Hatred

I remained still drowning in my own thoughts until I was removed from the premises. 

Everything became a blur as I found myself back in my room and on my bed. I was broken. I was defeated. I was done.

Done with everything. 

Everything and everyone was against me.

The pain, suffering and endless hours of training just went to waste. My efforts dissipated into thin air.

My Waking.

My own soul had chosen someone else. I did not know how to feel about that. The one thing I thought I could rely on, my soul, it had moved against me. This Waking took its place and filled the gap in my soul but that would never be fully filled, that infernal creature had made sure of that.

I tried using my new Waking. Absorption.

But it didn't even activate. No reaction. Nothing.

It was just sad. 

The new Waking treated me even worse than my previous one. 

I let out a little chuckle.

I didn't even feel like crying anymore. Funnily enough, I wanted to laugh. Laugh at the situation I found myself in. Laugh at the treatment I got. Laugh at my vain beliefs. Laugh at myself.

And I did just that.

I laughed it out. Laughed it all out. I needed to vent my emotions, so I just laughed myself silly. Both my mouth and my stomach hurt as I laughed. And I did so until I stopped hurting inside.

My hopes and dreams were now gone. I knew that. And just a few hours after I found my soul being filled again, I felt empty in another manner. Now there was nothing to look forward to, nothing to expect.

I resigned myself to my fate. 

The only regret I really had was that I couldn't make my other family proud...…. my only family proud. Wanting to help the orphanage and grow stronger, faster put me on this path. It all begun with that wish of finding a new family and it seemingly ended there as well.

PING

Reflexively I took a look at my device on my side. There was a message with an attachment. It didn't seem like a personal message, more like one sent out to everybody. An alert.

"All personnel who have participated in picking up their Wakings please, prepare yourself for mandatory field training. This training will be taking place on the outer edges of the Desolate Lands where the Hunter family operates. This training aims to put you in a situation where you have no one to rely on but yourselves. It is advised to prepare for this both physically as well as mentally, since the Desolate Lands are dangerous. Attached with this message is a map of the location you are allowed to explore and creatures that can be commonly found here and their features. The transport to the Desolate Lands will leave at 05:00 before sunrise. Acclimate to your Wakings by then and arrive at the destination before time.

~Aron Hunter"

Reading the message, I felt indescribable anger well up within me. In that instance, I had a new goal. One I would achieve at all costs. Waking or no Waking. Soul or no soul.

I wanted to make sure Aron would never do this to another child ever again. Ending him was my new purpose. And for that, I would have to do what I had been doing from before, silently bide my time until I get one chance, one opportunity. 

HUUUUUUU

I took a deep breath and did exactly what the message told me to do. Go through the attachment and prepare myself.

Memorizing the map was easy enough, looking at it and trying to recall it a couple times eventually let me remember the map the moment I closed my eyes. The harder part was the information about the creatures. There were about fifteen creatures that were frequently spotted in the location that we would be exploring during our stay there.

After going through that information and committing them to memory, I read the last line, the most alarming one.

'Note: Some of the creatures may possess abilities that fall outside common characteristics of the species.'

That probably meant that the creatures rapidly evolved and they might not exhibit the same behaviors. 

This could be an opportunity. An opportunity for escape. I could use this field training to leave the family. It was probably pretty easy to fake my death and leave none the wiser. From then on I was free. Seeing their treatment of me, I was pretty sure that they wouldn't be chasing me or even search for me at all. That's just the type of people they were. 

Another thing I considered was that, Aron wasn't the type of spend resources to send those with weak Wakings to the Desolate Lands. He was probably trying to see if any one of the people with weaker Wakings would show something outside his calculations. To see if there were any diamonds among this pile of trash.

I had the rest of the evening ahead of me after I had finished committing everything to memory and so I decided to brute force my Waking into actually working.

I clenched my fists and grit my teeth, then forced my soul to listen to me, by extension force my Waking to obey.

