When Claire opened her eyes, she saw herself in an unfamiliar room. The ceiling was tiled and the bed wasn’t as comfortable as the one she was used to. Not to mention the various tubes and equipment that were stuck to her body.
She felt like she had just woken up from a long sleep, but the dreams she had weren’t anything she could be happy about. She had dreamed of her son speaking to her, although she couldn’t see his face, she could feel his distress.
He told her about many things such as an energy called mana and a weird new world, and frankly, it all felt like her son had returned to his middle school delusions. But then one day, her son’s voice disappeared.
Even if it was a dream, it was a long one and she couldn’t help but feel something bad had happened to him. But no matter how she tried to wake up, she couldn’t.
And then, another voice entered her dream. She knew this one since it was the voice of her son’s childhood friend. But she seemed to be much older than the last time Claire had spoken to her. She also told Claire tales of this strange world, but she never mentioned Damien.
She didn’t know how long she had been dreaming, but she desperately wanted to wake up. And finally, when she was able to do so, she was greeted by what she could only assume was a hospital room.
The strange thing was that she felt completely fine. Or rather, she felt even better than she did at the peak of her life. Claire slowly sat up and detached the equipment that was holding her down before looking around the room.
It was largely empty except for a single person, but seeing this person almost made her faint in shock.
“Thomas?”
Damien was shocked by the name that came out of her mouth, and only then did he realize he never knew his father’s name. His mother always called him “dear” or “honey” like a movie couple, while Damien never had a reason to call him anything but dad.
However, these thoughts were irrelevant. “Welcome back, mom.”
Damien couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. It had been 10 years since his mother had fallen into her coma, and it was an even longer period of time that he had spent without many meaningful interactions with her.
By the time he realized how much suffering she put herself through for his sake, she had already fallen into her coma.
The sight of a grown man crying was enough to make anyone uncomfortable, but Claire only felt heart-wrenching pain at this moment. She looked at the one who had just called her “mom” and tried to compare his features to the boy she saw in her memories.
The boy had shaggy black hair that only went down to his eyebrows, but this man’s hair contained streaks of silver and was slightly passed his shoulders.
The boy had bright amethyst irises with black pupils that pulled one’s gaze like an abyss, but this man’s eyes were a swirl of red and that previous amethyst. His cross-shaped pupils shone with starlight and firmness.
The boy was short and scrawny, no matter how he tried to grow, he never could. But this man was tall and packed with muscle.
She almost couldn’t believe that the man in front of her was the same one she had seen before, but she knew it was. She just couldn’t fathom the events that had changed her son into his current self.
Without her discretion, her tears began to fall as well.
Damien couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He rushed to his mother and hugged her, making sure to limit his strength. His bodily strength alone could crush her if he wasn’t careful.
Like a child, he cried in his mother’s embrace.
And this only increased her pain. She desperately wanted to know what had happened while she was asleep, but it wasn’t the time to question him. She could only slowly rub his back and console him as he cried into her bosom.
“There, there. Everything will be okay.”
It took many minutes for Damien to calm down before he backed away awkwardly. Now that he had control of his emotions, he was extremely embarrassed by his previous actions.
Taking a few deep breaths, Damien started talking. It was important to fill his mother in on how things had changed so her shock wouldn’t be too severe when she left the hospital room.
“Mom, it’s been 10 years since you fell into a coma.”
This sentence was like a bomb that went off in Claire’s head. 10 years, what kind of time period was that? But Damien’s words weren’t over.
“The world is completely different from how it used to be. An energy called mana bloomed and a system appeared. Just call out the word ‘system’ in your head and you’ll see. Remember how I used to embarrass myself in middle school? Well, I can actually do those things in real life now.”
As he spoke, he raised his hand, causing lightning to crackle and pop in his vicinity. If Claire was shocked by the display of superpowers, she was bound to be in for more surprises when she followed her son’s directions.
‘System’
[Status]
[Claire Watson]
Human
Female – Age 49
Level 1 – [Classless]
Experience value: 0/100
Title(s): [N/A]
Affinities: Dream
Physique: N/A
Magic Power: 100
STR: 40
AGI: 40
DEF: 40
INT: 40
DEX: 40
Skills: [Telekinesis Level 1]
Seeing the window in front of her, she was extremely confused. There were a plethora of numbers that she didn’t understand, but they seemed to be related to her.
Seeing her confusion, Damien spent some time explaining the World Awakening and the system to her. As she slowly understood what the numbers meant, she also realized they were only high due to her son’s interference.
He had told her that he fed her a miracle medicine to heal her and that it strengthened her to this point. She once again had to wonder what he went through to acquire something like that.
But her shock for the day wasn’t over. Damien looked through the window for a moment as if he was trying to find something, and suddenly 3 new figures appeared in the room.
Two of them were beautiful women while the third was a large black wolf.
“Mom, you already know Elena, so I don’t need to introduce her. This cute one is named Zara, and one of my closest friends. You don’t need to be scared since she’s a lot more innocent than her looks. And finally, this beautiful girl with the pink hair is named Rose, and I guess you could say she’s my girlfriend.”
Damien’s introduction was curt, but it got his point across.
“Nice to see you again, auntie!”
“Hello, Damien’s mom!”
“H-hello auntie.”
Three vastly different greetings followed.
Claire was flabbergasted at this point. Elena was expected, but the talking wolf and the other beauty that her son called his girlfriend were totally random to her.
In the first place, a talking wolf?! She almost fainted just from the absurdity of it. But since her son had already warned her, she had a slightly easier time handling it.
Trying to keep her calm, Claire returned their greetings. “Hello, girls. It’s nice to meet the people my son cares about so much.”
She extended her hand and carefully rubbed her fingers through Zara’s fur, eliciting an innocent giggle from her.
Zara’s innocence truly was a heaven-sent gift, as it served as a great way to break the awkward tension that hung in the room.
Without any further distraction, the group began talking about the various things that had happened in the past few years, with the topic mostly revolving around Damien. Elena told the story of his hard work before the fall, while Rose told the story of his deeds on Apeiron.
The mention of another world was yet another shocking occurrence for Claire, but she decided to turn her brain off and listen to the stories.
She also learned about the craziness that happened on earth and even learned about the Raisin Manipulator guy that Damien and Elena had jokingly told her about in her sleep.
That was such a left-field fact that she remembered it even after waking up from her sleep.
It was completely unrelated, but the raisin manipulator had died recently by choking on his own raisins. The death was so stupid that it was on news headlines for a solid week before it died down. Only after this last act of idiocy did people learn that the raisin manipulator was named Ansh.
The conversation continued as day turned into night, with everyone having smiles on their faces.
Damien’s fall into the dungeon and recent action of dropping a meteor in the middle of Los Angeles were left out of the story, but it’d be fun to see Claire’s reaction when she learned of this.
But not everyone was as happy as Damien’s group. There were many moving in the shadows on earth for their own goals and purposes.