Prologue

"All this... Did it really happen?"

A young man stands on the rubble of what looks like it used to be some public building. Apparently he hasn't seen anybody else for a while, because he talks aloud to himself. He gracefully climbs down into the building and all he sees are the remains of many electrical devices of which only a few still provide some flickering light in the dark. After a good look around and a deep sigh, he walks to one of the machines and kicks it as hard as he can. “This is all your fault! None of this would've happened if you never existed. I hate you!”

After a few more kicks, he realizes it's futile and can do nothing but drop himself to the floor, crying. “Did it really happen?”

He turns himself around and now lays on his back on the floor. The ceiling, blurred by his tears slowly fades away as he closes his eyes to remember that day. The day that everything changed. For him. For her. For the entire state, if not for more.

Nobody knows what exactly happened or if it could've been prevented. There are only a few things that people know for sure. “20^th of April, 2053. It was somewhere around 4 or 5 PM, most people were heading home from work. Barely anyone still used a car, bus, or even their own feet anymore to get there.” He frowned his eyebrows as he continued with sarcastic tone in his voice. “All because of a great new way of traveling: Nport. It was the new way to get to your destination in a matter of seconds, anywhere in the world. It was flawless, harmless and would make life easier for everyone.”

He searched his memories, trying to remember what this ruin used to be. And he found his memories. He was now surrounded by a metropolis, with people everywhere. They all had to go somewhere, and as usual there was always someone in panic because his or her traveling pass wasn't accepted by the machine. They always fear they will never get home if they have a malfunctioning pass or machine.

It wasn't just 1 machine of course. There were dozens of them, all lined up under a big roof. And on every one of them was the logo of Nport. There actually wasn't anything that didn't had the Nport logo. It was on the roof, there were flags and banners throughout and around the building, and even the floor wasn't spared with a paintwork at least 20 meters broad. The devices were just cabins. You get your pass scanned, so the device knows who's traveling, you enter your destination, step into the cabin, and the device does the rest. In the conferences by Nport, they constantly threw technical terms at you that the common civilian wouldn't know the slightest thing about, but basically what they said was that the device stores your cell pattern, breaks you up into molecules, and sends it at incredible speed to an arrival-cabin, and it will rebuild your cells there.

“If only it really were flawless, harmless and made life easier.” he disappointedly carried on. “It was raining, it stormed and everybody obviously wanted to stay dry and go home or at least go somewhere dryer. The station was very crowded and I just managed to get to a cabin. I stepped in after scanning my pass and was off to my destination. But it didn't quite feel the same. Something was different. From the moment I stepped out of the arrival-cabin, I slowly began to understand more and more about what actually happened. It took me hours to completely realize what that feeling caused.”

Right at the moment his cells were to be send, a lightning strike hit the shelter of the mainframe, causing it to fail for just mere seconds, until the backup systems were running. The result of these few seconds of failed were beyond imagination. People were screaming and running around in panic. First aid teams were rushing to the arrival-cabins which kept spitting out abominations that used to be people. Their cell structure was lost and they couldn't be restored to their format selves. Everyone traveling to or from that station was affected by it. And nearly everybody who was affected by it were dead just a few seconds after the cabin failed to reconstruct them. Some never even came out at all. Their cells were probably mixed with various other cells.

With a sad face, he continued his story.“I came out dazed, confused and could barely see a thing. I tried to grasp the cabin's doorway for support, but my muscles wouldn't carry me.”

“Oh my God, he's alive!” a first aid screw member yelled at his colleagues “Hurry, get him to the medical center.”

“I was dragged through the mass of screaming people as some were staring at me with amazement, while others could only keep their eyes on the cabins, hoping their relatives would miraculously be saved. The lights and the screaming began to fade, and what happened after that, I don't remember.”

Reviews

[Xardalas]

It was a good read. The detail in it was good, I liked how you explained the castrophe without making it exessively long or dragging it out. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the chapters as they come out. 90/100

-Xardalas