1 Chapter 1:- To the place where it all began.

Date:- 23rd October 2125

From:- Mars

Position:- Near earth

"I will follow you until the end of the world, " I thought as the last of my cigarette burned to ashes. I was 225 million kilometers away from home or what I thought home used to be, at least. I haven't been able to discern anything for the past few days. In my dizzy state, I went over to a panel with a series of blue lights and snapped my fingers to see a hexagonal light appear before me.

, "Play the video" I commanded.

Those hexagonal lights formed before my eyes a panel of grandeur whose splendor erupted into a majestic image, but the majestic allure of these hexagonal lights evaporated just as suddenly, leaving behind a buzzing panel and a purple glow that adorned my cheeks.

------ The woman smiled deep into the camera after looking into the dirty reflection of her face.

Her weak smile covered her weak head as she said, "He is coming after me."

She took a deep breath and continued, "I don't know when he is going to come, I am trying my best to hide." She gave a sigh and continued, "I don't know what's going on anymore."

After touching the camera, she said, "My death is inevitable, but before I die, I want to meet you, please come back to where it all began". Touching her hair, she said with a melancholy look on her face, "I am such a bitch, am I not?" She zoned out for a moment and then said," It's not worth it, I just want it," she continued, "selfishly I was deliberately bringing you into this mess that wasn't even yours and now I am selfishly making you come down to this hell."------

"Close it."

And the video ceased playing at that point.

Taking a deep breath, I began walking up and down the spaceship.

The ship was called Atlas, and it was one of the best commercial spaceships in the market, with four compartments and two sleeping quarters, all wrapped in white, and several tubes extending across the inside of the vessel.

There was still 1 hour left before I reached earth, so I thought it wasn't a bad idea to get some rest. Once I arrived at the automatic door, it whistled open to reveal a blue room with a white bed and a small table right beside it. A holographic poster holding Linkin Park's logo was hanging beside the bed, decorating the room in shades of purple. The shade which that poster cast on the ground was a mild shade of blue.

From the very beginning of my life, I was a terrible human being, incapable of understanding what I was doing. I was given high intelligence by God, and I used it to my advantage. I used my intelligence for various inventions. Inventions were my addiction, and the creation of new stuff served as my high, and these very same inventions were also responsible for her death.

If you ever asked me personally Inventions were not of much interest to me, ironically the machines I invented were the least important attributes of the inventions I made.

The most important aspect of inventing new stuff was to feel godhood run through my veins. With each new thing I brought into existence, I felt as if I was becoming more and more like a God. Each new invention brought me closer and closer to the apotheosis of my abilities, Which I achieved by constructing the time-controlling gauntlet, my magnum opus of machinery. I still remember how I killed that ma-

A ringing spread throughout my entire room, interrupting my train of thought. A purple ball of light appeared before me. Inscribed upon that ball of light was the phrase, "New Video message" I sat on my bed and then touched the purple ball and the light created a screen in the air and a video was materialized in front of me.

-----She looked into the camera with a filthy face while panting in a decrypt room filled with cobwebs. Multiple broken lamps flickered on and off around her.

A hissing sound echoed throughout the room as she said, "I asked you to come back, I really wanted to see you one last time. However, sometimes it is necessary to extinguish some of your desires"

When she heard the shriek on her left side she looked in the direction of the shriek with terror in her eyes. Then she looked back towards the camera and said "Drev, no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you must never set foot on this planet. I am as good as dead, he is dea-."

and at that moment the camera went black.------

As I looked at that video I saw my face drained of color in only a few moments. As neon shades fell onto my face, my face was drenched in sweat and filled with tears. I grasped my head in disbelief as terror imploded. It did not make sense at all. In those videos, a woman named Aqsa was speaking. Aqsa was my late wife who had died three years ago. I had cremated her myself. As I watched her video, she asked me to go back to where it all began and then told me to never return to the earth ever again. I had no idea what to believe in anymore. But the last video of her clearly showed that she was in some form of danger.

.

As I got out of my bed and started walking in the circular corridor of my spaceship, violet neon light flooded the ceiling of the ship, bathing the entire corridor in violet tones.

An eerie purple ball of light appeared in front of me as I approached a room. I touched it and a purple number pad appeared before my eyes. Following my entry of the passcode, the door hissed open and I entered the room.

There were three boxes kept upon a white pedestal in front of me each box was giving off a different form of low-frequency sound. I went ahead and touched the box in the middle.

, "passcode is 1984"

The box reverberated a heavy voice and said, "Voice authorization confirmed opening the box of gauntlet."

