PRELUDE
“Take this,” I reach into my dimensional storage and brought out a wrapped burger, handing it to Eli. We were in the lift of the company. We obviously didn't enter through the front door, I directly transported Eli and I into the lift.
I would have directly traveled to his office but I had to be careful, a lot of things could go wrong. And also, Eli advised against it, like he knew that was exactly what I was going to do.
Eli looked at me with amazement as he collected the burger and I couldn't help but blush. I missed the look of adoration.
“This is really cool! How did you do it?” He asked, already unwrapping the burger to take a bite.
“I am a special space anomaly. I had many talents but I'm currently down to only two; dimensional traveling and dimensional storage.”
“I see. So you can travel through dimensions and store things in your own space? That's awesome! Can I see?” Eli asked. He made sure to chew before talking.
“Unfortunately, only non living things can go in there. There is no time, so anything that is stored,”
“Remains how it was when it entered.” Eli completed and I smiled. He was the nerdy one between the both of us, the smart one. I was smart too but Eli absorbed knowledge like anyone I've ever seen, and that's a lot coming from the last human. But I only realised this after coming back.
“How big is it?” Eli asked,
“Roughly, about the size of a big city, probably a bit larger.” Eli's eyes went wide in shock and I laughed,
“It wasn't that big at first, but years of refining my skills made it like that.”
“Wow.” Eli said, after taking a huge bite out of his burger.
I paused for a moment before asking, “aren't you going to ask what an anomaly is?” Eli shrugged,
“I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.”
I stared at Eli, I knew he was patient but not that patient. When it came to knowledge and new things, Eli was like a cat. Which was why I knew he had a different reason for wanting to be patient.
“Fine.” Eli sighed after seeing that I wasn't going to stop giving him the look, “if I'm right, you'll have to explain to this your best friend what is happening. It will be repetitive of you explain to me first.”
“Oh, I didn't think of that.” I nodded my head. I ruffled Eli's, “you are pretty smart.”
“Pretty? Please, you know I'm smarter than you, even with your future experience.”
We both laughed. I wanted to rebuke him but I knew he was probably right.
A ding sound echoed and the door to the lift opened. We were currently in the thirtieth floor and it was busier than I thought it would be. There were about ten people walking through the corridor.
It might not seem like a lot, but in a massive company such as this, the thirtieth floor was already more than halfway up and floors like this shouldn't have this much people moving around. They should instead be in their offices.
“What?” Eli asked as he noticed my pause,
“The floor is busier than usual.” I said. We walked out of the lift and began heading down the corridor.
“What do they even do here?” Eli asked,
“This is the Blue Royale company, on the surface, they are a geographical analysis company but beneath, they conducted in-depth research in the earth. All these lost civilization and alien presence nonsense.”
“And your friend is?”
“He is one of their research analyst. In truth, he wanted to be a biologist but he got stuck with the post. During one of our talks in the apocalypse, he told me about where he worked. Apparently, blue royale was one of the people that found the signs first.”
I stopped before the second to the last door, this was it. I knocked on the door and opened it to see him, short black hair that would later be tinted green, beige skin and brown eyes. He looked up form his desk, immediately adjusting his tie.
“Good day sir, how may I help you?” He asked, standing up and reaching out his hand for a shake. I wanted to pull him into a hug but I couldn't. So I took the handshake instead.
Eli took a seat and I did the same beside him. But now that we were here, I don't even know what I was going to say to him!
Sorry, I'm your best friend from the future and the world is about to end and I'm here to recruit you? Even I would think I was crazy.
“The world is about to end. You will soon start noticing strange signs and when you realise what is happening, it will be too late. My brother is here to recruit you.”
I stared at Eli in shock, I never expected him to be so blunt. “You are supposed to be the smart one, Eli.”
“I am. Look at him, he isn't stupid. He might not believe us, but we've sown a seed. Leave a number, I'm very sure a smart guy like him will call when they start seeing the signs you talked about.”
I looked at the guy who was just staring at both of us blankly. I felt like I should add something. I reached for a pen and paper from his desk and wrote down my number,
“Jason, it might seem like nonsense now, but you'll understand soon.” I added as u pushed the paper forward.
I sighed and looked at Eli, signalling for him that we should take out leave. At least that was what he proposed. But just as I stood up, Jason finally spoke,
“You know my name?” He asked.
