Chapter 1 - The Fall

The day the calamity hit earth was just as average as any other day. It was a Monday that it all ended. Second day of the week and one of the most hated days. Start of the work week.

Sunlight shined between the cracks of the buildings. Wide cast shadows enveloped the city of buildings as the city hummed with life. Day to day lives shuttled in and out of the shadows and sunbeams as they walked the city blocks. Time crept forward as the life of the planet tried to find meaning in their existence as every other day.

Family, passion, wealth, material goods, love, pleasure, and religion sucked up time and commitment. What is the purpose of humanity? Why can peace not exist? Everyone has their own consciousness, but what happens when someone passes? Was there a god? If so, which religion was right? Why did humanity exist? Was it all scientifically explained or was there a greater source at work?

People don't have enough time to answer these questions. Living requires work. Society didn't dwell constantly on the purpose of life. They just lived life completely working, collecting a paycheck, and spending money on what mattered to them. Not everyone gets to do what they love. Some jobs offer so little meaning in life that one can find themselves lost and wasting away. No matter meaningless a job may be, every machine needs its cogs.

Augus was one of these cogs. He went to college, but spent his time switching between different majors. He never felt any of them sparking any passion. Where was the purpose in his life? In the end he dropped out of school and picked up a couple jobs to sustain him until he found his career. A year out of college and he still didn't have his career. In the meantime he worked at his part time job. Some may consider it one of the least admirable jobs in the vicinity of the city he lived on in the west coast. Augus worked as a toll booth operator.

He didn't really mind the work. It was a lot of brief interactions with people he would never see or remember again. Too quick to get to know them and too long to get irritated by them. He never took an interest in the jobs he did. Though this job was rather worse than the others. Despite incidents of people paying with hundred dollar bills or in pennies, AUgus never complained or reacted much. There wasn't much purpose in getting aggravated to him. What did he have to get mad at?

Augus had shift one, which one might assume was the earliest shift, but reality is quite cruel. Shift one started the day before. It was a graveyard shift. It ran from 11pm to 7am in the morning. It's an extremely messed up sleep cycle when you fall asleep when the rest of society wakes up. It's hard to make friends when you sleep through everyone's lunchtime. He didn't get very much extended social interaction, besides occasional calls to his parents and younger sister and sister. It was his usual routine to get to bed around 8am after finishing up work.

At this moment Augus was just waking up for the day with a good 5 hours asleep at 1pm. Despite the slight impediment to his sleep, he woke up quickly and prepared for the day. Within fifteen minutes he was ready and striding out the door.

His first order of business was to stop by the local gym and complete an exhaustive workout. Augus always kept healthy with exercise, but one wouldn't consider him as buff. He had developed a moderately athletic physique that wasn't eye grabbing but made noticeable that he workout to some extent.

The local gym was only a 5min jog away from his apartment. He reached the gym as he got a text notification from his younger brother Omillio.

"Looking forward to seeing you, I will head down on wednesday after classes. I called and talked to Tyla recently and she is already applying to colleges. Way earlier than we ever did!" -Omillio

His brother was currently going to college in a city nearby and decided to stop by during his break. Since Augus had Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays off Omillio decided to stop by for a day to catch before heading over to their parents for the remainder of his break. Tomorrow would technically be the start of Augus's weekend according to his work schedule.

Augus was looking forward to spending a day with Omillio. It really helped abate the constant droll days he spent without meaning. His sister Tyla was in her last trimester of her junior year in highschool and unlike Augus had a high scholarly drive. She loved chemistry and was looking forward to getting a stem degree. It was reassuring to know what you wanted to do. He was happy for her. SHe and Omillio always knew what they wanted to do. Tyla with chemistry and Omillio with engineering.

Augus figured he'd find his passion within the next five years. Then his career could begin and he could feel something for once. Finally find that thrill of a passion. Any day now he was bound to find what he was meant to do.He sent a quick reply back as he walked inside to start his workout.

After an enduring workout he walked outside and brought out a small notebook and opened it up as he grabbed his pen. Next on his agenda was the search for his future career! The notebook was full of jobs and hobbies that had been crossed out. Everytime he had a week off he would try different jobs and hobbies to see if it fit him. He opened it to the latest page and looked at the next one on his list.

"Parkour"

He had managed to go through most "normal" jobs already and what left was quite obscure. He had different ways of investigating each job and hobby: job shadow, online research, documentaries, and sometimes he just showed up and began working.

That was probably one of his best memories. He walked into an accounting firm with a suit on and found a chair to sit in. From there he had IT help him log in, found people that needed help, and no one even realized he didn't work there. They assumed he was a new hire. He spent three days going and working until his weekend ended and he went to work at the toll booth. He left his email account with a pre recorded response that said he was out of the office, but would return next week. He never returned.

To see if parkour was his passion he decided to first scale the nearest building. He made his way into the alley of the gym and began to scale the building. Well he tried to scale the gym. It turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds. He tried using the gutter that ran up the side of the building but it began to bend and creak after his body weight was taken off the ground. He tried reaching for handholds after standing on the dumpster, but to no avail. In fact the cracked plastic lid broke and he fell into the dumpster. He lay among the trash scraped up not even attempting to get out.

(How on earth am I supposed to jump from building to building? Why don't any of the videos ever show how they got on top of the building in the first place? I don't think this is for me… Why can't I just find a purpose?)

This was one of the faster realizations that this wasn't meant to be his future or passion. He scratched out parkour from the list of possible careers. The list was getting smaller and smaller every week. The next options were hockey, jewelry making, and military service. Augus prepared to move onto the next listed choice, but he felt a disturbance. He imagined an earthquake was the cause, but instead of the earth moving the very atmosphere and sky shook with vigor.

The very fabric of reality began to tear. At this time the phenomenon was felt across the entirety of earth. This instance would be known as the fall of mankind, the great calamity, the cataclysm. It was at this point god disappeared. A tremor breached the sky as a voice rang out from the air, "I have failed you all. This is as long as I can last. Thank you for all the powers you have lent me, but it is time to return to the motherland. Your powers will return after my ending. Keep up the fight my comrades."

This was the ending of earth. This introduced danger, hardship, and mass death. This was the return to Tera.