That's what I wanted right now. I would be my own slavedriver. I needed my body and mind to listen to me, that was the first step and a crucial requirement.

At least I was still a Mod, despite everything. That was one silver lining. I just needed something good enough to absorb and never ever feel the need to change. I needed a substance that was virtually indestructible. The strongest and most durable object would be what I needed. And only one fit the criteria currently.

Moran.

Moran was a new age object. There was nothing that could cause a change to it. Eternally unchanging. People have tried everything, every technique, every idea, even Wakings. But nothing could affect it. Not only was it unbreakable and unchanging, it was also extremely rare. One of the rarer new age objects.

And they were usually sold as big chunks that formed naturally. Since it couldn't be refined and study on the rock led to no results, it was just an expensive display item. Like jewelry. I just needed a single chance to touch it. Then I would be similar. Invincible.

After a few hours of brute forcing myself, my eyes finally started glowing and I felt the energy from my Waking and my ability. But as I awakened it I felt something, something issuing me a warning. Almost pleading. My Waking was talking to me. Pleading me to not choose an object to absorb yet.

Great.

The useless Waking was practically sentient.

I guess we did deserve each other.

There was a popular belief that said that Mod type Waking were sentient. The Hunter family also held that belief. To a pretty high extent. And this just proved that.

But there was a bigger issue at hand.

Why was it not letting me choose an object to absorb? It kept slamming me with warnings. Almost like a subconscious order to not waste my one opportunity.

"So till when do I wait." I whispered in indignation.

And surprisingly, I got an answer.

"Tomorrow huh.."

Then it continued in my head. Everything fit. My Waking wasn't just limited to inanimate objects. I might be able to copy Wakings.

It just wanted to wait till we had a bigger pool of options to choose from. Despite my prior thoughts, my Waking was also angry. Angry at its previous owner for treating it like trash and throwing it away without even trying to understand it. I felt the same with my Waking. It tried controlling me whenever I used it and then decided to choose someone else over me.

We had the same origin.

And just like that, I felt a complete connection to the Waking. The little awkwardness of the Waking merging with me was completely gone. 

We were the same.

And we would face this together.

Our revenge and our redemption would come.

And we would wait. Wait till the right moment and if possible, orchestrate the events that would lead to that moment.

But deep inside, I didn't know if I could go through with this revenge plan. The fact still remained that I wasn't the kind of person to be cold hearted enough to be like that. Anger was clouding my mind and I just didn't want to regret any decision I would end up making in my quest for redemption and revenge.

My sentient Waking wasn't on the same page however. It was out for blood and I respected that. It was probably also influencing me, making me angrier. I just hoped things would turn out for the better.

But now, I wanted to rampage. Aron and the Hunters needed to suffer as I did. As we did. And as everyone in my position did.

It was truly diabolical.

Picking up children with powerful Wakings and then taking it away from them using that creature under the guise of not being strong enough to use it or it not being compatible. Then gifting it to their children to artificially boost their capabilities and then use and throw the adopted children. We weren't living beings according to them, we were just glorified Waking containers. This was also probably why my conversations with Mama and the others were highly monitored.

They didn't want to risk informations of this caliber to slip out. The governments did move to regulate adoption and the well treatment of the adopted children after news of adopted children being used as lab rats for various experiments got out. The Hunters couldn't risk the government finding out, if they weren't in on it already.

But I would end this on my own and reveal everything to the world. For this, I needed sufficient strength to back myself up. Because I was sure Aron would just move to silence me. I had to be strong enough to face off against a family as big as this, with their immense manpower, wealth, connections and everything in between,

First off, I needed personal power. My new albeit bloodthirsty Waking would help with that.

Then came connections. The organisation with the logo would be my best bet. A support system strong enough to scare Aron was always going to be reliable.

Finally, like minded allies. I just needed to find those who would benefit from the gaming of this family.

I would acquire all of this in due time. I was sure of it.

Hence, I did the most optimal thing to prepare for the next day.

Sleep.