Awakening

16:23, February 18, 2274  — Lipent Medical Center 04, Room 504

"…and here are the best places to visit in Hibüra at the start of the year," a television program drones on.

Seth, his body numb against the stretcher, opened his eyes slightly and fixed his gaze on the screen.

"The great citadel offers a variety of must-see tourist destinations for travelers. From the majestic Torii gates of the Tantra sector to the rich culture of Jado and the replica of the Tōdai-ji temple. There's something for everyone."

Seth slowly began to sit up.

"Where am I…? a hospital?" he wondered, confused, as he looked around.

It was a quiet afternoon. Golden sunlight filtered through the window and spilled over the stretcher.

The air conditioner, set to a cool 18 degrees, kept the room comfortable. The program continued to display colorful, inviting images—but when Seth turned his head to the right, he noticed something strange.

A small table.

On it, an academy brigade card—and a half-finished cup of coffee, still steaming.

FLUUUSSHHH.
A sudden sound broke the silence.
A… toilet.

"Uh… hello? I-Is someone there?" Seth asked aloud, clutching the blanket.

CRACK. 
The bathroom door opened.

"Ugh, the food in these hospitals… It's awful!" said an incredibly familiar, irritated voice.

"Beck…?" Seth murmured.

"Look who finally decided to wake up," he replied. "You really scared us."

"What happened? What are you doing here?"

Beck approached the stretcher and looked straight at him. Seth frowned, confused.

"What—?"

He didn't get to finish. Beck lunged forward and pulled him into a tight hug.

"I'm glad you're okay, brother."

He let go and sat on the edge of the stretcher.

"I don't want to overwhelm you now that you've just woken up, but you're going to have to explain exactly what happened… Mom wants to talk to you. You know she didn't want you going on that mission—and look how you ended up."

Seth looked away.
"Ah… I'll explain later."

"That's fine. Don't worry about it. Just focus on recovering, okay?"

"Yeah…"

"Anyway, I was about to leave, but now I'll talk to the nurses and see if we can get you out of here," Beck said as he put on his jacket.

He was about to leave when Seth stopped him.
"Um… hey. You're forgetting that," he said, pointing at the card on the table.

Beck turned and glanced at it.

"That card? Look closely. It has your name on it."

Seth froze for a second… then shook his head.
"No. No, no, no. That's impossible, Beck."

Beck grinned.
"Looks like your plan to fall into a coma to get into a brigade worked perfectly."

Seth picked up the card. His name was there.
"But… what exactly did I do?"

"What do you mean…? Don't tell me you have amnesia," Beck asked.

"I don't think so… it all happened just a moment ago."

"A moment? Seth, you've been in a coma for four days."

Seth's eyes widened. The world tilted.
"Four days!? That's impossible. Just a bit ago, I was… uh… I remember some guys pulling me out, and I remember holding the door…"

He frowned. The memories came back in fragments: metal grinding, his teammates' screams fading away.

"Don't push yourself," Beck said. "I'll get the doctor."

A faint memory, or rather, a sensation, surfaced in his mind.
Fragments of a Rem explosion.

I… used Rem energy?

He stared at his hands, that strange sensation still lingering in them.
The answer felt close, yet unreachable, swallowed by the emptiness of his memory.

Fifteen minutes later.

The doctor entered and began examining him.

"I'm going to say three words. Repeat them now, and try to remember them later: apple, table, blue."

"Apple… table… blue."

The doctor shone a flashlight across his eyes.
"Good. Now, some personal questions. Your full name?"

"Seth Harper."

"And the person sitting there?"

"My brother. Beck… Beck Harper."

"What institution do you attend?"

"Rem Forces Academy 04, Tantra sector."

"Seth, tell me about your latest Rem aptitude evaluation."

He answered with resignation.
"Imbuement: inadequate. Manipulation: inadequate. Rank D."

"And what were you doing just before you lost consciousness?"

"I was…" His breathing quickened. "Holding a door. At the abandoned university. There was something… something big on the other side. Grant, Cass… everyone left. I stayed."

"And after they left?"

"Nothing. Just… the door creaking. The metal giving in. Then… I remember being rescued by members of the elite, but I don't know how I got here."

The questioning continued until the doctor finally gave his diagnosis.

"The results are clear. You're experiencing selective retrograde amnesia associated with a traumatic event."

Beck stepped forward immediately.
"Does that mean…?"

"It's not serious. You remember who you are—your entire life, even the events leading up to the trauma. But the climax—the moment when your life was in greatest danger—was sealed away by your mind as a defense mechanism."

Seth brought a hand to his head.
"And… will it come back? My memory?"

The doctor answered calmly, though with a note of caution.

"Maybe. In fragments. Nightmares… or maybe never. The brain is complex. For now, focus on recovering."

He put the flashlight away and stepped back.
"We'll keep him under observation for a couple more days. No physical exertion. No Rem." He looked at Beck. "And no intense questioning."

