The screens all over the world blacked out once again, although this time, they did not light up again.
For a brief amount of time, not a single soul dared to utter even a single word. The world seemed to have stopped in its own way.
Contemplating what to believe and what to not, people dozed off in their thoughts.
What they had witnessed mere moments ago, was definitely not a human's doing. No matter how much they tried to deny—but deep inside, they knew that no amount of science could compensate for what they had seen.
Kai was lost in his own thoughts as well.
Although, unlike Everyone else, he wasn't worried about the old man's warning at all. Rather, he was more curious about his own self.
"Never once in my life had I ever met someone who looked like that old man, let alone himself. But why... Did he look so awfully familiar...?" He asked himself while his eyes continuously stared at the black computer screen.
It was a question that deeply bothered his mind. He closed his eyes as he frowned his eyebrows, his hands clenching into a fist.
Frustrated, he turned around and stepped towards the small window on his right wall.
As he opened the window, a certain sound seemed to have entered his ears.
*Ding!*
Unsure of whether anything happened, he simply ignored it.
Looking at the vast night sky filled with countless shining stars, a sense of relief and calmness washed over him.
It was odd. Very odd.
Not once in his life had he ever faced such heightened emotions all at once.
Even when his parents passed away, he was too young to even remember what their embrace felt like.
Yet, that name... 'Ash' came out of his soul in the form of words as if trying to complete the old man's words.
Even the way that he acted all the time around was pretty suspicious. Rather than getting shocked by what he was seeing, his mind ignored it completely, as if it was something he had seen forever.
He let out a deep sigh as his eyes gradually descended. The city seemed awfully quiet right now, but he knew that the moment he turned his computer on—his computer would die from all the spam notifications.
All of a sudden, his vision blurred out.
It wasn't something that grew slowly at an unnoticeable pace, but almost an instant action.
Kai tried normally rubbing his eyes with his hands—thinking something had gotten into his eyes.
As he opened his eyes once again, he saw—what seemed like a transparent, small, rectangular-shaped blue screen floating mid-air.
His eyes were still blurry, as he believed it to be nothing more than another one of his hallucinations.
His vision slowly began to return, yet the rectangular screen didn't dissipate, instead, it became much clearer.
Before he could figure out what was happening, he fell to the ground as if someone thing was pulling him downwards with immense force.
It wasn't just his body, but the building, the whole world was being pulled downwards.
The world fell into the hands of tremors; each quake was well beyond what humanity had experienced beforehand.
Buildings fell as if they were as weak as a twig. The earth split apart, creating giant ravines and crevices.
All while humans continued to die from such an unnatural disaster.
Kai was one of the victims as well.
The building he was staying at, collapsed under the immense unknown pressure, burying him alive in a giant mountain of rubble.
*Huff... Huff...*
A hoarse, uneven sound of gasps echoed in a dark enclosure.
It was kai, sitting in a small vicinity formed when the building collapsed. His clothes had been reduced to mere tatters that still lingered on his body.
"Wh..ere... Am... I...?" He muttered, his voice wavering with every word that slipped out of his mouth.
Even the most simplest of the muscle movements were accompanied by the torturous pain of being crushed alive.
His back rested on a broken-down foundational iron pillar of the building. Unable to see anything in such a closed environment, his brain couldn't help but send more and more distress signals to his body—making his heart pump more blood than usual.
Numb senses, an immovable body, and a helpless situation.
Tears welled up in the crevice of his eyes, threatening to fall any second.
Yet, even in such a situation, his mind still refused to sway from thoughts of the old man's last words.
With time, the oxygen in the closed vicinity was exhausted. A smile crept onto Kai's face as his eyes finally let go of his tears.
He had accepted the cruelty of his fate. Losing his precious childhood, getting motivated by false hopes of the world, and dying such an unnatural death while
'I guess... this is how I die... without experiencing the joys of a normal life... without experiencing the unconditional love... and without...' a small chuckle escaped his lips as he continued to ramble in his mind, 'without finding out why all of this feels so familiar.'
Oblivious of what was truly happening, Kai's mind seemed to have been stuck in the past—thinking about the old man's words all while creating some weird images that resonated with his current situation.
Again and again, he kept imagining a picture of a young man who had raised his hand towards something... Or someone... As if asking for something.
'covered in blood... Yet showcasing such a bright smile... Oddly peaceful...'
Kai began to close his eyes as he gladly accepted his death.
But it seemed like fate had much more of a grand plan reserved exclusively for him.
Just as his eyes were about to shut in, the same blue transparent screen appeared once again before him.
But this time, it had numbers on it.
'What's... This...' a thought appeared in Kai's mind as he looked at the numbers ticking down slowly, almost like a stopwatch.
The numbers continued to change...
---
[0:05]
[0:04]
[0:03]
[0:02]
[0:01]
[0:00]
---
As soon as the numbers hit 0, a strange sound invaded his mind while the content of the screen changed.
---
[You have survived through the Connection Pact.]
[Rewards - Full Recovery]
[The System has noticed the severity of your condition.]
[Automatically recieving the rewards.]
***
[Worldwide announcement:- The Seventh Calamity, has begun.]
---