The walls reverberated the heavy thuds coming from down the hallway. The walls were grey and unpainted. The grey walls were scattered with cracks all over. It was evident that the building has been around for a long time.
An average height woman rushed through the hallway. Her heels produced sounds that competed with the echoing thuds. She reached the counter and rang the bell impatiently.
A groggy older man came to the counter with a huge cup in his hand. He frowned at seeing her, as if she had been her before. The fact was, she had. Several times as a matter of fact.
"Is he here?" She asked, panting.
The man nodded.
She bit her lips and waited for him to input her data. "Hurry! I'm sure he's the one to blame for this noise too," she said.
She picked up the paper the old man passed to her and hurried upstairs. She made a few quick turns and stopped at a huge door being guarded by two bulky men.
She stopped in front of them and showed them her paper. They nodded and opened the door. She walked inside the dim lighted room. A man stood before a young boy tied to a chair. He had apparently been torturing the boy. It wasn't so hard to imagine what was the torture weapon. The thuds were loud and there was no weapon for torture in the room.
"Ah, Tenebra," the man smiled. "You're here again."
"How bad are we talking about now?" She sighed.
"Gang war. Of a small scale luckily, but he wouldn't give out their names."
She sat down on the chair on the other side opposite to him. "Are you fucking kidding me, Nyx?" She stared at him shaking her head disapprovingly.
"Hey sis," Nyx smiled.
"Is this a joke to you? How long do you want to keep this going on, huh? You come here even more than you take a shit in a week."
"That is not true," he drowsily moved his bruised up face to face her.
"You're making things hard for me and mom. You've got to stop this." She drew closer to him and whispered. "The way it seems, they aren't letting you off so easily."
She turned to the man. "I'm sure he'd eventually speak up. He's just really scared because of the intimidation. It gets to him sometimes." She turned back to Nyx. "Right, Nyxander?"
Nyx rolled his eyes and nodded.
The man walked over to Nyx's back and stood there without untying him.
"Miss Kenoma, your brother has been caught in this act too many times to count. Letting him off easy isn't an option now," he explained.
"Okay what're we looking at?" She asked.
"At best, punishment by combat."
She folded her arms and rested her back on the chair. She looked at her brother.
"You're fucked, Nyx," she laughed and suddenly frowned.
She stood up and walked to the man. Tenebra stood close to him.
"Can't we work something out, Tyler? He's Nexus can't we just do something? He'd, I don't know, prove valuable," she persuaded him.
"What's his ability?" He asked.
Tenebra sighed and sat down back. She was aware of the bitter fact. Her brother was a Nexus, but he had no special abilities.
A woman opened the door suddenly and walked over to Nyx. She began untying him.
"What're you doing?!" Tyler spoke up.
"You're so loud, Tyler," the woman hushed. "The boy's going free."
Nyx rose up limping. "On who's orders?" Tyler roared.
"Sorry for taking your toy, Tyler," the woman sighed, "but if you're looking for someone to vent on, you'd have to deal with 'him'."
Tyler's face squeezed into a frown. He knew he didn't stand a chance asking him anything, let alone questioning his decisions.
"Come on kid," the woman pulled Nyx out of the room. Tenebra glanced at Tyler before skipping after them.
Tenebra caught up to them. "Aubrey, thank you," she exhaled.
"Story was he was manipulated by another Nexus' ability," Aubrey explained. She smacked Nyx's head and continued her statement. "He was able to buy the idea, given that one of them actually had such an ability. Your brother's just lucky."
"Lucky?" Tenebra laughed. "He's the most unlucky bastard I know."
Nyx remained expressionless. He wasn't really in the care if he was released. He was thinking about what would happen to him the moment he got into the neighbourhood. They would realise that he must've ratted his friends out to save his skin. Which wasn't exactly the case. He'd be in more trouble than he was now.
"Nyx," Aubrey placed her hand on his shoulder. Nyx looked at her while still walking. "You're aware you're selfish right?"
"I didn't ask Tenebra to come get me," he scoffed.
"Not Tenebra. Your mother. You're being unfair to her. She works harder than any other mother I know and yet you just keep doing this. Haven't you thought about going to college? Most kids your age are after that."
"He always avoids the discussion," Tenebra hissed. "I've told him several times."
Aubrey walked them to the gates of the containment facility. And waved them goodbye.
"Nyxander," Aubrey called him back.
He walked back with an unrepentant look on his face. "Yes," he sighed.
"I need to tell you something."
Nyx stood and stared at her.
"This...whatever it is you're doing," Aubrey shook her head, "always remember that Tenebra and your mother are the most important people in your life. You want to know how you can be better?" She placed her palm on his chest. "Find yourself. All this toss-around shit...end it. Before it ends you."
She turned around and shut the big brown gates. He narrowed his eyes and turned around. He walked to his sister waiting for him at the car. They both got in the car.
They drove along the highway without saying anything to each other. Tenebra looked at her brother sitting beside her in the front of the car.
"It doesn't always have to be like this Nyx," she said. She smiled a bit. "Rub that look off your face. Mom doesn't know about this one."
