Prelude

The year 2026.

The world had gone through a big technological change as scientific researches led to the development and production of high tech robotic features widely known as AI. With the vision of a certain company located in the city of San Angels of the Border States, the processes became a realization.

As proper funding was put in place — with the backing of the government, the robotic features became a huge success and on reaching the international market, the sales were highly rampant as envisioned.

These robotic features helped man advance further in their day-to-day activities and everything seemed easy. But as being easy equalled to being lazy, man decided to rely on the robotic features without the use of manpower. This result of the robotic features was already predicted in the past before the launching by top scientific bodies. And truly it became a reality.

Apart from that, it was all fine and things were going smoothly... but until a certain day.

On July 17, it all started with a volcano eruption from the Mt Everest which destroyed cities in the Himalayan Region. It would have been an ordinary situation since it was once in a lifetime eruption, but the next day, another volcano eruption occurred in the same mountain. Then, the crisis which resulted to the destruction of the world gradually started.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, thunderstorms became the order of the day and deaths of people amounted up rapidly. Major cities of the world had been destroyed and there was nothing to be done to hinder the problems. Families were either killed or separated and the population of the world started to decrease gradually.

No one had a clue on the reason behind the intense disasters. Even weather stat readers couldn't even give a definite explanation.

"The End has come!" came out reports from various sources. It was obviously the end of the world as it began to leave an impact... A deadly one!

Scientists gathered together to create special force fields for protection with funding from the important personalities who had the power and money to fund them.

Months passed by before they came up with a good result. Due to the crisis, they were greatly affected and had to move from location to location before successfully settling.

The project came out successful but it wasn't enough to protect them for long. By the next month of the production of the force fields, the disasters slowly tore through the force fields and killed them all.

Now, not much was left in the world. But there was a certain place which wasn't still affected by the disasters. It was the Lake City Church, located in the capital city of the Border States.

Five months after the occurrence of the first disaster, the church still stood firm. The church began to house in survivors and provide menial needs for them. Although, there was shortage of food, they still managed to scale through for a straight month.

But the unexpected happened a month after. It began with a tear in the wall of the church and before anyone could get out, the church collapsed. Everyone in it died and it looked like there was no survivor among them.

But there were still two survivors left.

~

"Oh my God!" Lily exclaimed with a hand to her mouth, tears threatening to burst out of her vulnerable eyes.

"What the hell has happened!" Ryan looked surprised, as they watched the remains of the church go down. There was no way anyone in it could survive that.

The two apparent lovers had gone out of the church for a walk twenty minutes before the church collapsed and they were back in time to witness the collapse of the church.

Lily couldn't help it. She went knees down to the ground and started to weep uncontrollably. Ryan tried to console her but he knew it was a waste because someone precious to her was among those that had obviously died.

"It's okay Lily, at least we have something to live for," Ryan told her as he patted her back — the only line he could come up with.

"What's there to live for when David isn't around anymore? He's dead now!" she yelled slightly and continued weeping. Ryan kept mute. He wanted to tell her she could live for him, but it was best if he just kept on consoling her.

David was Lily's only brother, and he had managed to survive the disasters with Lily and Ryan that befell their town. But now, he had run out of luck as he obviously couldn't survive that of the church.

Now that he was gone, Lily began to feel empty. She had lost her parents of recent, and now, her only brother was gone. It was a huge blow for her. Apparently, she wished she could just go with them.

They were still there when the ground started to rumble. The rumble turned to a wide crack on the ground as the earth began opening up forcefully. Immediately, without waiting for any form of warning, they both took to their heels.

~

"Lily, please let's keep on running." Ryan pleaded with Lily who had gone knees down on the ground due to the pains she was feeling on her legs.

"I can't. I feel like I'm going to breakdown any moment," Lily replied in between hard pants.

"We don't have enough time. You saw what happened earlier at the church didn't you? I don't want us to get caught up with it." Ryan tried explaining.

"I'm finding it difficult to get up. Maybe you should help me," Lily told him. A while ago, she was hoping to die, but now, she wanted to survive at all cost.

On hearing that, Ryan quickly went to her and helped her up to her feet. From there, they continued running with hands intertwined with basically no place in mind. At least, they had to survive. They managed to stop just near a half blown tree to catch their breath.

"Why are we even here?" Lily abruptly asked.

"Where else can we be? There's no place for us anymore. We might probably be the only ones left in the world for all we know." Ryan stated.

Mixed emotions began building up in Lily after hearing that. She felt like weeping again as what the man said brought back memories of her now dead brother.

"I should have told David to follow us." she sniffed.

"Lily, we didn't know that would happen. You don't have to blame yourself." Ryan explained.

She sniffed again and cleaned her eyes as she noticed the sudden change of the weather. It was a surprising thing as the sky was crystal clear some seconds ago.

"Look, Ryan," she said and pointed to the sky. Ryan turned his head to look at it. The sky had suddenly turned grey, like there would be a heavy downpour soon.

They didn't have time to decide what to do next as the droplets of the rain started dropping straight away in full force. They quickly set to find shelter from the downpour.

They were still finding shelter when lightning struck from the sky in full force, having a direction to the earthly land. But it was an unpleasant strike as it had a target.

Ryan!

He was hit in the chest by the powerful strike of the lightning. The strike was so powerful that it ruined his partially tattered clothes and immediately sent him to the ground. Lily could only gape in shock as she watched him collapse to the ground.

"RYAN!!!" she screamed in fright as she rushed to the man's side to check on him.

But it was pointless after all. A waste of time, a waste of energy.

The man was dead already!