Emotion Hunter: System Awakening.

[Riven's POV]

Sleep was impossible.

Riven stared at the ceiling of the dormitory, listening to the steady breathing of other trainees around him.

They were your typical prison bunk bed.... well, he was lying on the bottom bunk.

Elena's words kept echoing in his mind:

*They've been watching you since before the Veil incident. None of it is random. *

What did that even mean? Had the Guild somehow known he would develop a system before he'd entered his first Veil?

The timing felt impossible, but then again, everything about his situation had felt impossible from the beginning.

His family's disappearance in that Red Veil incident two years ago.

His desperate decision to enter a Gray Veil alone. His system awakening at exactly the right moment to save his life.

Meeting Marcus, Maya, and Jake - all of whom happened to have exactly the skills needed to support his missions.

None of it is random.... right? ....it might just be coincidences Riven thought to himself.

What if it really wasn't? What if every step of his journey had been orchestrated by people with far more power and knowledge than he'd ever imagined?

The thought made his stomach turn. If the Guild had been watching him before his system awakened, that meant they'd known about his family too.

Known about the Red Veil incident that took them. Maybe even...

No. He couldn't let himself think that way. Not without proof.

But the questions wouldn't stop coming.

Why separate him from Marcus now, after they'd worked so well together?

Why the constant system suppression exercises that seemed designed to push him and the other trainees past their limits?

Why pair him with Elena, who'd been broken by months of similar treatment?

The dormitory was finally quiet; all the other trainees settled into sleep. Riven waited another ten minutes, listening carefully to make sure no one was awake, then slipped out of his bunk.

A shadow moved near the doorway. Elena stepped into the dim light from the corridor, dressed in their regulation sleep clothes, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She gestured silently for him to follow.

They moved through the facility like ghosts, avoiding the main corridors where surveillance cameras tracked movement. Elena led him down a maintenance stairwell to what looked like an unused classroom in the basement level.

"No cameras here," she whispered, checking the corners anyway. "This is the maintenance area. They don't monitor spaces that aren't supposed to be occupied."

Riven settled onto a crate while Elena positioned herself near the door, ready to listen for footsteps.

"What did you mean earlier? About my system?"

Elena was quiet for a moment, clearly struggling with how much to say.

"You're not the first person with an emotion system they've brought here," she said finally.

Riven felt his world tilt. "What?"

"About six months ago, before I was assigned my first partner, there was another trainee. I only saw him a few times in the cafeteria, but I heard Cross and the other supervisors talking about him."

"Another emotion system user?" Riven said with shock.

"That's what they called it. But his abilities were different from yours. Where you absorb emotions and convert them to physical enhancement, he could project emotions onto others. Make people feel whatever he wanted them to feel."

Riven leaned forward. "What happened to him?"

Elena's expression darkened. "He got transferred to what they called a 'special research facility.' The supervisors were excited about it. They said his system had applications for interrogation and crowd control that made him too valuable for standard training."

"Do you know where they sent him?"

"No. But Cross mentioned something about 'optimization protocols' and 'controlled environment testing.' It didn't sound like training. It sounded like..." she struggled for the right word, "like they were going to use him for something."

The implications hit Riven like a physical blow. If there had been another emotion system user, and the Guild had transferred him for "special research," what did that mean for his own future?

"Elena, how do you know all this? About the Guild watching people before recruitment, about the surveillance?"

She glanced toward the door again, making sure they were still alone.

"The supervisors talk when they think we're not listening. During medical evaluations, equipment briefings, even just walking through corridors. They discuss us like we're not people - like we're specimens in an experiment."

Elena pulled her knees up to her chest, looking younger and more vulnerable in the dim light.

"I've heard them talking about 'pre-recruitment monitoring.' They track people who show potential for system development before the actual awakening happens. Unusual stress responses, behavioral patterns, family histories of Veil exposure."

"Family histories?"

"They believe system development has some genetic component. If someone in your family was exposed to high-level Veil energy, it increases the chances that other family members will develop abilities when exposed to trauma or extreme stress."

Riven's blood went cold. "My family was in a Red Veil incident."

