Chapter One: When one’s life is altered

Reality, since the beginning of time has been a concept of great fragility. What's real and

what's not appearing to be more up to interpretation than objective fact. Our perception, our

glasses that we wear upon looking at the world, shade in what we will experience. And, with

that, fate is sealed.

Living on Earth was the primary example of a reality that had been altered for all of time.

Now and forever. This was due to a Nuclear war that was the most logical conclusion to a chain

of escalating events. There was a sense among everyone that it was only a matter of time before

the world powers to be decided to destroy one another at the greatest expense of humanity.

The president of United States and The Prime Minister of North Korea were two people who

most were perplexed by why they got to their positions of power in the first place. The Prime

Minister (or rather dictator) of North Korea father was the previous prime minister, so it was

only an unfortunate natural progression. Intrinsic for him. However, the president of the United

States was chosen. Voted in as it were. And this was a presidency that even his followers

regretted in spades.

Anyway, the two of them did not have the competence to obtain their respective offices. Point

blank. And worst of all, the two of them really didn't like one another. When you have two men

of arrogance, yet little ability running the world with nuclear weapons of mass destruction at

their disposal, chaos is bound to be the outcome. After that it's merely a matter of what degree

of chaos is on its way.

And, that is just what happened. President Thomas Dickerson and Prime Minister Rouk Han

Wong had a disagreement that was spread over several months over several different uses of

different resources. Things that included how to split up land in Southeast Asia, the amount of

military forces bordering South Korea and how many arms they owned. This lead to Prime

Minister Wong finally sending over a nuke to the United States, destroying five states

instantaneously.

Chaos was just about instantaneous. President Dickerson was under tremendous fire as one

would imagine. He fired back with an even stronger attack, destroying half of North Korea.

Both countries and their allies then went out in a no holds barre nuclear war. And the result was

very simple: a great deal of civilian deaths with very few survivors.

Those survivors were called the chosen ones. For obvious reason of course. They had survived

the worst event that the world had ever been and will be apart of. Now that the Earth was

demolished, they were all that was left. With nowhere to go, all hope did seem quite lost. The

earth had become a desolate environment. Life being present was a miracle in it of itself.

However, scientific marteialism was unwilling to give up on this.

NASA had discovered a way to make the moon habitable. With only 14,000 humans left on the

planet, the moon, despite its size would work. To most the idea just sounded like something

straight out of a hard science fiction novel. Yet, there wasn't much of anything else to put any

hope on to. So, they had to just go with the flow on this one.

After inspecting the moon, NASA began to build a dome. The dome would replicate Earth, but

the plan was that it would turn into a utopia. NASA believed that the issue down on Earth was

simply that everyone fought too much in general. Be it verbally, physically, mentally or even for

sport. The belief was that the fighting lead to hate and that hate lead to war that exceeded any

previous great war. If they could create an environment where everyone got along, then they

could live in peace and without the fear of another war that would completely devastate the rest

of humanity.

Once the dome with built, NASA sent all the remaining humans left on Earth to the moon. This

was going to be their new home, forever. The dome was in fact a utopia on the outside.

Beautiful grass, tall buildings, nice homes and a bright, blue and radiant fake sky. All the

trimmings were there for a brave new world.

All that was needed was for people to buy into this fake reality and fully embrace it. This was

in fact, easier done then said. Once settled in, people seemed almost eager to live in this world.

That is how bad their reality on earth was, even before the nuclear war. People were just ready

for any kind of radical change. While consciously they knew that this was bad. Subconsciously

most of the people rejoiced at the opportunity for a new kind of life.

Xeno University was a college that was created to be the bridge that all the remaining

ethnicities brightest could all co-exist and take part in a great education. At least, that is how it

was advertised. Created by Ralph Harold Macintosh, Xeno University had this very generic

academic feel to it. As though it was purely created so that the students and the people that ran it

could feel intelligent by saying that they attended it. Sad this was, that isn't wasn't too far off

from the truth.