“Yes. Jason Steinberg. I can't tell you how thou—”
“There's no need to, I believe you.”
“What?”
“What?” Eli and I spoke at the same time, we were shocked. Jason stood up, his expression serious.
“I don't know how you know my name and I honestly couldn't care less, and although I don't totally believe you in the end of the world crap, I don't totally not believe you either.”
There was silence for a moment before Eli asked the question that bugged us both,
“Why?”
“Because we've started seeing the signs. Signs of something unprecedented.”
My eyes widened, “that's shouldn't be possible!” I muttered absentmindedly.
“Johanne, what's wrong?” Eli asked,
“The signs shouldn't appear until two weeks before the apocalypse!”
HASTE This! This can't be possible! What's wrong? Is the timeline speeding up? Because of me and my actions? I thought that was just some sci-fi nonsense.Eli looked at me, I could tell from his gaze that he had guessed the same thing. I sighed and looked at Jason, my gaze as serious as possible.“What's going on? Who are you and how do you know the world is about to end?” Jason asked. I could tell from his voice that there was a seed of belief within him which was a good sign.“I can't tell you how I know, you'll just have to take my word for it.” I began. I stood up and began to walk around, arranging my thoughts.“It was supposed to begin a month from now, exactly thirty days. The humidity of earth will suddenly increase, the temperature skyrocketing. The space research centers confirmed that the ozone layer had mutated, filtering in UV rays that have evolved and causing serious damage to earth. This was the first sign.”“But we found the changes first!” Jason said absentmindedly.
STRATEGIST I appeared at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere with Eli beside me. This time, although his face was pale, he wasn't throwing up.Eli looked around, “this is where the daughter of the governor stays?” He asked with a smirk,“Of course not. This is an abandoned warehouse. I never thought I would get the coordinates right.”“What are we doing here?” Eli asked as we both walked forward. I pushed the door open and revealed the inside of the warehouse. It could only be described as vast. It was very large.“This,...this is where you are going to work for the next twenty four hours. It will be pretty hectic.”“What is it I'm supposed to do? The place is empty.”I reached out and shapes began to take form. In the blink of an eye, everything that was in my dimensional storage appears in the warehouse. I've only managed to fill up less than one tenth of it hence the warehouse could contain it all.“Woah!” Eli exclaimed. He looked impressed. “I thought you were exagger
LIFE IN AN APOCALYPSE Laramie was more than a strategist, she was a fighter and I mean that literally. If this was an ancient time, she would be a commander, and to make it even better, Laramie awakened a relatively powerful special ability as a special anomaly; aura manipulation.Aura manipulation enabled Laramie to manipulate her aura, infusing emotions into it to affect her surroundings. It might sound pretty weak but know that killing intent isn't real, it's just a feeling. Now imagine if it was real, if it materialized into the real world and you could feel one's intent to kill touching your skin? Now imagine if one could infuse an army with that same intense intent to kill, making them all hate you and much as you hate them. Laramie was one of a kind.And the reason this was all possible, the reason why she awakened was because of the trauma her father's death caused her.I didn't immediately notice, and if not for how sad she was and me piecing in the fact that time seemed to
CALL FOR HELP I appeared in a dark alley, looked around and adjusted my clothes. I walked out of the alley, my vox —the two way radio, Eli thought it was too stressful to call it a two way radio so we decided to use vox. I don't know what's wrong with good ol' walkie talkie— was strapped to my waist and my phone was in my pocket.I walked out of the alley and joined the crowd on the pavement. As I walked, I couldn't help but think of the fact that I'm two weeks time, probably even sooner than that, eighty percent of those in this street will be dead. Yet no one knew.I wouldn't mind telling them, but humans are complicated beings. Some won't believe me, some would see this as an outlet for chaos and others will see it as a chance to manipulate people.I've seen firsthand how greedy humans are, I'm one of the greedier ones after all. Which is why as I walked through the crowd, I tuned them all out, knowing that some of them would probably kill me for something as small as a bottle of
