Loud sirens.
Dust everywhere.
Blurry vision.
Splitting headache.
These were the classic symptoms of a protagonist waking up after an intense moment, like the aftermath of a cataclysm or a brutal attack.
Nerez never imagined he would be in such a situation.
Struggling to open his eyes, he felt like his entire body weighed a ton. Every movement was agony. His eyes stung, his limbs ached.
"Fuck…" he muttered, trying to push himself up.
"Where… where am I? What is this? What's going on?" Nerez asked aloud, disoriented. His mind was chaos until it hit him.
"Dad… Where's Dad?!"
His eyes snapped open.
And then the world came crashing back.
The noise he hadn't noticed before struck him all at once...
Sirens wailing in the distance.
Screams echoing from every direction.
The haunting howls of animals in the background.
The sky was a dusty brown, and visibility had dropped significantly.
Dust and smoke blanketed everything.
But through it all… he could see it.
The police station.
"Dad… Dad…" Nerez's heartbeat skyrocketed.
He tried to take a step forward, unaware that his left leg had been shattered, reduced to a mess of broken bones barely clinging together. But the moment he lifted it.....
It began to heal.
Fast.
Unnaturally fast.
Within seconds, the crushed limb regenerated completely, as if it had never been broken. Bruises across his body vanished, and as he stepped forward, the pressure he exerted cracked the ground slightly.
He didn't even feel pain. Maybe his earlier confusion had numbed him. Or maybe the adrenaline surging through his veins had taken over.
In just six seconds, Nerez crossed over 150 meters, faster than any Olympic sprinter.
But none of that mattered to him.
Only one thought filled his mind:
Find Dad.
He jumped over collapsed debris, dodged falling rubble, and raced across a once-familiar slope now reshaped into a deathtrap. Jagged rocks and heated fragments burned against his skin, but he didn't care.
When he finally reached the area where the police station had stood, he froze.
His hair was wild.
His clothes were torn.
Only one shoe clung to his right foot, the left was bare, bloodied, and bruised.
He looked like a homeless child... but none of that mattered.
Because in front of him stood a massive rock.
No.
Not just a rock but a meteor.
Hundreds of meters tall.
Fifty meters wide.
Sunk deep into the ground.
Right where the police station used to be.
There was no building left. No trace.
Only charred ground and scorched air.
There's no way… Dad couldn't have survived that.
He would've been crushed, disintegrated… or simply vaporized.
But Nerez wasn't ready to accept that.
"No… he can't be dead. He can't be," Nerez muttered, convincing himself through sheer desperation.
He started searching frantically.
All around were people just like him, disheveled, crying, searching for loved ones. Children weeping. Adults screaming. Some wandered around with grave injuries.
Others had missing limbs.
Missing faces.
And some were just... bloodstains on the ground.
Nerez pushed forward. Past the injured.
Past the grieving.
Until he found himself behind the meteor ,behind where the station had once stood.
Silence.
No screams.
No crying.
Just blood.
Torn flesh.
And fragments of what used to be lives.
Eventually, the adrenaline left his system.
His legs gave out.
Boom.
He collapsed, unable to move.
Every limb burned. His chest ached.
He was dying.
Fading.
And then… he saw it.
A small, charred photograph lying among the wreckage.
His eyes snapped open, and he reached for it with trembling hands.
It was a family photo.
His dad, his mom, himself… and Seran.
But part of it was missing.
The upper half of his father's face… and a portion of his mother's body had been torn off.
"Dad…"
Tears fell from Nerez's eyes as the world around him turned to black.
He lost consciousness.
**********
Elsewhere Across the World...
The same apocalyptic scene played out in city after city.
Families torn apart.
Friends lost.
No one was whole anymore.
Some cried that this was Judgment Day.
Others screamed that God had come to punish humanity.
Despair, grief, and rage overtook the globe.
And from that rage, hate was born.
But who to blame?
All fingers pointed at the heavens.
At God.
Whether in belief or madness, the name echoed across the ruins.
"God."
That day…
That week…
That year…
Humanity wept.
Their technology failed.
Satellites, defense systems, sensors, none had detected the meteors.
It was as if the sky itself betrayed them.
*********
In One of the World's Most Powerful Nations…
"Mr. President! Mr. President!"
