My eyes narrowed. As I heard her question, and for a second, my thoughts spiralled.

  'The curfew isn't really the problem.' I glanced at my wrist and realised that I had noticed something far too late. 'I have no band.'

  Every human in the game had a band. It was a thin piece of metal, a very common piece of equipment, but it had a certain trait. Only humans could equip it. This was one of the primary ways that one could differentiate between demons, who often took on the appearances of humans.

  'Besides the fact that I am out during curfew, I'm not wearing a band, which will make them immediately suspicious.' I pressed my lips into a line. 'The only thing I can do here is play dumb.'

  The woman frowned. "Explain yourself, now."

  "I didn't know there was one."

  Her eyes narrowed. Beside her, the man's expression went flat.

  "You didn't know," he repeated, voice rough. His eyes immediately darted to my wrist, and he immediately took on the subtle semblance of a combat stance. "Where is your band?"

  He flicked his chin at my wrist.

  "I don't have one." My voice trailed off.

  His gaze didn't move from me.

  "On you," he asked, "or at all."

  I swallowed and added a bit of emotion to my voice while fidgeting with my fingers. "I don't know. I can't remember anything. A minute ago I was... I was walking around the city, and then..I just blacked out. " I immediately glanced behind me and then to the right, behaving as jittery as I could.

  The woman exhaled slowly through her nose. "Calm down. Being outside during a curfew is one thing. But in only those clothes? Were you planning to freeze to death?"

  "Concussed?" the man said, eyeing my forehead ", Or stupid. Or possessed."

  My fingers twitched inside my pockets.

  "Name," the woman said.

  "Noah," I answered. "Noah Reed."

  "Where do you live?" the man asked.

  I shook my head.

  "What?" The man raised a brow; his suspicions rose.

  Silence stretched.

  The woman's stare sharpened. "You don't remember anything?"

  "No, nothing at all," I repeated.

  The man watched my face like he was waiting for the crack. "No home. No band. No memory. Real kicker."

  I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut again. Anything I added would only get worse. I was at the mercy of these two awakened.

  The sirens shifted pitch, higher now. More urgent.

  The man stepped closer until he was an arm's length away.

  "Look at me," he said.

  Something in his tone went past my thoughts and straight into my body. My neck stiffened. My eyes locked onto his.

  For a second, everything else dimmed.

  Insight moved.

  -

  [TARGET ANALYSIS]

  Subject: Human (Awakened)

  Skill: Arcane Sight (Active)

  -

  'Arcane Sight!'

  'He's trying to check for the presence of demonic energy,' I grit my teeth and endured the sudden jolt of pain. 'I was lucky. If he used Arcane sight on me, it would definitely show that I was clean."

  The woman's hand dropped to the weapon at her hip, and I tensed even further.

  "So?" she asked, and her calm changed into something colder.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Kid's clean. No signs of manipulation or magic," the man hummed in thought. "I feel a slight presence of mana. He's also awakened."

  I heaved a sigh of relief. "I told you, I just don't remember anything."

  The man clicked his tongue, irritation bleeding through. "Fantastic timing. Get assigned to patrol in this shithole, find a random awakened kid with amnesia. It's looking good, looking real good."

  He sighed.

  "Viktor." The woman frowned at him, then she turned back to me, her eyes softening a fraction. "You'll be fine. We'll try and help you ou-"

  Before either of them could say more, the world changed.

  A burst of light erupted at the end of the street.

  Not a clean flash. Not bright and white.

  It was a thick, ugly colour, somewhere between red and violet. It bent the air around it, made the edges of buildings wobble.

  The shock arrived last.

  It slammed into us with a horrific tremor. Everything around us warped for a heartbeat. Then the world slammed me down.

  Air left my lungs. My back hit the ground hard enough that I felt the stone tiles through my coat. White crowded my vision. A line of fire ran along my left side, and my ribs screamed.

  I tried to inhale, but I got only a ragged half-breath.

  Glass shattered somewhere. Metal shrieked. Something heavy crashed down the street.

  The sirens didn't stop.

  I lay there stunned, heartbeat hammering against my bruised ribs.

  Something tugged at my attention.

  -

  [CONDITION]

  Overall: 59%

  Heavy bruising along the left torso

  Possible hairline fracture (7th rib)

  Breath capacity reduced (moderate)

  Mobility: functional, impaired

  Recommendation: reduce exertion, avoid further impact

  -

  The text was so calm it felt insulting.

  I coughed, and it came out harshly. My side flared.

  The two Awakened were still standing.