FIERY PIT “Apocalypse? What do you mean?” Belamir questioned but I wasn't in the mood to reply to him. I glanced at Eli,“I'll be right back, keep him in check.” I took a step into the kaleidoscope and began filtering through the dimensions in search of the coordinates Jason had given.This was one of the disadvantages of this ability, when it came to places I had no impression of or have never been to, it became quite hard to locate them just by using dimensions. If only I could remodel the ability. I thought I would have enough time to make all of my initial plans and have extra to train before the apocalypse but with how fast it's approaching,....I couldn't even imagine how much slower the process would have been if I didn't have Eli taking inventory and most of the planning.It took quite a while, although there was no sense of time, or rather, the sense of time in the kaleidoscope was distorted, that didn't mean the same was true for the real world. It took almost a minute bef
New Member:“Johanne, that was dangerous, what happened!” I chuckled as Eli bandaged my arms, the burn damages were much. It wouldn't have been a big deal if the apocalypse had already happened because of the presence of healers but now, I couldn't even go to the hospital.Moreover these burn marks were not child's play, I just hope that whatever mutated radiation was in that pit wouldn't be as deadly now that we are away from it.“It was a close call, the radiation was really something else, but there's no need to worry, your big bro is awesome.” I gently touched Eli's head, I could tell he was really worried. It was already shocking that he wasn't too bothered by the end of the world, probably due to my presence.“Even still,... it hurts seeing you like this. The apocalypse hasn't even started yet and you aren't as strong as you used to be, I can't even imagine what might happen when the apocalypse is finally here.”“Hey,” I raised Eli's head to look at me, “I will always come back
New Skills“What about the remaining three things?” Eli asked.“Second agenda on the list is obviously for you guys to gather as many resources as possible. Focus on the things that won't be available anymore once the apocalypse begins. We can take care of the rest later.”“Noted. I'll prepare the list as soon as possible.” Eli said, his eyes filled with determination. I smiled, I like how he was taking all of this seriously, he'll need at least that much to be able to seat on the council.“For the next two agendas, we need to locate two people, they are both very crucial to this operation. The first on the list is Hana Goradit, she is a scientist at Celestial enterprise. Belamir, you think you can get her info?”“Yes, I should.”“There's also Nikita.”“Nikita? The illusive and eccentric blacksmith?” Belamir asked.“Yes, you know her?”“She's very popular on the dark web, she's wanted by lots of organizations. It's said that her craftsmanship is out of the world, dude, I don't think I
Spatial Lock:Knock knockI got up from my plank position all sweaty and smelly as I stared at Eli who entered the room. I created a small room for myself in the storage building where I can work out. In my past life, I was really powerful but I wasn't at my full potential. Of course I didn't know this back then, I only realized it now.One of the things that held me back was my skills. I was a good fighter and a very experienced anomaly, but my skills weren't refined. My spatial abilities were extremely powerful and brute force dealt with almost every problem.But these past days, I've realized that if I was able to fine tune my abilities even more, I might become so much more powerful than before and maybe then, I'll be able to defeat this apocalypse before it got too bad.Another thing that affected me was my physique, I was so busy fighting and struggling for food, I had no time to train my body and it affected me most times in battle. If not for how powerful spatial abilities wer
Strengthening Bonds and Dividing Roles The morning sun cast a soft, golden light over the camp, filtering through the trees and reflecting off the makeshift buildings that now made up our sanctuary. Though small and humble, this place was beginning to feel like a stronghold, a last line of defense against the chaos that raged outside. But a stronghold needed more than walls. It needed structure, roles, and people ready to defend it with every ounce of strength they had.The recent attacks, along with our discovery of the serum, had made it clear that we couldn’t rely on chance or hope. If we were going to protect what we’d built, we needed to organize—each person playing their part to ensure that when the next threat came, we’d be ready.I stood in the center of camp, a map spread out on a table in front of me. The others had gathered around: Hana, Eli, Dr. Reese, and Morgan, along with several of the new recruits who’d joined us in recent weeks. Each face held a mix of resolve and un
Medical BreakthroughThe smell of antiseptic lingered heavily in the air, mixing with the ever-present scent of fear that seemed to permeate the medical bay. I could see it in the hollow stares of the survivors who milled around the infirmary, their faces pale and eyes haunted. They knew that once infection took hold, there was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. A slow descent, ending in a transformation into something unrecognisable—a monster.But that hopelessness was exactly why we were here now. If there was even a chance to change the course of infection, to find some kind of solution, it was worth every risk. And Dr. Reese, our resident medic, might have finally found the key.Reese stood by a table covered in medical equipment and vials of strange, murky liquid, his face drawn but determined. The doctor was an older man, with silver hair cropped short and eyes that seemed to have seen more than they should. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, it was with the certaint
