I unveiled a hand from my royal purple cloak and placed it against the wall, the fissure's largest section covered by the center of my palm. It was freezing to the touch, as if it was dry ice. Its rocky texture tickled my skin and tantalized my nerves, making me awfully sensitive to the loud silence. 

Gulping, I refrained from turning to Father, who was no doubt eagerly staring at me. I couldn't bring myself to see the inevitably disappointed expression he had from the anticlimacticism. 

That's when I felt it. 

A surge of power... indescribable force slamming into me like a tsunami hitting a solid wall. Somehow, I stayed on my feet, and the wave was followed by an explosion of cyan energy, like a geyser erupting from the part of the fissure my hand was pressed against. 

My cloak threatened to fly off my back as an aggressive wind tore around me and into the crowds. Yelps and shouts churned with the ferocious currents, and somewhere in there was encouraging mutters from Father. 

As I held my ground, thick lines of the same blue color branched throughout the stone wall, all originating from the abyss within the cracks. 

I felt the energy go inside of me, forcing its way into my mind like a starved parasite, and my vision became scrambled. Noises enveloped me in a way that I couldn't possibly categorize, a sensation so disorderly it couldn't be restored. 

Electricity crackled in my veins and my head became a world of static, devoid of meaning and rhythm. But, in the midst of this internal chaos, a voice spoke out to me. 

"You who seeks this Key..." her murmurs echoed, "you are to bear a destined weight, to which man ought to be unaware of.

This power you search for... Take it, and it shall be yours... the Key of Mankind."

The static became a dull ringing in my head, and the voice never spoke again. 

The blue lines on the wall formed a diamond shape that touched the ceiling and floor before the winds began to calm down, and the energy raging against my hand dissipated. 

The blue diamond symbol glowed, brightening the room with its magical hue. My body felt suddenly weak and fragile, yet my mind was clear and refreshed.  The anxiety that was pushing against my steps toward the Altar was nowhere to be found, replaced by an unnatural certainty and confidence. 

I felt as if I was truly who I was supposed to be. 

Turning to the crowd, I met their egotistical gazes with an oozing sensationalism, letting them take note of my indubitable stature as the Fourth Prince of the Beaumont Empire. 

"Behold, Izaac iil Beaumont," Father boomed theatrically, "my latest son, and your youngest Lord!"

Their triumphant screams drowned my beating heart, and a buried vigor within me rose.  

* * *

SOUTHERN GHETTO: An armpit of the great Beaumont Empire. That was the perfect description of the Southern Ghetto, one its own inhabitants accepted without argument. 

Polluted air and streets culminated a harsh, rancid scent that disseminated throughout the ecosystem of rotting metal buildings and broken down vehicles. People from the outside who were exposed to the mere breaths of the ghetto were at risk of catching unnamed infections of both viral and bacterial types. 

Inhabitants, however, possessed innate immune systems that pushed them toward evolving for survival. Scientists from other sectors in Beaumont were baffled from this, likely blindsided by their own prejudices and biases. Unfortunately, the inhabitants' survival didn't entail an ability to be completely immune to its effects. 

Virtually everyone who lived in the Southern Ghetto were carriers of some kind of disease. Percentage studies of which diseases in particular were never conducted, referring back to scientists' prejudices. 

Instead, Beaumont simply decided to quarantine the ghetto from the rest of the nation, sending in minimal supplies on a fixed schedule via airdrop. Nevertheless, these didn't include the most vital supply in mankind's history: medicine. 

Illness was the leading cause of death in the ghetto, the runner-up being acts of violence that were instigated by a lack of medicinal support. So, when a Beaumont doctor began traveling in the ghetto and offering free treatments, it was easy to imagine the rate at which conflict plummeted and infection became nonexistent. In other words, the ghetto itself began to change.