  They'd staggered, sure. The woman's coat snapped around her legs. The man had planted a hand against the wall to steady himself. That was it.

  "Breach, and eruption of magic power", the woman said, voice tight now. "Sector C."

  "Out of Cordon Range," Viktor replied, eyes fixed on the pulsing glow around the corner. "That blast should not have reached this far."

  A new sound cut through the sirens.

  A high, thin scream that didn't belong in any human throat.

  I had immediately recognised it too. 'A demon is on the loose.'

  The woman glanced at me, then at the man. The decision on her face was obvious. Liability or duty.

  He grimaced. "Sylvie, we don't have time to drag him to a shelter."

  "I can move," I said. It came out as barely a wheeze.

  He crouched beside me in one smooth motion.

  "Can you stand?" he asked urgently.

  I nodded. It hurt. I nodded anyway.

  "Good," he looked back, "Give him a stim."

  The woman was already digging into a pouch. She pulled out a slim metallic cylinder, palm-length, faint green light pulsing at its core.

  "Hold still," she said.

  "Wait-" I tried to stop her, but she easily brushed my attempts aside.

  The needle punched through my coat and into my arm.

  'F*ck', I tensed my muscles and prepared mentally. The stim was a great way to heal, but it had one giant drawback. 'Immense pain'

  Cold liquid flooded under my skin as I felt my bones creak. My muscles screamed in agony, and a wave of warmth wrapped itself around my ribcage. Then my arms spasmed as a pulsing pain settled into my limbs.

  -

  [CONDITION]

  Overall: 82%

  Bruising along the left torso (moderate)

  No fracture detected

  Pain signals dampened

  Mobility: acceptable

  -

  The man stood and looked toward the glow again before sparing me a glance.

  "If you want to live, get inside something with thick walls. No glass if you can help it. Stay off main roads. Do not go towards that light. Do not assume we can come back."

  That was all I heard.

  Then they moved.

  One moment, they were in front of me. Next, they were motion, flitting away in a blur, heading straight into the pulsing light and the screaming.

  For a second, I just lay there, convulsing in pain and panting for breaths as I listened to distant destruction chew on the city. Until eventually, the pain subsided.

  Then I forced my legs to work. My knees wobbled as I started crawling away from the glow.

  The street ahead was littered with glittering glass and thin drifts of snow.

  Each step sent a dull pulse through my ribs.

  It made one truth brutally simple.

  I was fragile. Far more fragile than I had ever been.

  For a moment, I had forgotten that this wasn't high immersion. This was real. The pain, the blood, the demons. Everything was real. I kept moving, hunting for shelter.

  Most buildings were sealed tight. Shutters down. Doors locked. Small red sigils painted near thresholds. The ones with broken fronts worried me more. If people had fled, something else could have decided the place was open.

  A squat office building sat on the corner, entrance half gutted. One glass panel shattered entirely. The other spiderwebbed with cracks. The door hung crooked, one hinge gone, the other barely holding.

  Inside, a lobby. Reception desk. Chairs. A corridor leading deeper. Emergency strips glowed faintly along the floor.

  Insight whispered again.

  [LOCAL STRUCTURE]

  Status: damaged, stable

  Immediate threats detected: none

  Shelter suitability: acceptable (short term)

  Good enough.

  I squeezed through the broken doorway, boots crunching over glass. The sound felt too loud in the sudden quiet.

  The air inside was still cold, but it didn't move as much. The wind stayed outside.

  Three steps into the lobby, my legs gave up pretending.

  My back hit the wall. I slid down until I was sitting on tile, one hand braced beside me, the other pressed to my ribs.

  Breath sawed in and out, fast and shallow at first, then slowly easing as the stim did its work.

  Dust drifted in the emergency light. The reception desk lay on its side. Papers scattered. A coffee mug had been left behind, stain dried on the floor like someone had run out mid-sip.

  The building creaked as another distant impact rolled through the city. Fine powder sifted down from somewhere overhead.

  I stared at my hands.

  They were shaking.

  Not from the cold this time.

  Everything felt too heavy. Too solid. Too permanent. My hands were soft. My body had been thrown by collateral like it was nothing. The only thing I had right now was my mind.

  Tactical sense and knowledge.

  "Can I survive?" I asked myself.

  Whatever predicament I was in was beyond me. Could I really survive? One second, I was confident; the other, I was almost half dead. It was like the world had heard me and decided to crush my hopes.

  I pressed my head back against the wall and exhaled.

  "Tonight," I told myself, "at least tonight, I won't die."

  It was painfully obvious that this world didn't care what I used to be.

  It only cared about what I could do next.