The ringing of his alarm was what woke up Mark, telling him it was time to get ready for work. So with a few groans, Mark began to get up and make his way to the bathroom. Mark first took care of his base urges before he began to get dressed and brush his teeth.

  Once he was fully dressed and his teeth were minty fresh, Mark made his way out of the bathroom and into his apartment kitchen to fix himself some waffles and eggs with orange juice to drink. Once he had prepared his food, he quickly dug into the food, almost inhaling it before downing the orange juice in one gulp on his way out his apartment's front door.

  He got into an old, beat-up car he'd purchased at a junkyard auction. Rapidly backing out of his apartment parking lot as he made his way to work. He turned the radio on to the local news, mostly hearing about the weather and what roads to avoid on the way to work this morning.

  Sadly, the really interesting stuff was something he was all too familiar with; they were once again debating the villain known as the Cut. All the devastation he'd left in his wake after his rampage, and if he'd deserved the death penalty or not, considering the death toll once it all had been tallied, was rather substantial. They weren't giving the exact number, but people were speculating it was in the thousands at least.

  Mark quickly turned off the radio, not wanting to hear any more of the debate on the cut. He simply enjoyed the silence as he drove on to the main highway to get to work, still having another fifteen minutes left before he'd finally get to his place of employment.

  Eventually he reached his place of work, the prison asylum. Once he pulled into the parking lot, he put on his uniform and walked inside, saying hi to Sharon at the front desk as he walked into the main area where all the patients were. Mark quickly clocked in and began making his rounds, checking in on the various patients and helping the other workers when a few got a little too rowdy and had to get a needle and cookies.

  Eventually Mark got to the patients he was there to watch personally just in case they got loose, not that the rest of the staff knew that. The first patient being the cut mark, having to make sure he took his daily medication.

  The cat was watching children cartoons, giggling and smiling like he was a small child as the pills once again extended this state of childlike mind. For a few minutes, Mark just enjoyed some cartoons with the cat, trying to give the big guy some company before he had to move on.

  Sadly, all good things came to an end, and eventually Mark had to move on to his other duties. Giving the cat a pat on the shoulder before he goes, he began to think to himself about his situation. For you see, Mark is a hero known as the shaper. His power is to create energy prisons of different shapes; hence, he works here to watch the villains that are sent to the asylum.

  Though sadly this reminds Mark that he simply won a coin toss and could have easily been him getting drugged out of his mind instead. The truth is there aren't really any villains at the asylum, just those that aren't in control. You see, when you get your powers, there is a chance your powers may take over or connect you to an Eldritch creature. When this happens, you become one of the mad.

  Sadly, the power taking over is what happened to the cut; he was just a regular guy going about his life when he got his powers to cut anything to shreds within a certain distance from him. Sadly, his power took control of him and began forcing him to cut everything around him. This caused him to leave behind a trail of death and destruction that he wanted no part in but was a part of all the same.

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  Sadly, the only real way for the mad to not be a threat to anyone is without straight-out executing them, which is immoral because of their mind-controlled state. So the only way to make the mad no longer dangerous is to drug them heavily, so much so that their rendered mentality is handicapped while under the effect of such heavy drugs. This prevents their powers or Eldritch entities from taking over because they need a mind to be working to a certain degree to be able to do so.

  Though this is a somewhat bitter pill to swallow. Because while it's easy for news anchors and talk shows to debate handing out the death penalty or not to the mad. People like Mark get to actually spend time with them in their impaired state, see how what's happened to them has affected their families, and even see those moments of good from the mad, like when the cut cheers every time the heroes win in old action cartoons that show the mad aren't just bloodthirsty butchers.

  Sadly, most of his coworkers don't agree with him, though not his coworkers at the asylum; they agree with him wholeheartedly. It's his fellow heroes who see the mad as nothing more than rabid dogs. Several even see themselves as the chosen due to the nature of their side of power. For when you aren't controlled by your power or controlled by an Eldritch entity, you become a wonder, a super that is in control of their power or even connects to a positive entity that will share their knowledge and power.

  Sadly, this means that the current situation of the wonders and mad has only one solution: beat the mad into the dirt, then drug them to the day they die so that they're no longer a threat. Now while there have been proposals to create some kind of limiter or drug that nullifies the powers of the mad so the mad could live normal, productive lives again. The problem is any such drug or device that worked on the mad would work on the wonders as well. So several wonders have used their power and influence they've gained to make it impossible to get the funding necessary to begin developing such a thing.

  This desperate situation was what circled in Mark's mind as he went about his duties, having to drug more mad to keep them docile. Though the next patient was a set, they were twins that ended up belonging to two opposing Eldritch entities. So when either twin became a fully awake mad super, they would immediately be forced to fight against the other.

  Eventually Mark's workday ended, and he clocked out and said bye to Sharon at the front desk on his way out the front door. Then he got in his old junk car and got out of his uniform before making his way back onto the highway to get to his apartment. He kept his radio off, not wanting to risk having to listen to anyone tell him about how he should feel about the mad. Eventually he pulled into his apartment parking and then walked into his front door. He made a beeline for his PC; it was an older model, but it got the job done.

  Mark began to scroll through the games on one of the best gaming websites on the market. Mark was feeling like he needed something new to really help get him in a better place away from the super crap his world was dealing with, and eventually he found it: some brand-new game called The Land of Allyssa, a dungeon/sandbox game that seemed interesting enough and wasn't all that expensive, so he bought it. Mark would have no idea how much this would change him or those around him in the times to come.