It was meant to be the IVY league of IVY league schools. The most prestigious school that

ever existed. And its selection rate made sure of that. The minimum G.P.A was a 3.8 and you

needed five letters of recommendations from five extremely and highly qualified individuals

from the community. Only 200 students were able to attend the school.

And that was how the new planet, Zion, was created.

Cassandra Rodriguez was one of the few young women that was able to meet the requirements

to get it. Not that it mattered to her whatsoever. At this point, one year after all of the events,

she had felt dragged down by not only the academic system, but by having to just wake in the

morning and greet a new day. Cassandra was a very beautiful young lady. She had long flowing

black hair, turquoise eyes and a figure that ballerinas would and do easily envy.

None of that mattered though. Nothing really could excite her anymore. On Earth, she did feel

more of a reason to live. Some cause to wake up for in the morning. But, on Zion, there wasn't

anything that could sway her heart in anyway. School was just a bore to him. She choose what

he believed would be the easiest way to get out as his major, liberal arts.

The nuclear war wreaked havoc on everyone's lives. Cassandra's was no exception. Her mom,

dad and her two younger siblings, one younger brother and one younger sister, were killed in the

aftermath. It might have been better for Cassandra if they were killed instantly. But, she

watched them all die in the hospital, deepening his wounds.

And, if this wasn't enough, half of her friends were wiped out. She didn't have a huge social

circle to begin with, it was six people deep including herself. But, when three of your friends

get killed, the group feels the effects. And they linger for quite a while.

The two friends that he had left were Chris Wright and Danica Trello. Chris and Erica had

been best friends since elementary school. They met during a fight where two bullies were

ganging up on Erica. Not one to back down, Cassandra tried to take them both on and was

failing quite miserably. Then, Chris came in and they were able to take on the two bullies. After

defeating their opponents, the two became close and have remained so.

Regarding Danica, Cassandra met her during their freshman year of high school. Cassandra,

Chris and another friend, Roger Lois were occupying the same corner of the hallway that Danica

and her two friends, Christina Vero and Haley Springfield had set their sights on. This at first

caused some tension. But, as time went on the two groups merged.

Now, with all that has gone on, everything seemed broken. Families and friends outside of

them were broken. However, most people were just hiding away their pain from others. They

would rather act as though it wasn't getting to them and enjoy the fake, plastic paradise they

were no inhabiting. They wandered into darkness instead of seeking the truth.

"Did you see what happened last night?" Chris asked Cassandra as the two were walking to

class. Chris was a nice, dapper young man in every way that you could think of. He was the

kind of boy that a father would be pleasantly surprised that his daughter brought home. Clean

cut, well spoken and an all-around caring, nice guy. Even with the tragedies, he did his best to

keep things going for himself.

"What are you talking about?" Cassandra asked in a way that would suggest that she couldn't

be bothered, yet answered back due to conditioning.

"On channel 4. There were these massive meteor shower and they were found on the dome. It's

all good for now. But, the government is concerned about possible cracking."

"Ah. Well, these things do happen."

"What? What kind of attitude is that?"

"After all that has happened, do you really think that there is a reason to get riled up anymore?"

"Yeah! It's called not wanting the past to repeat itself!"

"I don't think that it's in our hands."

Chris was astonished by Cassandra's apathy. While he had a first-row seat to her behavior

changes since all the tragedies, it was still a surprise to see her act in this manner. Back on

Earth, Cassandra was a cheerful young lady. One could not expect things to be exactly as they

once were. However, he thought that things would inch towards that direction. At least.

While the two continued to walk, Danica caught up to them. Danica was an interesting

character. She was very cute and the looks from the men in the school easily confirmed it. Her

hair had this thing where it was straight yet curled. The blue eyes that she owned showed off her

innocence. Her voice had a natural fragility to her as if it were glass. All this and yet, she was

shy. Even then, she always had to make everyone around her feel as good and comfortable as

possible. So, with Cassandra, she was being forced out of her shell so that he could return to a

more peaceful state of mind.

"What's up mofos?" Danica asked, laying on an extra layer of energy that seemed slightly out of

place.

"Morning Danica." Chris said.

