System Book

"How did I get here?" Max asked himself, trying to recall what had happened.

"Oh, sweetie, you're awake," Mrs. Hernandez, Max's mom, whispered upon realizing that he had regained consciousness.

"A stranger carried you here in his arms, saying that you passed out on the street. I've already put your school bag in your room," she added.

Max slowly sat up and held his head. His vision had become clear, but his head was spinning like crazy. It was as if all the pain had been waiting for him to regain consciousness and resume their torment.

"Argh! My head!" Max groaned.

"Sorry, boy, but that's what you get for fighting AGAIN!" Mrs. Hernandez spelled out in frustration.

She walked into the kitchen and asked Max what he'd like to eat for dinner.

"It's night already?!" Max asked in shock. That means he had been unconscious for more than 10 hours or even longer. He had actually left the school grounds at 12 pm.

Max was quite surprised that his mother wasn't asking any questions or scolding him about what happened. He believed that by now she would have become used to his fighting behavior at school, but even so, she always questioned and yelled at him. The most shocking part was that his mother was smiling.

'What the heck!' Her son got all beaten up and returned home unconscious, and the next thing is she's smiling as she prepares dinner?

"Mom, is everything fine?" Max asked from the living room.

Mrs. Hernandez raised her head and responded. "Yeah, everything is fine, except you, actually." She grinned.

"You seem excited. Did you receive some good news or something?" Max questioned.

His mom switched off the gas and walked back to Max. With a wide smile, she revealed the reason behind her happy mood, although this didn't sit well with Max as always.

His greatest nightmare just came true.

Mrs. Hernandez exhaled and continued, "An email came in today from the Military School. They want you in!" She announced.

Max's appetite for dinner faded away immediately. "Well, that's good news for you and Dad, not for me."

"Sweetie, you know we just want what's best for you. You always get into fights in those public schools, but the military school has a strict rule of never fighting, just training. You're going to love it, I promise."

Mrs. Hernandez tried as hard as possible to make Max see that the military school is what's best for him, but just like every other time, his parents' words fell on deaf ears.

"I will be in my room, Mom. Finn and I have a project to complete by the end of the night."

Finn was the same friend who helped Max during his fight with Jacob yesterday. He was the one responsible for giving Jacob all the bruises he had this morning.

"I will send dinner to you, okay?" Mrs. Hernandez said as Max walked into his room upstairs.

After a long day, Max finally arrived in his room, collapsing onto his inviting bed. The softness of the mattress embraced him, offering a moment of time out from the outside world.

Max's bedroom was cozy and uniquely shaped like a pentagon box. Despite its not-so-large size, it was perfectly suited for him. The walls were painted with a shade of light blue, creating a serene atmosphere.

On the bed, a set of white sheets adorned the mattress. A couple of plump pillows rested against the headboard, inviting relaxation.

An elegant glass table sat in front of the couch, holding Max's laptop. The table's surface gleamed, reflecting the soft ambient light.

Bookshelves and small decorative items were strategically placed to make the most of the unique layout. The soft lighting desk lamp on Max's study table provides a warm ambiance that complemented the room's cozy feel.

But despite all these small comforts, they didn't reduce the amount of pain Max was currently going through.

He looked around the room, his gaze fixed on the chandelier, and soon his gaze fell on his school bag. He decided to take out the project that he had started with Finn, his childhood friend since fifth grade.

Max tried to carry his school bag with a single hand, but he couldn't lift it up. The bag was as heavy as a sack of bricks, and his attempt to lift it with a single hand only resulted in strained muscles.

He didn't recall carrying so many books to school, especially during the final week of his miserable high school life. He rolled over to where the bag was resting beside his bed and lifted it with both hands.

"Why are you so heavy?!" he groaned, as the weight of the bag intensified the pain in his exhausted body.

He placed the bag in the center of his bed and opened it to investigate the reason behind its heaviness.

