"Hey! Wake your ass up!" Rosalyn kept slapping Justine until he woke up screaming at the top of his lungs and got up from his bed, having experienced difficulty in breathing.
Justine grabbed his chest, Exhaling and inhaling deeply as if he was saved from drowning. Noticing this, Rosalyn's face etched with concern, she immediately apologized "Maybe I went too far with my joke.... sorry."
Slowly calming himself down, he looked around the room with confusion visible on his face. Justine was terrified, the way he was slowly swallowed by the the solid ground turning into some liquid of some kind.
Then his gaze landed on the white haired girl beside his bedside. It was none other than his older sister, Rosalyn looking at him with concern present on her expression.
She cautiously asked Justine "Hey, didn't you hear me?" she waved in front of his eyes.
His eyes teared up seeing Rosalyn in front of her, he lunged at her and wrapped her with a tight hug. She was confused with his reaction, initially thinking he would be pissed off by her slightly violent tendencies.
Rosalyn reciprocated his hug and gently patted his back to calm Justine down. After a few minutes passed, Justine sat at the bed quietly thinking of his dream.
Not beating around the bush, Rosalyn went straight to the point and asked "What happened to you?"
Justine looked at her, his eyes almost dried from crying and said "I thought I was going to die." his body shook, and his eyes zoning out from the shock he had experienced.
He was struggling to speak, yet he continued to do so and said "I was at the house early, you all didn't come home even when it was already nine o'clock, so I went outside to look for all of you, well at least tried to. The floor turned into a form of liquid and swallowed me alive."
"Wait, wait, wait. You're saying just because we didn't come home at nine o'clock, you tried to set out and look for us?"
He nodded to confirm her question, and she continued by saying "That sounds like something you wouldn't do lil bro." those words left her mouth, and he couldn't agree more.
Being overly worried for his current family is not one of Justine's characteristics. He knew that much was true since his adoptive family was strong, not just strong but monstrous if he were to describe their awakened capabilities.
They could control gravity at will and manipulate it at a freakishly abnormal rate. The Tate family was truly fearsome, and only a few supers in the world would dare get on their nerves. He knew they could defend themselves even if push comes to shove.
Justine answered his sister and said "I know it's not one of my qualities to be overly worried." he looked at his sister in the eyes with a gentle expression and spoke "it was a nightmare.... and we both know we can't control our dreams."
Those words did nothing to rid Rosalyn of her worries and once again asked "Are you sure?"
"Yep, so no worries!" Justine smiled at her and assured Rosalyn.
Rosalyn told Justine to go down stairs to eat dinner, and left his room. He turned to his side table to look at the time of his phone, and it was six o'clock. The dream was strange, it was more like a nightmare than a dream.
He contemplated on what that was about, but ultimately dismissed it and headed down stairs to have dinner.
***
It was morning, Justine had difficulty in sleeping last night. But was able to sleep when he consumed a sleeping edible.
He got out of his bed and fixed the sheets, make his way down stairs and ate breakfast with the family. It was a weekend, Justine had nothing to do with his whole day but spend it lazing around all day.
It was a boring weekend that he got used to. It was ten o'clock when he suddenly got a text message from John. Not until he felt a surging pain from his chest. He struggled with the pain and fell on the ground.
He looked up and tried his best to shout or at least call for help. But it was to no avail, his consciousness fading until everything was completely black.
***
His eyes opened as if he had just awoken from a nightmare, Justine's breathing was ragged and immediately got up grabbing hold of his chest.
Justine was panicking, his eyes moving frantically for anything that could cause him harm. When he calmed down and confirmed that he was fine. Looking around was the first thing he did, and there was absolutely nothing but plain blackness.
The surroundings moved in a swift manner, spinning like that of a whirlpool. It all halted however, when he made a slight movement. Even the little actions he took such as moving his fingers had an effect on his surroundings.
He moved his hand and the darkness followed. Justine couldn't help but wonder what all of this was. It felt very strange, he had full control of his surroundings. No longer was he nervous, and in fact, he felt more omniscient in this place.
The consciousness he had was slowly slipping away, and after a few seconds of trying to stay awake. His senses dulled and fell down once again, there was no ground however, so he kept falling down until he hit something.
He woke up.
***
Opening his eyes, he looked around once again and found that he was still at the same place where he fell down. Taking a breather, he took out his phone to look at the time, and surprisingly only five minutes had passed.
He also noticed something strange with his shadow. It was moving on its own volition, like it possessed its own consciousness.
'What is this? it's similar to the one I experienced just a few minutes ago.'
It was a wonder, but then he suddenly thought of a conclusion.
'Dammit, I must've awakened!'
Excitedly, he swiftly made his way to Regina's room, and opened the door loudly. Proudly, he shouted the following words "Gin! I think I awakened!"
Regina and Rosalyn were watching a movie, Rosalyn wearing only a pair of bikini and a bra, meanwhile Regina was wearing a pajama. Rosalyn looked at her dear brother with a deadpan expression. She then asked Justine in a sarcastic tone "Oh yeah? pray and please do tell the power you gained.... did your thing grow? SHOW ME SHOW ME SHOW ME!"
Regina spared Rosalyn a glance and brought her hand to her own mouth, holding back a laugh.
Justine's look darkened, and one of his eye brow twitched in annoyance. He flicked the switch of the lighting and told them to "look at my silhouette and observe my greatness."
His body was only standing, not making any movements. However, his shadow extended and grew wider. Ultimately forming a miniature square around him spanning 1 meters on each side.
Rosalyn and Regina looked at him, their eyes bulging out due to the shock. Why wouldn't they be shocked? as far as they knew, Justine was not supposed to have any awakened abilities.
Ever since the meteorite hit earth, ten percent of the worlds population got infected and gained their super powers. A study was made because the remaining ninety percent did not awaken, and they found absolutely nothing.
The years went by, and the researchers came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the awakened bloodline. Despite all of the awakened volunteers who participated in the experiments, the researchers did not find anything related to the mystery of the awakened powers.
One thing was made certain by the researchers and scientists. That the bloodline of the awakened holds the key to the truth of awakening. The evidence were the off springs of the past awakened, who then gained similar powers to their predecessors at the age of thirteen to fifteen years old.
The heroic collective had no knowledge on how the villains managed to make or procure the drugs to forcefully awaken a mundane, and it is still a mystery up till this day. If they knew how to make those drugs, then one thing is certain, they hold the answer to this mystery bloodline awakenings.
Justine was birthed by two mundane parents after all. It was a rare occurrence for a person with a mundane parent to have gained any awakened powers, it was extremely rare for the mundane to suddenly gain any sort of powers. However, it was not unlikely for one to suddenly get one and be awakened.
Unless of course the said mundane ingested an illegal empowerment drug meant to forcefully awaken their powers, and that was not possible for Justine since he was always heavily monitored and guarded by his family security for safety related matters since he was a mundane.
There was only one answer for this, and that was him being one of the rare occurrences of a mundane awakening their powers.