"Morning." Cassandra uttered.

"Did you have a good night's rest Cassandra?' Danica asked Cassandra, trying to start any time

of nice small talk. Instead, it was coming off as more than bit try hard.

"I ate dinner, got tired and went to sleep. I wasn't tired when I woke up. If you call that a good

night, then I made the grade."

"At least you're well-nourished right?"

"I suppose that is one way to look at it."

Danica put a nice fake smile on the outside. However, on the inside she was beyond frustrated

with Cassandra. Here she was, putting effort in to aide her. Yet, those kind efforts were met

with closed off sarcasm. She could understand that things were not going to be like they

once were. But, the lack of effort on Cassandra's end was simply infuriating. Still, she

persisted.

"You guys hear about that new ski resort?" Danica asked in a bit of an overly eager manner.

"You mean Runion?" Chris asked.

"Yeah! I saw a commercial for it last night and it looked so awesome! "We should plan a trip

there!"

"I'm down. "Cassandra?"

Both Chris and Danica turned to see what Cassandra's reaction. There was hope and

anticipation that this would break her out of his funk just a little. Back on Earth, Cassandra

loved to go to ski resorts. She would snowboard and was quite good at it. It was probably the

happiest that they remember her being. She looked so, free. So, in her element.

"Eh." Cassandra uttered, quickly dashing those nice hopes from Chris and Danica.

"You don't want to go?" Danica asked with a knowing disappointment.

"It's not that I don't want go. It's just… why?"

"Why not!?! What about having fun?!?"

"Fun is just a frivolous act. I believe at this stage of our lives we all need to take shape and get

serious."

"C'mon Cassandra…"

"I gotta go to class. Later guys."

Cassandra quickly walked away as Chris and Danica both stared at her, not believing how she

didn't even have the slightest interest in making the trip. It was truly beginning to dawn on them

just how far gone she was. And, neither of them was very confident in their abilities to bring her

back.

The class that Cassandra went into was an English Literature class. They were reading Hamlet.

Cassandra had already read Hamlet in high school and this just caused her to have hardly any

interest in the class at all. Not that there was any to be found to begin with. She thought that the

teacher was alright. However, the class was simply too much of a breeze for her to take it

seriously.

All Cassandra could do was bury her head into her copy of the play so that she could be on her

phone. She would play this game called star rollers, a game where you could destroy death stars

in a spaceship. At this point, she was so good at the game that even playing that was becoming a

bore. She was just so bored with life in general that she couldn't think of anything else that she

could even want to do.

Once class let out, Cassandra went back to her apartment. For a student it was a very nice

situation. It had a loft, she had premium cable, she had two flat screen T. Vs, and 1,300 square

feet of space. Yet, all of this meant absolutely nothing to her. It would have been all the same if

she was stuck inside a pit. It made no difference. Part of it was due to the fact that she didn't

have to pay a dime for it. But, all in all, it just felt empty to her.

Seeing the homework on her desk, Cassandra went over it and quickly finished it to just get it

out of the way. Then, she turned on the T.V and stared at the news. She hated the news and

what it stood for. All these news channels ever did were report all the bad things that were going

on. On top of that, what kind of job is it to be doing the news all day and every day? Where was

the integrity in that?

After watching some mindless news, Cassandra decided that it was time to turn in. She went to

her bedroom and slowly began to fall asleep. She would just stare at the ceiling until she got too

tired to stare anymore. Sometimes she would read a book. But, that kind of motivation did not

come over her tonight.

As her eyes began to get heavy, Cassandra thought for a second about the futility of her life.

She was going to college when she really didn't care about school. Her major was one that

didn't even that give off the appearance of interesting anymore. Her friends were still cool and

tried their best. However, there just wasn't anything that they could do.

She just felt purposeless. Like she had no true reason to live. There was no longer anything

that could truly sway her heart. Every day and everyway felt useless. Worst of all, she herself

was beginning to feel useless. That gut feeling of not adding any value to society had crept into

Cassandra's consciousness in the worst way and it was causing a slow, painful death on the

inside.