As he slightly unzipped the bag, he noticed glowing blue lights emanating from within. Max doesn't have any objects that emitted blue light, let alone keeping it inside his bag.

"Huh!" He exclaimed.

Driven by curiosity to uncover the source of the light, Max abruptly unzipped the bag, and there it was: the creepy old book he had found before losing consciousness.

As soon as Max saw the book, he recalled where and when he had passed out. He also remembered that there was a figure standing in front of him before the blackout, and he couldn't see their face.

"Did that stranger I saw before passing out think the book was mine and chuck it into my bag?" Max wondered.

He picked up the book again and examined it closely. The book was dark in color but featured lines in Greek symbols glowed blue in it. Max had never seen a book like this one before.

The book resembled the scientific books that scientists display on television. They called them "System Books", but there was something peculiar about this particular one.

"Did someone mistakenly drop this? Or maybe it fell from the sky." Max whispered as he recalled the book as a fallen object.

He tried to flip the pages open, but they wouldn't budge due to a passcode set on it. "I thought as much," Max said in frustration.

System books were so expensive that not even the average wealthy people in the world could afford them. Only military schools and rich politicians had these system books in their possession.

The scientists who were talking about the system books on TV mentioned something that raced back into Max's mind when he saw the passcode on the book.

The scientists said that every system book is registered to just one person's DNA, meaning that only the person with the registered DNA can make use of it. So, with this knowledge, Max knew that even though it might be a system book, it was useless to him.

'However, a system book might be a good collection to keep,' Max thought and got up from his bed, heading towards the empty bookshelf close to his glass table.

Before placing the book on the shelf, Max decided to read the words on the cover once again. He thought maybe he had misread them back then due to his blurred vision. However, the words remained the same.

"Thousand Pages Of Death!" he uttered, wondering what the words meant.

Last he checked, system books don't have names or write-ups on them; they only have symbols, indicating the kind of ability the book holds.

Just like back then, as soon as Max uttered the words "Thousand Pages Of Death," there was a blackout in Max's room.

"What happened to the lights?" Max asked himself, making his way towards the light switch using the glow that was radiating from the creepy old book in the dark.

As soon as Max turned on the light, a dark figure in armored clothes stood behind him.

"HAAAAAA!!!" Max screamed, greatly startled by the figure in front of him. The figure quickly rushed to Max and covered his mouth, preventing him from raising an alarm.

"Hmmm....!!!" Max struggled to voice out but couldn't, as the figure's grip was too firm for him to break loose.

After a few minutes, Max relaxed and signaled the figure to let him go, and the figure complied.

But as soon as the figure released Max, he resumed screaming for help. This time, his shouts were twice as loud as before. The figure abruptly knocked Max unconscious with a single hand strike to Max's shoulder.

Soon, Max's mother came knocking on the door after hearing a faint scream from the living room.

"Sweetie! Is everything okay?" she asked from the other side of the door.

"Everything's fine, Mom," the figure replied with Max's voice, perfectly mimicking his tone and accent. This figure was a demon, and one of his many abilities was shape-shifting. Despite being thousands of years old, he looked young, appearing to be in the same age group as seventeen-year-old Max.

Max's mom, unaware of the deception, took his response at face value and left him to his activities.

This figure was the same person who appeared when Max first read out the words in the book. He was also the stranger who had carried Max home after he collapsed on the street.

The figure walked in front of the mirror in Max's cozy room. He admired his human appearance, which held an otherworldly intensity, revealing a glimpse of his true nature as a demon.

His red curly hair framed his face in a wild yet captivating manner. His dark, penetrating gaze seemed to pierce through the mirror, reflecting a hint of the apocalyptic power he possessed.

As he continued to admire his reflection, he pondered how and why the Book With Thousand Pages Of Death had brought him to Max after a millennium.

Perhaps Max is the promised wielder of the book.

Just then, Max regained consciousness. The demon walked up to Max and tried to calm him down so he wouldn't scream again.

"Who are you? How did you get into my room?" Max demanded.