"Thank you, doctor," Beck said.

When he left, the silence returned. Only the murmur of the television and the steady hum of the air conditioner remain.

Seth looked at the card again.

Brigade 05 — Rem Academy 04
Name: Seth Harper
Status: Active

His fingers tremble as they trace the letters.
"It doesn't make sense…" he murmured. "I have no idea what I did."

Beck hesitated.

"According to your teammates' report…" he said at last, "if it weren't for you, none of them would've made it out."

Seth felt a strange weight in his chest.

Not pride.
Not fear.
Emptiness.

"What's the point… if I don't remember anything?" he whispered.

Beck walked to the window. Outside, Hibüra is still alive—birds crossing the sky, lights flickering on as evening falls.

"Maybe that's for the best," he said. "For now."

Seth watched his reflection in the glass.

For the best…

"Brother, I'm heading out. Don't forget to get some rest, okay?"

"Yeah…" he nodded, unconvinced.

He was left alone. The television kept playing.

"…among other news, protests have been reported in the Grone sector. Factory workers are demanding increased safety measures from the government…"

The images on the screen changed. Crowds. Signs. Faces blurred by motion and distance.

Seth watched without really seeing them.

Something about the report unsettled him—not the words themselves, but the tone.
The familiarity of it. As if this kind of news had always been there. As if nothing ever truly changed.

He exhaled slowly.

The city on the screen looked alive. Functional. Carefully designed.
Too carefully.

"Hibüra…" he murmured. 
"The tailor-made city."

Four days…
I can't believe four days have already passed.

The memories of the mission began to resurface.

I was desperate.
I needed to get into a mission. I needed an opportunity, anything to prove I wasn't a failure at the academy.

But… I was always stuck.

The receptionist's voice echoed in his mind:

"…Your rank is below average."
"…Inadequate."

Ranks.
Missions.

Everything felt stagnant.
Rotten.
Society hadn't moved forward.
Technology hadn't evolved.
Humanity hadn't changed.

More than two hundred years ago, back in 2024…

Beasts.
Creatures that looked like ordinary animals—
but with inexplicable biology.

Seventy percent of humanity was wiped out in five years.
There were no weapons capable of stopping them.

And if they attacked you… you became one of them.

Humanity sought refuge on islands, in countries surrounded by water.
Even there, the beasts appeared.

And then, eight years after the Rem cataclysm…

It appeared.

Rem energy.
An unknown source, emanating from the beasts… and present in small amounts within all living beings.

It granted strength, reflexes, and endurance, enough to redefine what a human body could endure.

And it was called Rem for a simple reason:
Those who possessed it spent three times longer in REM sleep each night.

Even so, humanity continued to fall back.
Until it was discovered that Rem could imbue objects.
And through them, injure the beasts.

The first major breakthrough occurred in Japan.

A man named Eiji Nakamura, along with a small community of survivors, discovered collective imbuing: a technique that allowed multiple people to channel Rem energy simultaneously into a single object.

A massive object.

With it, for the first time, they managed to consistently harm the beasts.

Cannons.
Weapons.
Real defenses.

That advancement changed everything.

Japan launched a megaproject.
People from all over the world gathered there… at least those who were still alive.

Rem energy users joined forces.
They took advantage of their enhanced strength, endurance, and work capacity.

And in record time, they built a megastructure over what once was Japan, forcing the beasts to remain on the surface.

That was how Hibüra was born.

A two-hundred-level tower, stretching across the entire territory.
A place where borders ceased to exist.

Where there were no longer any Japanese people or countries.

One language.
One humanity.
A refuge.
A cage.

Humanity survived… by depending on the beasts.

On their bodies as fuel.
On their cursed energy to fight them.
The elites inhabit the highest levels, where it's safer, and money flows freely.
The government operates in the lowest levels, digging through the old world in search of resources.

And the rest…
Trapped in between.

But things weren’t that simple.

Only around sixty percent of humanity could use Rem energy.
The remaining forty percent stayed… ordinary.

And naturally, power, money, and prestige flowed toward those who could wield it.
The rest were pushed downward—into the lower levels, into poverty.

Families began having more children, hoping that at least one of them would inherit Rem energy—someone who could bring economic prosperity to the entire household.

Surnames tied to powerful Rem users gained renown.

Mercer.
Graves.
Ritsu.

Names everyone recognized.

The government created the Rem Forces Academy to train the elite who would protect the city.

At the age of twelve, every child was tested.
Those without Rem were discarded.
Those with it were forced to enroll.

I passed that test.

But I can’t control my energy.
I was forced into the academy anyway—

only to go nowhere.

If I don’t make it into the elites by the end of my training,
I’ll have to start over.

Study an ordinary profession.
After wasting seven years of my life.

The city they advertised on the screen was real.
Just not the one people lived in.

Seth closed his eyes.

Hibüra is not progress.
It's a desperate response.

And somewhere, buried beneath what he couldn't remember, something inside him already knew the truth.