He glanced at her. He didn't smile. He just exhaled deeply. "It wasn't a gang fight," he said.
"Oh really. What was it then?"
"Have you seen the way Nexuses are treated?"
Tenebra gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Nyx, I understand."
"No, you don't. You're not even a Nexus."
"Hey that is not fair!"
"To me? Yes. To you, not entirely." He looked out the window. "I will never land a well paying job like you. I'll never be as rich as you'd ever be. I can't live a normal life. Those humans got what they deserved."
"Alright stop this bullshit." Tenebra stopped the car. She turned to her angry brother. "There is no human or Nexus anything, alright? We all are one. Now you might be a Nexus and I'm not, it doesn't make your life less important than mine."
"Oh but it does."
"Why are you so difficult?" She threw her arms in the air, giving up. "So what do you want to do? Fight the government? Because it seems like that's the next cause of action. I don't know what it is that caused that gang fight, but you don't even belong to that gang."
"They're my friends."
"Where are they now?"
Silence was heard in the car. The tension was much that even the wind wasn't felt anymore. Tenebra started the car and drove off further into the highway.
***
This was what the world had become in the midst of the passing years. The earth was far from different with the passage of time. It was far too different. No one could really say if it had changed for bad or for worse. It had changed drastically, that was for certain.
There were just two parts to the world now: human and Nexus. They had been living for as long as anyone could remember. It could be said that they were even interbreeding. Humans and Nexuses freely married and gave birth to children. It was normal now.
Though the process of recreation could be said to be a bit warped. It was still quite simple: If a human man got married to a Nexus woman and they'd both given birth to a son, there were higher chances of the boy being a normal human than he being a Nexus. This said, he could still inherit the colour of his mother's hair and look identical to his parents just like any other baby would.
On the other hand, if they had more than one child, a more certain probable outcome was given to one of the babies being Nexus.
The ratio was 1:3.
In every three children, one would be a Nexus and there was only a 50% chance of this even happening.
The only certain way to have a Nexus child was if both parents were Nexuses. They would be an 80% chance that their children would remain Nexuses. As for the remaining 20%, they could most likely be human. The ratio was a 1:4. The likelihood of having a human child depended solely on the extended relatives of the parents. Especially if the two parents had one human parent each.
In summary, the more humans in a family tree, the higher the chances of such happening.
Nyx and his sister, Tenebra, were quite a rarer case. Nyx's mother was human. His father was not. He was a Nexus, a considerably weak one. He died when he was young so he had little to no memory of him.
His mother only had him and his sister. Just two children and yet the equation balanced out. One was a Nexus, the other was human. It was indeed a rare case.
Because of this, most people would think it happened that Nyx must've had an ability that couldn't stay dormant as a gene to be passed on.
There were four types of abilities.
BIRTH ABILITIES:
These were abilities that Nexuses were born with. They were easily guessable since it was something that Nexuses born into that family would have at birth.
This said, not all Nexus families had abilities. As a matter of fact, only about 30% of Nexus families had birth abilities.
Those born into these families were seen to be lucky. But in reality, they weren't. These abilities could conflict with other abilities which they could acquire.
ACQUIRED ABILITIES:
These were quite different from any other. A smaller percent had such abilities. A percentage as small and as negligible as 3% chance.
These abilities were usually stronger and had a lot more usefulness to the Nexus. Just as the name suggested, they were gotten from various rare encounters. These encounters ranged from gifts from stronger beings to a total transfer of abilities.
They could be gained, but may not be able to function, due to incompatibility with the birth abilities of the Nexus. This was called the 'Curse of the Blessed'.
NEXUS ABILITIES:
These were quite simple. They depended on the Nexuses talents naturally. They could also be influenced by birth abilities. This made those who had birth abilities crippled to only that source of power and none other. Every Nexus had this type of ability.
AFFINITY ABILITIES:
Affinity abilities however were the rarest of them all. There was a 0.1% chance of a Nexus gaining such an ability. They weren't mostly fancy, but they were efficient. They were in natural likeness or similarities with the Nexus abilities and Birth abilities. Overall, they were tied to the actual Nexus natural strengths, such as being invulnerable in extremely hot environment given his fire abilities from either birth or Nexus abilities. This was still attainable with a very small percentage.
They however could not be gained from Acquired abilities as these were seen as secondary abilities.
Despite all these, Nyx didn't fall under any of these percentages. He was powerless. Literally. He'd been bullied for it by other Nexuses his entire life.
Normally as a Nexus, his abilities were to surface as soon as he hit puberty. Nyx was seventeen and was still powerless.
There wasn't a way to hide that he was a Nexus. His messy dry bright red-yellow gradient coloured hair gave it away. Not to mention his beige coloured eyes. He was tall and had a sleeper build. This said, he wasn't too muscular.
He was worse than a common Nexus. This made surviving for him really hard. But he had his ways.
His hands brushed against the door as he entered into the bus. Disconnected from where he was as usual. He stepped into what threatened to be his last bus trip.