1 Blackout

"Ad astra per aspera. It's a Latin of 'through hardships to the stars.' The new waves of adversity are coming and to stand against them one must be prepared. Seek power and people to survive."

Noah read the words aloud after grabbing the novel from the class's mentor's hands. The latter furrowed her brows and sat up before stretching her hand.

"Give it back."

"Oh! The class mentor is always so serious, why don't you play with the rest of us in the ocean?" Noah grinned and waved the book dodging the mentor's hand.

"Don't worry about me, I don't know how to swim. Now give it back!" The petite class mentor tried to grab the book but Noah stood up making it out of reach.

"What if I don't want to? You'll end up blind if all you do is read! Come and have fun with us!"

The class mentor glared at Noah like she wanted to kill him. However, her inner thoughts of him were far from what she showed. No, she didn't have a crush on him. But that didn't stop her from feeling gratitude for this 'bully' who always tried to make her fit in their class.

The two kept teasing each other and playing until a beautiful girl came to interrupt them. She wore a pink flowered bikini that highlighted her stunning figure. With a short blonde her complimenting her cute face, she was prettier than the class mentor.

"Noah, the rest are planning to play beach volleyball and are waiting for you." The new arrival smiled lightly as she placed her hands around her waist.

"Oh, okay. Class mentor, are you sure you don't want to come?" Noah tried for one last time.

The class mentor hesitated and thought that maybe… just maybe, she needed to accept his offer. However, her eyes picked up the minute expression of the blonde girl and she decided.

"No, I'll just stay here. Have fun!" The class mentor smiled.

Noah also smiled and gave back her book. Their hands slightly touched and it made his heart flutter. He quickly took back his hand and turned around to hide his slight fluster.

"You should leave her alone since she keeps saying so. It's not alright if others saw you as annoying the antisocial class mentor." The blonde girl reminded as they made their way back to the rest of the group.

However, Noah was still focusing on his right index and didn't hear her words. And even if he did, he would laugh them off like always. After all, he couldn't understand how no one but him saw the charm of the class mentor.

"Oh Noah, had fun playing with your crush, heh?" Joked his best friend, Alfred, as he tossed the volleyball.

Before Noah could deny, another volleyball smacked Al in the face making the former laugh.

"Don't go around saying nonsense, what if rumors spread?" The one who threw the volleyball was none other than the blonde girl, Ella.

"Pfft, let's play for now!" Noah was amused and changed the subject.

The class mentor watched from afar and sighed. Thankfully, she didn't agree with Noah's offer. She didn't fit in that sunny group of youth. They were the popular and cool kids, while she was the introverted kid.

After an hour of the class playing around, the teacher-in-charge came over and said they were going as groups on boats. They now had to make a group of six.

The class mentor had a bad feeling and she hurried to find a group. It wasn't that she hated being left out, but she knew a certain someone would make sure she wouldn't! She wanted to avoid the awkwardness at all costs.

"Class~ Men~Tor~" Here it came, the heavenly retribution. Noah skipped steps until he was beside the class mentor. He enjoyed seeing her trying to slip away from him every time.

Of course, Noah wasn't an annoying person. He was quite considerate of others. But he knew that underneath that cold surface of his crush, she didn't hate him. If she did, she would make it obvious. However, he also knew she was introverted.

"Come on! Our group is one person short!"

"I-I agreed to join another group."

"No, you didn't."

"I did!"

"Nope!"

"You!"

The two were bickering again and it drew some attention from the rest. They found this duo quite the amusing contrast. However, not everyone wore a relaxed expression.

Ella, standing far away, felt her breath getting heavy. She hated it. She hated seeing the two like that. Noah was supposed to be hers! But he always seemed disinterested that she was afraid of losing him if she asked for more. But he never acted that cheerful with her, and she didn't want to think of what it means. How can someone like Noah have feelings for a bookworm like the class mentor?

"Okay everyone, on your boats! Listen to the staff and don't play around!" The teacher said before hopping into a boat with a group of students. The other students also hopped on their respective boats.

"Okay, put your life jackets on before we proceed. To do this…" The staff member started explaining how to put the jacket on and Noah's group did as instructed.

Noah's group that consisted of 3 boys and 3 girls, boarded the boat. The two boys with Noah were Noah's best friend, Alfred, and Rick. Rick was an athletic guy with sharp features and a burly body. The girls were Ella, the class mentor Jay, and Olivia. Olivia was Ella's best friend and also the swimming club's ace.

After boarding the boat, the group chatted happily waiting for the staff to set off. Jay was almost left out if not for Noah skillfully pulling her into the conversation. After a while, the staff started off the boat and accelerated into the water winning screams of thrill from the teenagers.

Everyone enjoyed their time. Noah was cheerfully laughing when he noticed a green light under the water in his peripheral view. He stopped talking and inspected the water with puzzlement. No one else seemed to notice the green light as it rose in intensity until it almost blinded him. As the green light reached a certain level, Noah failed to hear any sounds as the world turned mute. Then Noah fainted just like everyone else on the boat.

After a couple of days, this phenomena would be known as Global Blackout throughout the world. Electronics, people, and animals blacked out. Airplanes in the skies went off their routes and many crashed. Accidents around the world happened in innumerable counts as people blacked out and lost consciousness. Yet, that wasn't the most unusual thing. It was that no one got hurt through these few moments of the blackout. Those who have been in an accident were unharmed and those whose planes crashed were still alive without a scratch.

This lasted for 1199 seconds. 19 minutes 59 seconds. After that, chaos resumed. The spreading fires started burning people alive and the explosion of the crashed airplanes killed some people. Only the aftermath of the blackout was enough to cause mass-causalities.

"Wake… Wake… Up! Noah!"

Noah opened his eyes with a start and his vision failed to adjust. A splitting headache assaulted him making him fail to control his body. After a few moments, he looked around to see the face of Jay, the class mentor shouting at him.

"Noah! Thank god you're okay. I don't know what happened but we all fainted. That's not the important thing. There's–"

Jay failed to continue her explanation as a deafening explosion cut her off. The shockwaves sent everyone on the boat flying and into the water.

Noah swallowed mouthfuls of water before he could readjust himself and head to the surface. With much difficulty, he was able to rise above the water and engulf air like he never had any before. With water obstructing his vision, Noah reached his hand to the blurry object in front of him. He felt the texture of a woody surface, making him think it was a wooden board.

Using his other free hand, Noah rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. As he looked around, crimson red dyed the water's surface. He looked back and saw the coast on fire with what seemed to be an outline of a plane.

'Class mentor!' Snapping out of his daze, Noah looked around and saw that everyone else was also looking at the coast with terror in their eyes. However, the class mentor wasn't among them. He then remembered her words. 'She can't swim!'