Revelations

Alexander was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the voice.

'Major Theodore Hart? The voice referred to my father!'

In order to calm himself down, Alexander closed his eyes and breathed in deep. Then, he slowly exhaled. Once he calmed down a little bit, he opened his eyes and checked the message log.

There indeed were three messages marked as unread. The first one read "Code 0 Priority Transmission 22/05/2182".

"Code 0... This code is reserved for extinction-level incidents. Are things really so bad?" He muttered looking at the screen.

He gritted his teeth and opened the transmission. With a light blue glow, a hologram appeared. It was an image of a man, roughly in his fifties, dressed in military attire.

"Gentlemen, the day we were afraid is not a mere speculation, has finally arrived." The man locked his hands behind his back and began to pace back and forth.

"As you might know, our current predicament does not allow for any kind of evacuation, mostly because of the high risk of any of our arranged shelters simply turning into a deathtrap.

After all, we don't know who will lose their minds during this madness." The man took a deep breath and continued with a somber expression on his face.

"To all of you who lose their loved ones in this chaos, I offer my condolences. If I could give my life to prevent it, I could." The man sighed. "While it does not mean much, I want to offer a moment of silence for all the lost lives. After all, it may be our last chance to honor them."

With a weary expression, the man sighed and continued.

"To those who survive this calamity, your first and foremost objective will be to locate the closest obelisk to regroup with any military personnel and reorganize according to rank." The image switched to one of a black monolith with green lines.

"These obelisks were deployed to most populated centers by the order of His Imperial Majesty. You will naturally understand their significance when the time comes. Their purpose is simple - to give humanity a fighting chance." The hologram flickered once again and changed back to the man.

"Your second objective is to organize a safe zone and shelter all civilians you can find. Each of the obelisks will have at least one supply cache prepared in the area. Some of the caches will also be arranged in areas where we did not manage to deploy obelisk in time to give people there a fighting chance. As for troublemakers, you can decide on your own how you want to deal with them."

A resolute look appeared in his eyes.

"And remember. Humans are not the only creatures that are going to change. This calamity will affect every single living being in one way or another."

The man stopped pacing back and forth and stood looking directly at the camera.

"From that moment and further, you will have to prepare for the second phase of the calamity. According to speculation, it could happen anywhere from one to fifty years after the beginning of the calamity. Spatial tears should begin to form all over the surface of the planet. As for what comes next, I don't know. Whatever deity you believe in, may they be with you. High General Hammond, out."

The hologram disappeared abruptly. Alexander stared blankly at the empty space where the image used to appear.

'Did they... know that it was going to happen? And this second phase... are things going to get only worse?'

Those questions were unanswered and Alexander quickly dismissed them from his mind. Instead, he returned his focus to his immediate problem.

First, he needed to figure out how he was going to reach the nearest obelisk. Of course, he felt the direction, but being trapped in the pit like this, did he really have to scale the walls? What if he falls again? One time he was lucky, but what about the 2nd?

'There are still more messages.' He remembered. 'I guess it won't hurt to check them.'

He opened the message log once again and quickly scrolled down to the second message.

Private Message 08/05/2182

Alexander opened it immediately. Instead of a holographic video, it was text this time.

"Dear Son,

I hope you have survived long enough to read this message. You may be wondering why I have left you during a troubled time like this, but hear me out, an eagle chick will never fly if it doesn't face the dangers of free fall. Plus, I couldn't bear to not be with your mother at a time like this."

"Mother?" He muttered quietly.

He barely remembered his mother. There were some vague memories, but nothing concrete. He tried to ask his father about her, but each time he did, his father became somewhat melancholic for a couple of days and never told him much. After trying a couple of times, Alexander decided not to push it since it had such an effect on his father. Alexander shook his head and got back to reading the message.

"Yes, your mother is alive and well. I hope you two can meet soon, maybe such a chaotic situation will allow for an opportunity. Maybe you can even meet your grandfather, though he still bears a grudge against me for stealing his daughter's heart. I'm afraid you, as my son, will be subject t of utmost scrutiny from him. Anyway, I believe you'll find a way.

Now though, it is time to talk about serious things. Do you remember I promised to teach you more about cultivation? I wish I could do it personally, but it is still better than nothing. You can find previously locked folders open now. There you will find a lot of useful files. Among them, you will find a cultivation manual. To be honest, if your grandfather knew your mother helped me steal it, he'll probably explode from being too angry."

For some reason, his father's face with an extremely smug expression appeared in his mind.

"This cultivation method requires an extremely high qualification to actually cultivate it, I was never able to do that. But you, as a son of your mother may be good enough. Count it as your inheritance from your mother's side. Now, however, I must bide you a farewell. To be honest, I don't know whether we'll see each other again. Good luck, my son."

Alexander felt a bit weird at the final words of the message. They gave him a strange feeling he could not place a finger on. But it's not like he could do anything about it. He quickly navigated to the previously locked folder.