Morning broke and Cassandra drugged herself out of bed to begin her daily routine. No matter

how done she was, she had this urge to continue. It was as if a part of her felt that one day the

tides would turn in his favor. There was absolutely no evidence of this. In fact, it looked more

and more like things would stay as if. Yet, she persisted.

Back on campus, she decided to go and lay down on the grass, staring up. She stared into the

fake sky with some intent. She was impressed with how real it did in fact look. They clearly

worked very hard to be able to put everyone into the illusion that they were actually still on

Earth. She had to hand it to them, it was a spectacular effort.

Caught up in her own head, she didn't even notice that Danica was laying down right next to

her. When she turned his head, he was caught off guard by her smiling face. She didn't even

hear her walk or anything. That was Danica's specialty. She would come out of no where and

you'd have no way of see it coming, even if you expected something of that nature.

"You look so peaceful." Danica commented.

"I guess." Cassandra said, brushing past the comment.

"Tell me Cassandra, how have you been feeling lately?"

"Like nothing special. So, just a normal day."

"Like nothing special… That seems to be the M.O of this new world. Nothing special."

"That was the M.O down on earth too. We were just all too caught up to see it. I can realize that

now."

Danica stared at Cassandra, believing that her apathy was just becoming worse each and every

time that the two conversed. It was as though nothing that she did had any true effect on her

whatsoever. And that frustration was beginning to build.

"Why do you hate it up here so much?" Danica asked, trying to be positive, but was clearly

irritated.

"What's not to hate? This isn't real. There isn't anything about this place that is real at all. We

are all just caught up in the fakeness that we don't care. And I don't want to be caught up in that.

Is there something wrong with that?"

"But, how is it serving you?"

"I think that I'm okay."

"You sure as hell don't look like it! From my vantage point you look like you're a walking

shattered piece of glass."

"Exactly. From your Vantage point."

"Do you think that you're happy Cassandra?"

"I don't think that I care anymore."

"Then, what's the point?"

"I keep on asking myself that every day. The answer still eludes me."

"Casandra!"

Danica yelling out her name caught Cassandra's attention. She took one good look at her face

and could see the pain that Danica was experiencing. It wasn't her intention to make Danica

upset. She just felt that she was being honest with her. She didn't realize just how emotionally

invested that she was into cheering her up.

"Ever since we've gotten here I tried to make you feel better. Nothing works. You just keep on

acting like a bitch! What the fuck happened to you? You used to be so fun! It's like you aren't

even alive!"

Cassandra turned and stared at Danica. Her face was filled with apathy. She took in a moment

to think over what Danica had told her. From her standpoint there might have been some truth in

her words. However, none of it matter as she was too far gone to really want to do anything about it. Anything at all.

"Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way." Cassandra said coldly.

All Danica could do was gasp. As her jaw stayed dropped she thought to herself how none of

this seemed fair at all. She just wanted her friend back. She needed her friend back. Yet, it kept

looking more and more like this was just a fantasy that her mind couldn't release.

"Don't you care about anything anymore?" Danica asked, looking for any signs of humanity.

"That's a good question. I haven't given that any thought at all. I really don't know."

"How can you go through your life desireless! That's just not right!"

"And who are you to decided what is right and what is wrong?"

"I'm not saying that it's up to me! I'm just saying that this isn't any kind of way to live your

life! What about being happy?"

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Cassandra, you're really starting to scare me."

"Oh, then why don't you leave me alone?"

Danica took a pause after Cassandra's last comments. They bit at her in a way that her other

barbs didn't. This was the first time that she was directly telling her to leave her alone. That

sentence that popped out of Cassandra's mouth stung more than a razor focused sting from a

wasp.

"…Do you really feel that way Cassandra?"

"Why don't you think about it for yourself and come to your own conclusion?"

"If that's what you want."

Danica gathered herself and her hurt feelings up and began to walk away. She turned back to

see if Cassandra at least turned her head to watch her leave. Not a chance. Cassandra was just

staring at the artificial sky in her now usual melancholy way. All Danica could do was shake her

head as she walked away. She didn't want to give up on her friend. But, she knew that

Cassandra had to not give up on herself first.

