The World

The A-gene, or Activation gene, was a dormant gene unexpectedly discovered.

A small company funded the research team, hoping to understand it, or even to realise more ways to health and surpass morality. The research quickly went haywire when the scientists working on it discovered large spikes of energy surged from the gene when exposed to prolonged periods of radiation. During the experimentation process, it was reported that the company decided that experimenting on mice were inconclusive, and turned to using humans as experiment subjects. This instantly sparked debates of legality and ethics came into play, and it received a fair amount of controversy. Despite the large disapproval from the science community, the experiments proceeded as planned.

It all comes to a tragic halt one day when the building facilitating the research suffered a nuclear breakdown, which escalated to a large explosion. The building, situated in the heart of the city, killed many and injured a lot more with the radiation. The government struggled with rescue and evacuation efforts, effectively leaving the the city and its population stranded in a ratiation posisoned area, and society begun to collapse there. The company was never made responsible, and it continued on as it was.

However, as theorised, the prolonged and high levels of radiation did not affect a small number of people. These survivors reportedly claimed to have superhuman abilities, abilities only imagined in fiction. These people were believed to be A-gene carriers. Once the news articles published and gone global, those people were whisked away from the public eye, protected by the government, never to be seen or heard again.

These people were dubbed by the media as the 'Anomalies'.

Years went by, widespread panic of doomsday eased but lingered amongst people's minds. Cases of superhuman activity did not cease to end. For some reason, outside the city, more and more Anomalies appeared, several who seemed to be deliberating causing chaos in different areas. Authorities tried to clamp down on the Anomalies through issuing new laws and regulations as means to ensure that normal humans could coexist with them safely, but it slowly turned to suppression than regultaion. It drove groups of peaceful Anomalies into protests, but often ended up with violent clashes. At the same time, these experiments continued illegally and more uncontrolled, awakening more.

Now, ten years after the explosion, civil unrest raged on. Several large cities have been driven into disorder and chaos, military control infiltrated people's lives. Several diplomatic discussions have been engaged with current leaders and declared leaders of the Anomalies, most to no avail. Humans and Anomalies stood on a thin ice of coexistence. No parties were interested in further bloodshed, but neither could meet eye to eye with each other.

As a race, humans were now forever divided.

You

Life for you was carefree and easy. You were very young when the explosion happened, and your parents quickly migrated up north, where the jurisdiction was different. The Anomaly population started spreading across the America continent shortly after. Had your father not received an opportunistic job offer, your memories would not be of fireplaces and oak and a loving family, but of something more harrowing than you could ever imagine. Whilst several instances of unrest did threaten to tip the balance of the country, your country was one of the first to make adjustments to their government, becoming more Anomaly-friendly. This, however, was not accomplished without procedural monitoring and heavy enforcement. Overall, it maintained fairly peaceful.

To you, the Anomaly situation was merely the evening news, the discussion in classrooms, a terrible fate that affected the world outside your own. Like many of your peers, sympathy was the only thing you can offer to the talk. That's because no one could face the deep fear that haunted everyone, that everything could disintegrate within a day.

Now, you are past your mid-twenties, graduated from university with a degree and struggling to get a decent job. You are in a long term relationship with Kris, whom you've recently moved in with. Kris was a university senior, a friend of a friend, now your lover and working in one of the largest tech companies in the country. You were deeply in love with Kris, and honestly, all factors considered, life could not have been working out better for you than it ever was.

A/N: Okay so I may or may not have been tuning into a lot of D&D games recently, and this D&D style intro just felt necessary to set the picture.