The box hissed and then started breaking down into itself as it revealed a gauntlet inside the box. In the center of the gauntlet, there was an orb of glowing material, which was attached to a glowing pipe that went around twelve small orbs of blue glowing material throughout the left corner of the gauntlet.

This gauntlet was my magnum opus, my proudest achievement. It granted me the ability to control time. But this god-like power came with a price; with each use, its user's sanity was eroded, their sanity was chipped away with each and every use.

Though I tried to find a solution to the setback of such a powerful weapon, I was unable to counteract it. Even though I might lose my sanity if I used this weapon, I decided to bring it with me on my journey.

As long as I could save my dear Aqsa, I would be willing to give up my sanity to do it. In comparison to her safety, my sanity was nothing, so I would gladly give it up in order to save her.

There were two modes in my gauntlet, one that allowed me to reverse an object's motion, which would allow me to throw an object and have it fly back to me. Another mode of this gauntlet allowed me to restore objects back to a state in which they existed before.

During the first mode, a tiny amount of energy was utilized, while the second mode used a behemoth amount, which meant the first mode would not take a toll on my sanity, while the second mode would.

The gauntlet had 12 small orbs on its side which indicated how much energy was in the gauntlet. A lower amount of small orbs glowed on the gauntlet side meant that my sanity was deteriorating.

As I was strapping the gauntlet on my hand. I got lost in my memories of Aqsa. As I remembered, we met through our mutual friend, who was extremely talkative. He once invited me to a party and there I met Aqsa. She was a brown-skinned, Indian with exquisite features-a sharp nose, small lips, almond-shaped eyes, and a sweet voice that perfectly suited her looks.

Interestingly enough, the saying went like "broken souls bind together" and I did believe that was true. Just like opposite sides of magnets, we soon found solace in each other's eyes. I found peace in her eyes, and she found serenity in mine. Her touch brought me euphoria and mine brought her comfort. Just like that, we decided that we would hold hands and annoy each other for the rest of our lives.

Although it had been three years since we spent those monsoon nights dancing in the rain, holding hands to watch the meteor shower, our first kiss under the moonlight, those memories remained with me. I still remembered how we would stare into each other's eyes for hours.

The buzzer went off in the ship and a voice erupted in the chamber,

"Prepare yourself we are reaching the entrance portal of the earth."

I opened the second box and retrieved a long sword from it.

In the sword's hilt, there was a button. when activated, usually produced temperatures that were far exceeding that of the blade's melting point, effectively turning it into liquid metal, but at the same time, the blade retained its exact shape and hardness. This meant the sword was hot enough to melt through anything and still be as sharp as a real katana.

In the control room of my spaceship, I picked up my last gear (aka a pistol) and just sat there taking in my surroundings. This room used to be full of people a long time ago. There was a circular dining table with 5 chairs, and people would eat together here. Around the dining table was a couch in an L shape, and next to the couch was a short staircase leading to a lower platform with three seats pointing at glowing panels. And one seat in the middle with some sort of controller in front of it.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of nostalgia hit me and I reminisced about those good ol' happy times. I reached out and touched the seat. I could still feel the warmth of those people as if they had just gotten up from it. I could still hear the echoes of my friend's laughter, I could still hear the chatter of Aqsa and Sarah, and I could still see the silhouettes of the past zipping before my eyes. All the smiles, all the drinks I shared, all the drunken talks we had, all of it just vanished into the shadows of my memory.

As I made my way down the stairs onto the platform where the control panel was, I sat down on the seat in front of which a controller sat. Behind the control panel, four huge windows lined the walls through which I could see the outside.

As I watched the blue planet in front of me, I took a deep breath

"Never gets old, does it?"

In the distance, I could make out the blue traces of atmosphere in the sky as I gawked at the majestic beauty of this behemoth. The clouds moved slowly across the surface of the earth. As I approached closer to this surface, I saw those clouds moving faster and faster. I noticed the scent of beloved ozone filling my spaceship (definitely a placebo effect). As I pushed the buttons on the panel to my left, I created a revolution path for Atlas, which was crucial for a safe entry into the entrance portal.

Throughout the hull, a voice echoed,

"In 92 minutes and 3 seconds, we will be able to enter the portal safely"

As I realized that I had some time to kill, I decided to spend it admiring the wonders of the earth. From above, it looked as if the land had never been touched by war, as if no famine ever invaded it, as if no humans died here, as if it had never been polluted. As if no animals went extinct here.