"I know. I heard Cross discussing your case with Dr. Martinez from psychological evaluation. They'd been monitoring your family for over a year before the incident."

"Monitoring them how?"

Elena's voice became even quieter. "I don't know the details. But Cross mentioned something about 'controlled exposure scenarios' and 'trauma-induced activation protocols.'"

The room seemed to spin around Riven. Controlled exposure scenarios. Trauma-induced activation.

"Are you saying they deliberately put my family in danger?"

"I don't know," Elena said quickly. "I only heard fragments of conversations. But Cross did say that your emotional trauma from losing them was what triggered your system awakening. And that they'd been hoping for that outcome."

Riven felt sick. If what Elena was saying was true, then his family's disappearance hadn't been a tragic accident. It had been an orchestrated event designed to activate abilities the Guild wanted him to develop.

"What about Marcus and the others? Maya and Jake?"

Elena nodded grimly. "Your entire support network was planned. Cross calls it 'social architecture.' They wanted people around you who would encourage your system development but also serve as leverage if you ever tried to resist Guild authority."

"Leverage how?"

"Think about it. Marcus shares your enhancement connection. Maya has medical knowledge they can use for research. Jake has family connections to Guild operations. Each of them represents something the Guild can use to control you."

The pieces were falling into place in a way that made Riven feel nauseated. His friends hadn't just happened to be the perfect team for Veil exploration. They'd been selected and positioned around him deliberately.

"They separated Marcus from you because his presence was interfering with their ability to study your solo capabilities," Elena continued. "The enhancement connection made it hard for them to get clean data on your individual system performance."

"And Maya and Jake?"

"Maya's being used for research on system physiology. Jake's being trained as a potential handler - someone with institutional loyalty who could manage you in the future."

Elena stood and moved to the small window, looking out at the facility grounds.

"The suppression exercises aren't really training, Riven. They're stress testing. The Guild is mapping exactly how your system responds under extreme conditions, what your limits are, how far they can push you before you break."

"For what purpose?"

"Same purpose as the previous emotion system user. They want to understand your abilities well enough to optimize them for Guild operations."

Riven felt the walls of the room closing in. "What kind of operations?"

"I don't know specifics. But I've heard terms like 'interrogation enhancement,' 'crowd pacification,' and 'loyalty conditioning.'" Elena turned back to him. "They're not training you to be a Hunter, Riven. They're preparing you to be a weapon."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications.

"How long do I have?" Riven asked finally.

Elena pulled something small from her pocket - what looked like a maintenance keycard.

"Tomorrow's intensive training isn't training at all. It's your final evaluation. If your system performs as expected, they're transferring you tomorrow night."

She pressed the keycard into his hand.

"This gets you access to the lower maintenance levels. There's an emergency exit that leads to the parking structure. It's your only chance."

Footsteps echoed in the stairwell above them.

Elena's eyes went wide with fear. "Someone's coming. We have to go."

They moved quickly toward different exits, but Elena caught his arm before they separated.

"Riven," she whispered urgently. "Don't trust anyone completely. Even people trying to help you might be compromised. The Guild's reach is longer than you think."

Then she was gone, disappearing up the maintenance stairs like a ghost.

Riven stood alone in the basement classroom, holding the keycard and feeling the weight of everything Elena had revealed.

His family's tragedy hadn't been random. His friends' recruitment hadn't been coincidence. His entire life since developing his system had been carefully orchestrated by an organization that saw him as a resource to be optimized and deployed.

Tomorrow night, they would try to transfer him to a facility where the pretense of training would be dropped entirely.

The keycard felt warm in his palm - his only chance at freedom, and maybe his only chance to find out what had really happened to his family.

But Elena's final warning echoed in his mind: *Don't trust anyone completely.*

If the Guild's influence was as extensive as she suggested, how could he be sure anyone was really trying to help him?

Even Elena herself could be part of an elaborate test, designed to see how he would react to the threat of transfer.

The footsteps in the stairwell had faded, but Riven remained frozen in place, paralyzed by the realization that everything he thought he knew about his situation might be a lie.

Including the person who had just told him the truth.