Later in the day Cassandra was walking in the town center as she decided to grab lunch off

campus. What was served on campus was slop that pigs would truly steer away from. The town

center was filled with restaurants from all walks of life due to all these different ethnicities now

being crammed in together. You had Italian food, Japanese food, Indian food, Ethiopian food,

etc.

After going into a salad bar and getting herself a nice chicken Caesar salad, Cassandra began

walking as she noticed something peculiar. The dome had these outer edges and doors where

assigned astronauts would go out whenever something needed to be fixed or secured on the

dome. It took them right into space and only people specifically given clearance were allowed to

venture out there.

What was peculiar was the fact that there was a young man outside the dome. Looked only a

few years older than Cassandra. There would be men who worked o the dome. But there was no

way that this guy was one of them. It was like he was just chilling. Cassandra stared at him for a

moment trying to figure out if what she was seeing was real or simply some crazy optical

illusion. She couldn't wrap he head around someone being out there who so obviously wasn't

cleared to be able to do that.

She got closer to the outer edge and lore and behold that this in fact was not some optical

illusion. Her eyes were giving off the correct perception. A young man was in fact out in space.

He had an interesting look. He had dreads, wore a black and gold vest that was accompanied

with a bat and a black and gold helmet. His shoes with straight black and he had a gun tucked

away on his right side. Cassandra had certainly never seen anyone like before. And her

curiosity was pegged for the first time in what seemed like forever.

While staring at the young man, her turned towards her direction and began to stare at her.

What was really beginning to surprise her was just how self-conscious she was becoming.

Nevertheless, she managed to not advert her eyes as he looked into them. His eyes were a nice

hazel that complimented his brown skin. This guy was carrying an amount of swag that

Cassandra hadn't ever come across since leaving Earth.

The young man then snapped his fingers and in a blink of an eye, Cassandra was out in space.

She stared at herself as she was wearing a helmet out of nowhere and didn't have any idea of

what was going on. Part of her thought this was cool. The other? Sheer insanity.

"You like?" The young man said in a very nonchalant way.

"What the hell are you doing?" Cassandra asked, genuinely scared of being out here. "You do

realize how fucked we're going to be when the authorities find out?"

"Authorities? Those guys are way too absent minded to even catch that bum that has been

stealing donuts from the local quick mart. "This isn't 1930."

Cassandra looked around the atmosphere. She slowed down for one moment and was able to

take in her surrounding. Amidst being quite freaked out, she was in awe of the beauty of space.

Back on Earth, she had never even considered the possibility of being out here. And now, there

she was, just floating in the ether.

"Who are you?" Cassandra asked, remembering that she had no prior knowledge on this guy at

all. "And, what are you?"

"Xavier. And, I'm just a man. Now, your turn."

"Cassandra. Not just some woman"

"That is a lovely name. Cassandra… Fits you well."

"Thank you, even though that made no sense. So, just what the fuck are you doing out here?"

"I was bored so I decided to take a bit of a trip. Haven't you ever been bored?"

"I mean, yeah. But…"

"Then, nuff said. You should get it. That dome fucking sucks."

"No kidding. But, there isn't anything that we can do about it. It's our pathetic existence. We

might as well get used to it."

"Says who?"

"Huh?"

"Who says that we have to get used to it? And, get used to what? Mediocrity? Shit? Nah. I am

not interested in that."

"Well then, what do you plan on doing?"

"First off, I plan on avoiding that over there."

Pebbles began to fall out of the atmosphere causing Cassandra to look up. She studied what

was taking place closely as she was able to then zone in on just what it was. Meteor showers

was starting up and the two of them just happened to be right at the epicenter. Nervous energy

began to capture Cassandra as she did all that she could to keep it in. Meteor showers felt violent

within the dome. Outside of it? Only one could imagine. In about a millisecond, she would be

one that was about to know.