I was able to see the waters, the seas, and the oceans as I looked at the blues of our planet. I wondered what mysteries in these oceans we abandoned to make Mars our home. We abandoned our old home deep in space to create a new one, and I couldn't help but wonder why.

Do we even qualify as humans? Five years ago, we marooned half of our own species, and we lost all contact with earth three years ago(on the exact date when Aqsa died). So we had no idea what was happening on our home planet.

As I was lost in my thoughts, my ship approached the dark side of the earth. As I noticed this, I was lost in nostalgia, it had been almost five years since I had walked through the Gardens of New York with stars twinkling high in the sky, and dirt under my soles. I looked forward to seeing the exquisite dance of light as I approached the dark side of the earth. I hoped the lights of houses, buildings, street lights would grace my eyes high up in the border of the earth's atmosphere.

Despite the beauty of the Earth and its size, I did not feel any sense of enjoyment at all. Not even a tiny amount of endorphins was released in my body. I could not enjoy this scene because I knew my wife was in grave danger somewhere on Earth. Although I had cremated her with my very own hands, I don't know how she was still alive. But at this point, none of that mattered-She was in danger and I needed to save her. Because, with a second chance at life, I was granted a second chance to complete my incomplete life with her.

And just like that, I reached the dark side of the earth, I jumped up in horror as I saw through the window. With sweat running down my forehead, as shock filled my veins, my hands were frozen in place.

It was pitch black.

There wasn't even a flicker of light; it was as if someone switched off the entire dark side of the earth.

"Wha-what just happened here?" I said as I struggled to find the right words.

I had no idea what had happened to the lights on earth. I had no idea what had happened to the houses on earth, I had no idea what had happened to the skyscrapers, I had no idea what had happened to streetlights.

After gathering my will, I touched a button on the panel on my right side, which scanned Earth's dark side and displayed it on the screen.

I clenched my mouth in horror

Half of the earth was covered by this enormous cloud. As it remained on the surface of the earth, defying physics, this cloud seemed out of place.

As I saw this humongous cloud, I understood it wasn't the lights that had gone away, but a veil that had been projected over one whole side of the planet.

My mind was filled with confusion and terror as I said, "What the hell is going on here?"

New York was where it all began. In Battery Park, I proposed to Aqsa with a bouquet and a heart full of optimism. Her smile and her tears as she took the bouquet from my hands, her crackling voice when she said yes to me, still echoed in my ears.

The city of New York also laid somewhere underneath that enormous cloud, but I had no idea what was happening. According to Aqsa, it was hell down there.

At that point, I thought to myself, "Let's see what New York has in store for me."

The control room echoed with a voice,

"Within 3 minutes, we will be able to access the portal safely"

As I knew re-entering would be difficult, I buckled up in the seat.

As I approached the entrance portal, I saw a gigantic circular megastructure with humongous antennas. There were four antennas on either side of the portal facing earthward. The texture of the megastructure caught my attention. Multiple blue flashing bulbs illuminated the surface of the entrance portal, which looked like a mixture of plastic and steel.

The Atlas aligned itself with the entrance portal and momentarily slowed as it approached the megastructure.

Slowly nearing the entrance portal, I was able to see an unremitting glow emanating from its center, filling its entire inner ring creating a circular wall of light. A subtle buzz could be heard emanating from the entrance portal.

"Here goes nothing," I thought as I embraced myself for the inevitable

Suddenly, a siren sounded in my control room as the same purple ball of light appeared in front of me and turned into a red screen displaying "Warning."

A voice filled the control room. "This planet is hazardous. Your safety cannot be guaranteed. Are you sure you want to enter it?"

"Yes, set the destination to New York"

"Initiating the entry protocol," a voice boomed in the control room.

As Atlas touched the wall of light, a humongous beam of light shot into the earth's atmosphere and my vessel entered it.

As soon as I was inside the beam of light, my ship accelerated at an unbelievable speed. As the windows flooded with white light, I felt an overwhelming force pushing my body into the seat. In just a few seconds, the white light vanished, and the overwhelming pressure on my body immediately disappeared. I looked around, and found myself high above New York City, surrounded by neon lights. Drenched in the ongoing onslaught of rain I observed many decaying buildings which were illuminated by (what looked like) holograms of ropes radiating a blue neon light. Each building had its own rope of holograms affecting the surrounding buildings and pulsating in rhythm with each other, changing color with each pulse. I was in shock as I saw this multicolor spectacle of lights. It was as if these spectacles were mere bandages to try to heal and hide the wounds of the rot.

Among the buildings here, three skyscrapers seemed to stand out like beacons of grandeur, in a world where decay has become the norm, their gleaming aura seemed to emanate from the future.

