Prologue - 0

March 29th, 2024

The time before the cataclysm started. What you're probably wondering right now is, what is the cataclysm? Well, let's just leave it at the most devastating event in history. My name is Aiken, and at the time of writing this, I'm 29 years old. My life has been a nightmare, and I truly regret many of my past mistakes. Before I start the story of my future adventures, I'd like to share my past. It's time to go back to when I was 24, five years ago.

…

Aiken woke up on March 29th, 2023 like he had always done in the past. He woke up in his bed like normal, and slowly sat up. He went to the kitchen and brewed a cup of coffee, and sat back and enjoyed his morning coffee. Once he finished his coffee, it was 7:30. So, he naturally got ready and headed off to work.

'Ah, yet another miserable day on this miserable planet...' thought Aiken while driving to work.

He eventually arrived at work without incident, when he noticed something was off.

'Why are all the lights off in the building and a completely empty parking lot? There's no sign of life left here!'

Aiken was suddenly curious about what happened, so instead of leaving and calling his boss, he decided to head into the building to discover what had happened. He slowly opened the front door, discovering that it was unlocked. He headed up the stairs to where his office was usually at, in the pitch black dark. Once he reached the floor where his office was, he turned around the corner and saw a gloomy red glowing light that seemed to illuminate from the center of the floor.

After losing all of his family, friends, and just having a miserable existence all together, he had mostly given up on himself and any hope of a bright future. Because, as he knew, whenever things were moving in the right direction for him and his life was finally improving, fate would always pull him back like a puppet on strings, being danced around and played with over and over again.

While he was obviously intrigued by the crimson light, he recognized that it was just fate pulling the strings on his life. He saw that it was just fate that was there, who finally made him pay the price for living in peace for the last year.

It taunted and played with him, destroying him from the inside-out. Even so, he was done running away from fate. Every time he tried to run away, it only got more horrible, to the point it was unavoidable.

Defeated, he walked towards the light, letting fate take control of him without resistance.

The closer Aiken got to the mysterious ball of light, the more eerie and mysterious everything seemed to be. Time seemed to slow down, everything became surreal and irrational. The walls were moving, shadows were jumping around erratically like they were foolishly trying to dance and be alive, the floor suddenly became an endless void eroding everything.

Each step he took was infinitely more torturous than the last. Even though he walked normally on the outside, every step Aiken took felt countless times longer than the last. He seemed to relive and experience all of his past experiences in his life. He reflected on all of his past choices, inspecting them like a mad scientist in a frenzy trying to find the conclusion to his life's work.

By the time he was close enough to touch the ball of crimson light, although only 30 seconds had passed in reality, it felt like days to Aiken. All of a sudden, right before he touched the light ball, he felt searing pain all over his body.

He felt like he was burning in hell, experiencing such intense and horrible pain that surpassed anything thought possible. His vision slowly faded, but he kept fighting and striving to touch the light. Once his vision faded, his smell faded as well. Then he lost his sense of taste, and then his sense of hearing. The only thing that kept him alive and moving was his only sense left, his sense of touch. This was greatly enforced by his indomitable will to touch the light ball.

As he thought he was finally about to die, his sense of touch started fading. His body seemed to be almost dead, he thought back to the rest of his life, and all of the things in the miserable world he lived in.

He and his mother had watched the rest of their family, including his 2 brothers, be slaughtered in cold blood by a low-life robber that had broken into their house, at the young age of 7.

He and his mom lived on the streets, barely surviving from 7 to 12. After everything got better, and his mother got a job again and they moved into an apartment, he watched his mother get deathly sick. He could only cry and try to keep her alive.

 A month later, his mother passed away, leaving him to rot away in the apartment for a week straight. He survived without food, and a couple bottles of water, until the authorities discovered him and his dead mother in the apartment. The apartment when police arrived looked like hell. There was blood all over the walls, and an unspeakably horrible odor covering the entire place. His dead mother had been so depleted of food and nutrients, that she already appeared like a skeleton-isk type zombie after only a week of death. Sitting In his filth, Aiken was so skinny and depleted of all his body needs that he already looked dead. His face was covered in dirt, grime, and blood. It was a miracle that he was still alive. Even under all that grime and blood his skin was as pale as a ghost, and shriveled up like a 130-year-old monk on his deathbed.

Aiken was rushed to the hospital, where he stayed for 2 months recovering enough to be discharged. He ended up in an adoption center alone, with nobody he knew or could trust. Whenever he was sent to a foster home, he would always be abused and neglected, and eventually returned to the adoption center. He was also sent to school, where he was heavily bullied.

At school, he made a few friends, but every time they turned out to be horrible people. He would be backstabbed and hurt repeatedly. Eventually, he had no friends and was bullied daily. One day, when he was 14, he was beaten so badly that he was sent to the hospital. He had to stay there for a month because of his critical condition. 

After he finished school, alone, he attended college and got a decent paying job. Just when his life finally started to turn for the better, and he started to build connections with other coworkers, it all turned out to be for naught.

…

After thinking back to his past, Aiken decided he wasn't ready to die. He had never experienced a good life. When things finally got better, he wasn't ready to let that go. This is because he knew if he did, things would only get more difficult.

So, with the last of his strength, he strived with all his will and power to touch the ball of crimson light. He knew it was too late to turn back. And as his awareness faded away, he finally touched it. Accomplished, Aiken stopped struggling and lost consciousness.

As he passed out, the ball of crimson light started pulsating faster and faster, until it eventually exploded! It looked like the explosion of a tiny star, which symbolized the start of an upcoming era. Crimson light enveloped Aiken as if a pillar of light descended from heaven. However, the light was tainted with evil, giving a sinister red hue. Aiken was swallowed, or at least what remained of him was swallowed, and he disappeared as if he was never there.

After Aiken disappeared, the crimson light dissipated and magically, the out of order, destroyed office, suddenly reverted back to normal as if nothing had ever happened there. This left no trace or evidence of him, or the mysterious, sinister ball of light.