Xavier grabbed onto Cassandra hand as he pressed a button that sent them straight inti hyper

speed. Never going this fast ever in her life, Cassandra held on for dear life. She could hardly

look around anymore as Xavier jetted up towards the meteors. She noticed a weird sensation as

the two of them suddenly broke away from something. It felt as though they had just left this

galaxy. Or at least, something close to that effect.

Closing her eyes, Cassandra felt an even greater sensation of speed mixed in with heat. As she

opened her eyes, she found herself in some sort of time warp. It was swirly and looked like blue

fire, but a whole lot sleeker. Being consumed by this created such an insane combination of

exhilaration and fear.

What was really happening was that Xavier had been able to create a force field around

Cassandra as she used another shield to knock away the meteors from their path. This particular

storm at hand was quite a violent one, causing slight dents on the dome. They were more like

meteor shards if anything. If Xavier was able to maintain his focus and knock them all out of the

way as they came, the two of them would be crushed and killed in no time.

Steadily going along, Xavier was able to breakthrough the meteors and pick up the speed. This

was when he really accelerated into hyper speed. It had to have been at least 10 times faster than

what was in Cassandra head when she began to observe it. This amount of speed allowed them

to ease through space without getting too caught in the debris of the meteors.

Then, it was over. As if it was just done in a blink of an eye. The two of them found

themselves in a room. It looked like someone's fancy study room. There were books on selves,

blue prints on the table, a white board with a diagram, and a T.V with an Xbox one. The

turquoise paint on the walls just added this nice vibe to room, completing it. It had all the

trimmings of an area where minds got together to concoct a variety of unique ideas. The

question, however, was on what subjects?

"Ummm." Which was all that Cassandra could say now as she observed her new surroundings.

"Where are we? What is going on?"

"My apologies. This is my abode. Well, work space/abode. We are a little messy. But, no

worries. We just like to get into the swing of things here."

"Please, just stop fucking around so much and tell me where I am!"

"I told you, this is my abode."

Not trusting his words, Casandra decided to observe the room more closely. Walking around,

she was able to pick up a better feel for the place. Then, she went to the table to take a closer

look at what was on it. The blue prints were what truly caught her eyes. As she laid her eyes on

them, they began to dilatate the more that she read them.

"How are you making something like this? This is incredible. What is this? A declaration of

war?"

"You've gotten that half right."

Cassandra stared at Xavier with confusion. "What was this guy up to?" Were one of the many

thoughts coming to her head. She was starting to get those feelings one gets when they feel as

though they are dealing with an individual that is certifiably insane. With all the anxious knot

tying stomach pains to along with it. A clearer picture of who Xavier was would put her more at

ease. But, for now, it was more like he was remaining in the shadows. At least, partially.

Indeed, Xavier was showing himself to be a bit of an elusive one. Aloof really. He was

certainly more than intriguing, had strength and yet, was in fact very disarming. However, the

fact remained there was something that he was hiding from Cassandra. That much was

abundantly clear. It was beginning to make her feel as though he was masking something for her

own good. As if she found out about it then it would be devasting.

"Can you tell me, what are you doing here?"

Xavier smirked at Cassandra, taking her a little aback. It was the kind of smirk that someone

used when they had something in mind that wants to be said. But, with the other person

essentially asking for it, it's going to be this semi big reveal. Xavier found her reaction to be

quite humorous.

"I can't believe that it's only been a year since we've all been here. People are already

acclimating like they have lived here all their lives. As if it's the norm. But, that's just what

humans do, right? We adapt to a situation and feed ourselves the story that this is where we

belong."

Insanity was the feeling that was beginning to come up in Cassandra. For the life of her, she

could not comprehend the situation that she had just gotten herself into. After all, she was just

curious about what this guy was doing. She didn't ask for any of this. And worst of all, it was

revealing itself to be deeper than what she had anticipated. Something that she did not sign up

for and really didn't want any part in it.

"Please, just start making some sense. All you're doing is freaking me out."

"My apologies. I forgot, your mind is still within the grasp of the garbage that the dome

creates."

"You want to explain that?"

"We're not in the dome."