan out of his daze, he turned to the side and saw Glen standing about ten metres away while staring at him with wide eyes like someone who had seen a ghost.

To be precise, Glen was staring at…Ivan's hand?

Ivan was confused and turned to look at his hand only for his eyes to widen in shock as well when he saw that he had unknowingly raised his right hand at some point and dazzling strings of red energy was currently swirling above his palm.

"Nexus!?" Ivan almost yelled.

How could he not, after all, Nexus was the special energy attributed to Nexulytes!