A guard, arm bleeding and uniform torn, ran through smoke and rubble, screaming.
Finally, after several calls, a muffled voice replied.
"Cough… cough… I'm here."
From beneath a collapsed wall, the President's bloodied face emerged.
"Are you alright, sir?" the guard asked, rushing to his side.
"I'm fine. What about the others? What the hell happened?" the President asked, still buried under debris.
"We don't know. Maybe it was a terrorist attack… but how?! Our defenses should've stopped this. Or… was there a traitor?" the guard asked, confused.
"I… I don't understand either. Try contacting the Supreme General. We need answers. Now," the President ordered.
Just then, a strange sound rang out.
A phone.
The guard looked down at his own pocket in disbelief.
His phone was ringing.
"I… It shouldn't be working," he said, stunned. "I'm sorry, Mr. President. I'll.."
"Pick it up," the President interrupted firmly.
"But sir, it's not a secure...."
"Pick up the damn phone."
Reluctantly, the guard answered.
"Hello?"
There was no name on the screen. No number. Just a voice.
"Is this the guard assigned to the President?" a calm male voice asked.
Startled, the Guard looked at the President, then switched to speaker.
Who was this?
A survivor?
A terrorist?
Or something else?
"Yes," the guard replied with a nod from the President.
"Good. We tried calling the others, but only you picked up. Thank goodness…" came a relieved sigh from the other end.
The guard and the President exchanged a glance something felt off.
This didn't sound like a terrorist.
No terrorist would sigh in relief after bombing the Presidential Suite.
"This is Supreme General Marvin," the voice continued. "The whole world is in chaos now."
Both the guard and the President were stunned.
"Wait what?"
This time, it was the President who spoke.
"Mr. President? Is that really you? Thank God you're alive," Marvin said with urgency.
"Enough with the pleasantries. What the hell is going on? Is this a global terrorist attack? Not just our country?" the President demanded.
There was a pause.
"No, Mr. President. It's… a meteor attack. Earth is in shambles. Everywhere is destroyed, and worse technology is failing. Even this call will drop soon. In a few hours, no electronic equipment will work at all," General Marvin said grimly.
The President and the guard stood frozen in disbelief.
Technology gone.
The internet, down.
Communication, weapons, cars, power grids… life as they knew it, collapsing.
A world without control, only chaos.
"How could this happen…?" the President whispered, stunned.
"Mr. President, I called to ask for your orders. What do we do?" Marvin asked seriously.
Silence fell.
The weight of the world pressed on the President's shoulders.
Finally, he spoke. "Can you still contact other countries?"
"We should be able to," Marvin responded.
"Good. Create a global announcement. Let the people know what's happening. Right now, our priority is to calm the masses and bring order. But the fact that you couldn't detect or destroy the meteors… that you couldn't even warn us, means this wasn't just a meteor attack."
The President paused, his voice tightening.
"I feel something far worse is going on. Something is… severely wrong."
He exhaled slowly.
"The fate of humanity… is now in your hands."
"Mr. President, what do you mea.....?" Marvin began, but the call cut off.
The guard stared at the now-dead phone, then turned to the President.
"Let me get you out of there," he said quickly, moving to lift the rubble pinning him down.
"No… you can't," the President said, stopping him with a weak gesture.
"Why, Mr. President?" the guard asked, already shifting debris.
"I can't feel my lower body. I'm feeling dizzy… It's crushed. I'm only able to speak because of the adrenaline… but now it's fading. I can feel it… I'm dying," the President said with a tired smile.
"But Mr. President...."
"No… You should be searching for your family. Go. Go… take care of your kids," he said softly.
The guard stared, eyes trembling, as he saw the President's eyes begin to close.
"Mr. President…"
No response.
The President… was dead?
For a moment, the guard stood still, staring at the lifeless face of the nation's leader.
Then, slowly, he picked up the dead phone… and turned to run outside.
"I hope you're all safe…" he whispered, clutching his bleeding arm.
But the moment he stepped through the doorway....
He fell.
The ground beneath the Presidential Suite had collapsed. The entire area had become a pit.
Boom.
He plummeted into the abyss, his head smashing against jagged rock.
It was instant.
Meat paste.
The guard died in the same moment he tried to carry hope.
*******************†************************†*********