Awakened II

"Um, Kyle are you gonna eat that burger or what?" Natalie's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He blinked and looked across the rickety table at his best friend. Natalie was short, loud, and had a wild mop of dyed purple hair that she swore made her look "intimidating." It didn't. She was munching on a bag of chips, her combat boots kicked up on a chair in their tiny apartment. The place was a dump—peeling wallpaper, a flickering lightbulb, and a window with a c***k that let in more cold air than light. But it was home. "I'm eating, I'm eating," he mumbled, taking a bite of his peanut butter sandwich. "Just thinking." "About what? How you're gonna absorb the sandwich's feelings?" She grinned, tossing a chip at him. It bounced off his forehead. "Ha, hilarious," he said, brushing crumbs off his hoodie. "No, just... you know, life. The Portals. Monsters. The usual." "You sound like my grandma. 'Oh, the world's gone to heck!' Relax. We're still alive, aren't we?" "Barely," he shot back, but he couldn't help a small smile. She had a way of making even the worst days feel lighter. She wasn't a Hunter either, but she worked at a gear shop downtown, fixing up weapons and armor for the real fighters. Kyle, meanwhile, was stuck at a dead-end job hauling scrap from the edge of the city's safe zone. It paid enough to keep the lights on—most of the time. The TV in the corner buzzed with static before the news kicked on. A tired-looking reporter stood in front of a smoking crater, talking about the latest monster break. "Gate activity has spiked again near the eastern districts. Three Hunters lost their lives containing the breach, but the area is secure... for now." Kyle glanced at the screen. Monster breaks were getting worse lately. The Portals—those swirling black portals that had appeared out of nowhere in 2025—kept spitting out nightmares. Goblins, wolves with too many heads, and things that didn't even have names. Hunters were supposed to handle it, but sometimes the monsters slipped through. Last week, a giant lizard-thing had trashed half a block before someone put it down. "Secure, my butt," Natalie said, crunching another chip. "I bet they'll call it 'safe' until a slime eats someone's dog again." Kyle chuckled. "Remember that guy who tried to fight a slime with a broom? Poor dude got dissolved up to his knees." "Yeah, and he still owes me for the boots I sold him!" She shook her head. "Idiot." The two of them laughed, but there was an edge to it. Living in this world meant laughing at the absurdity—or crying. Kyle preferred laughing. *** Later that day, Kyle was out on his usual scrap run. The safe zone's edge was a mess of twisted metal and broken concrete, leftovers from when the first Portals opened. He lugged a heavy bag over his shoulder, his boots crunching on gravel. The air smelled like rust and something faintly sour—probably a dead rat or worse. "Yo, Kyle! Hurry it up!" his boss, Harold, yelled from the truck parked a hundred yards away. Harold was a squat, sweaty guy who acted like he was king of the scrap heap. "We ain't got all day!" "Yeah, yeah," Kyle muttered under his breath. He bent down to grab a jagged piece of rebar, his fingers brushing the cold metal. His power kicked in—useless as ever. He could feel every nick and dent in the steel, like it was whispering its boring life story to him. 'Wow, so thrilling,' he thought sarcastically. That's when he heard it—a low, guttural growl. He froze. His head snapped up, eyes darting around. The safe zone wasn't supposed to have monsters. That's why it was called safe. But the sound came again, closer this time, from behind a pile of rubble. "Harold?" He called, his voice shaky. "You hear that?" No answer. The truck's engine roared to life—Harold was bailing. "Kyle, move your ass!" the man shouted before peeling out, dust kicking up behind him. "Seriously?!" Kyle dropped the rebar and bolted. He wasn't a runner, but fear made his legs move faster than he thought possible. The growling turned into a snarl, and he risked a glance back. Something big and scaly was charging after him—green skin, claws like kitchen knives, and a mouth full of teeth that didn't fit right. A monster. A freaking monster. His foot caught on a chunk of concrete, and he went down hard, scraping his palms. The monster loomed closer, its stench hitting him like a punch—rotten meat and wet dirt. He scrambled back, heart pounding, until his hand brushed something cold and slimy. A corpse. Another monster, smaller, dead on the ground. Its head was bashed in, black from the wound. Probably a Hunter's leftovers. His fingers sank into its flesh by accident, and then— Whoosh. A jolt shot through him, like lightning in his veins. His eyes widened as the monster corpse twitched, then shriveled, its power—its essence—flowing into him. Strength flooded his arms, his legs, his whole body. He didn't just feel the corpse anymore. He absorbed it. The charging monster leapt at him, jaws open. Kyle didn't think—he just moved. His fist swung out, faster and harder than he'd ever punched before, and it smashed into the monster's face. The thing flew back, crashing into the rubble with a sickening crunch. He stared at his hand, trembling. "What... the hell?" For the first time in his life, his useless power didn't feel so useless anymore.