As I started approaching the buildings down below I was struck with overwhelming dread. How was I supposed to find Aqsa here? It looked nothing like The New York City I left behind. All the blue neon covering the buildings, trying to hide their rot, was burned into my retina, and I hated every second I spent looking at it.

As I zipped past buildings covered in holographic lines which acted as their own streetlights. I observed that the street down below was painted with the color of blue emanating from these buildings.

I saw rain trickling down upon every block in this area. It had been a long time since I experienced rain for myself.

On Mars rain became obsolete and was replaced by water injection technology, which provided water to the roots of plants along with the precise amount of nutrients and a special solvent (which I am unsure of) needed for them to grow so it could become something we could call "Perfect."

Amidst the perfect combination of solvent, nutrients, water, and our thirst to replace nature. We lost something extremely important, our ability to feel the rain on our skin.

Showers cannot make me feel what I felt when the rain touched my skin when the smell of wet earth graced my nose when the familiar sound of water falling on trees touched my ears and seeing drenched buildings, wet roads in front of me.

Rain was a blessing of nature which we vehemently discarded in favor of man-made technology to enhance the plants.

And since then, till her death, we never experienced those monsoon dances ever again. At one point it was very easy to make her happy, but then again, it was very easy for her to cry too. Since the day we lost the rain her eyes held melancholy angst, even though for most people no rain wasn't a big deal. But for Aqsa, those days we spent holding hands and walking in the rain were the best memories of her life.

While I zoomed past buildings with neon bandages I descended further, I saw several people zipping past the footpath. Some with raincoats on and others with transparent umbrellas. A few did not bother to wear raincoats and were getting soaked in rain.

Why was this planet classified as hazardous? There were still people roaming around here as if nothing had happened.

Numerous shops within these buildings were lit with quartz-halogen tubes.

There were no ships visible on the docks and coffins lined up in one corner while these quartz-halogen lights lit up the docks as I crossed it. Several people sat just staring upwards at my Atlas as I went by. As my ship kept zooming through this garbage of a city, I saw people eating from garbage bins, fighting, and getting murdered, in front of everyone. No one bothered to stop the killer, no one bothered to save the killed.

Just like an ant going on with its own business everyone just kept walking as if nothing had happened,

As I flew past these buildings of misery, I caught sight of a tall building covered in holographic ropes and decaying walls. It was there that I chose to land my Atlas. An icon of purple light appeared in front of me, and I touched it to select a building.

In the control room, a voice blared, "Initiating landing sequence, please wait"

Upon landing, as the sound of rain fell on my window, I saw a large holographic logo of a company called Katsuki atop the building.

"Well, I sure as hell hope that it is safe to land it here." I wondered as the ship touched down and the engine started to die down.

Getting up from the control room, I went to the door of the ship which hissed open and splatters of raindrops started falling on my face. As I could smell the rain, I realized I hadn't brought anything to protect myself from it, but on the other hand, this might have been for the best as I was going to experience rain for the first time in years. And with that thought, I stepped outside into the rain.

After the first raindrop fell on my body, I crumbled down to my knees in tears. I could almost see Aqsa dancing in the rain. I could feel her eyes looking at me with love in her eyes. I cried my heart out as the rain brought back memories.

Even though my old city was corrupted, even though technology had replaced nature here, I could still feel the faint scent of nature in the rain. All the plants, all those seashores, all those oceans, I never thought I would have missed them this much. But here I was, and it only took me one rain shower to realize just how much I missed them.

Aqsa was somewhere in this chaos; I didn't know what was happening to all of these people here. In mere five years, this city had transformed into something I couldn't identify. What had become of them all? How did Aqsa communicate with me from here? Was my decision to come here a mistake? I really had no idea.

Taking in the sights while evaluating my gear, I felt a sense of angst as I felt that this journey would take a long time. I felt extremely unprepared for the journey ahead. But as I knew I had no other choice, I decided to forge on ahead.

I raised my hand and a purple ball of light appeared in front of me and turned into a screen. I looked at the time it was 3:00 pm and then I flickered through the apps as I got soaked in the rain and opened my gallery to find a picture of myself hugging Aqsa.

She was a beautiful girl with an overflowing smile. I looked into it in order to fill myself with courage, so that I could face what was ahead. I knew I would do whatever it took to get her back.

"I am not sure what is going on here," I took a deep breath and continued as I looked at the picture, "But I will find a way to save you even if it costs me my sanity."

And at that very same moment, something hit my head

And everything went black.