They say the best stories start with an explosion, a prophecy, or at least a sword in someone's chest.
Mine starts with me brushing my teeth in front of a cracked mirror, trying to scrub the taste of metal out of my mouth.
Welcome to the year 2072. The golden age of mana, dungeons, and half-dead vending machines that can read your mana signature but still mess up your order. My name—well, the one I go by—is Kael Vorrin. Sounds cool, right? Like some exiled prince or shadow-walking assassin? Nah. It's just what stuck. Not much history to inherit when you're an orphan raised on government subsidies and leftover prestige.
Don't worry, I'm not going to sob into the screen. I've done enough of that off-record. This isn't a cry for help. This is documentation. I'm writing this—narrating it, really—because one day someone's going to dig this up and realize I existed. Maybe they'll even publish it as one of those posthumous "Voices of the Forgotten" collections. You know, the kind that goes viral for a week, gets turned into a play, and is then completely forgotten.
I hope they at least spell my name right.
Anyway. My ability?
Emotional Resonance.
Yup. That's it.
No flame-whips. No spatial rifts. No glowing tattoos or telekinetic outbursts. I can see emotions. Not metaphorically—literally. People walk around dripping in color, radiating like glitchy neon signs. Anger's sharp and red. Guilt's muddy brown. Envy's this sick green. And love? It's complicated. No one walks around glowing with just one thing.
It's… subtle, mostly. It doesn't win fights. Doesn't stop Rankers. Doesn't get me into elite academies or posted on any of the regulated recruitment boards.
You ever try telling a Mana Evaluator that your ability is "being able to feel how much people hate themselves"? They look at you like you failed a multiple choice question with only one option.
My parents? Dead. Car crash, supposedly. No conspiracy there. Just bad luck and a faulty mana-reactive tire. Grandfather? A legend. A real Ranker—capital R. The kind who carved dungeons like sculptures and slayed named entities like it was sport. He died before I was born, swallowed by something so deep in a gate that the only thing that came back was his blade. I still have it, by the way. Not that I can use it. It's dormant. No resonance.
Grandmother? Still alive. Retired in a liquor-supported care home in Sector B9. Occasionally calls me "Lance" by mistake. That was my father's name. Close enough.
Uncle's doing fine. Corporate. High-tier regulator affiliate. Sends me credits when he remembers. He's busy. I don't blame him.
We've all got stories. Mine just happens to be the type no one asks for.
I live in Central 3—the kind of place where everything's functional, but nothing's fixed. Walls clean enough not to be condemned, trains precise enough to be cold. There's a regulator tower nearby. I don't pay attention to it. Most people don't, unless it starts pulsing blue. That's when something's either breached or about to.
We haven't had a breach in eight months. A record, honestly.
On my way to school, I pass the old bookstore. Closed, again. Its windows are covered in dust and mana-preserving glyphs. Inside, I know there are still a few real paper novels, sealed behind mana-neutral glass. First editions, probably. Stuff written before the world changed. Before dungeons opened. Before mana turned the laws of reality into a vague suggestion.
Back then, fantasy was still fiction. Between 2010 and 2020, they were obsessed with it—mages, towers, swords, monsters, reincarnated gods. The golden era of escapism. They didn't know they were writing blueprints. They didn't know they were dreaming things into existence.
And then the Outbreaks began.
Now we live in the sequel.
I still read that old stuff, though. I pirate scans when I can't afford them. Sometimes I recite dialogue in my head like it's prayer. There's something poetic about a world where magic was impossible, and people still imagined it anyway.
You're probably wondering how someone like me survives in a world like this.
I do what I can.
Sometimes I help kids avoid fights by reading the mood of a hallway. Sometimes I stay completely invisible. I fade into the back of the class, collect my credits, and keep my mana signature locked down so I don't get flagged for "unlicensed application of passive abilities."
Emotional Resonance. Honestly, I think it's the only reason I'm still sane. I see people, not just their words or masks, but what's underneath. It's ugly, sure—but it's honest.
And maybe that's what this world needs. Someone who can feel what everyone's trying to hide.
I'm not a hero. I'm not chosen. I don't even think I'm special.
But this is my story.
And if you're still reading, maybe that means I do matter.
Even just a little.