Encounter with the Cult of the AwakenedThe day was unseasonably warm as we trekked through the wasteland, our boots kicking up dust that clung to the dry air. Hana walked ahead, her gaze fixed on the horizon, with Eli and Morgan following close behind, alert and ready. We were scouting a rumored safe zone to the south—a lead Morgan had picked up from a trader who’d passed through days ago. If the trader was right, the place could have shelter, even stockpiles of water.We reached a clearing, where a small compound sat nestled against the rocks. But as we approached, something felt... wrong. A heavy silence hung in the air, thicker than usual, almost oppressive. I stopped, signaling for the others to halt as we took in the scene.The compound was oddly pristine, its walls painted with symbols that looked like a twisted fusion of religious icons and geometric patterns, each one centered around an eye. At the front gate, two figures stood guard, clad in robes embroidered with the same s
A New Power EmergesThe night air was crisp as I walked alone through the perimeter of our sanctuary, letting my thoughts settle after the intense mission at the bunker. We’d secured the supplies we needed, but my mind was restless. There was a heaviness that lingered, the shadows of past battles and the ominous sense that greater challenges lay ahead.I closed my eyes, focusing on the space around me, feeling the familiar hum of energy that had become second nature. My spatial domain had always been a part of me, a constant pulse in the background of my awareness. But tonight, something felt... different.A faint tremor sparked deep within, an unfamiliar sensation, like a flicker of electricity jolting through my veins. The power felt stronger, denser, as if it had grown in intensity, shifting from a steady current to a raging river. I drew in a deep breath, grounding myself as I let the energy spread, expanding my domain further than I’d ever dared.As I did, time itself seemed to s
Securing the BunkerThe air inside the bunker was heavy, thick with the stench of decay and mildew. Darkness clung to every corner, broken only by the faint beams of our flashlights cutting through the gloom. Our footsteps echoed off the walls, too loud in the oppressive silence, a constant reminder that any wrong move could alert whatever was hiding in the shadows.“We need to keep this tight,” I whispered, gesturing for Hana and Eli to flank me while Morgan covered the rear. Every nerve in my body was on edge, senses sharpened by the knowledge that we were trespassing in a place that hadn’t seen light—or life—in a long time.We moved cautiously down the main corridor, the walls lined with cracked tiles and patches of mold, evidence of years of neglect. Storage rooms branched off on either side, some doors ajar, revealing shelves stacked with cans, boxes, and forgotten crates. Supplies—exactly what we’d come for—but none of us dared move just yet. This bunker had the same feeling as
The Resource DilemmaThe early morning haze settled over the sanctuary, and with it, an uneasy silence. I stood in the supply depot, taking stock of what little remained. Shelves that once held row upon row of rations and water purifiers were now close to bare. Despite our best efforts to ration, the supplies we had carefully hoarded were disappearing faster than I’d anticipated.The reason was simple—our numbers were growing. Every day, it seemed, we encountered new survivors, each one desperate for a safe haven. While every face we saved was another chance at rebuilding, it was also another mouth to feed, another body to protect. Resources that were once enough for a small team were now stretched thin, and it was only a matter of time before we’d hit a breaking point.I ran a hand over my face, the weight of our situation settling heavily on my shoulders. As I glanced up, I saw Hana walking in, her expression as grim as mine.“You see the numbers?” I asked, though I already knew the
Reinforcing Morale and PurposeThe camp was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that settled in after a close call, when adrenaline faded and left behind only exhaustion. Yesterday’s attack had taken its toll on everyone, from the veterans to the rookies. I could see it in their slumped shoulders, the heavy footsteps, the way they barely spoke, each one wrapped in thoughts of what lay ahead.As I moved through the camp, I felt the weight of each gaze that avoided mine, each nod that barely mustered a trace of energy. We couldn’t go on like this, not if we wanted to survive. It wasn’t just our defenses that needed fortifying—it was us.“Everyone,” I called out, my voice cutting through the silence. Faces turned toward me, wary but attentive. “Meet at the center of camp tonight. We’re going to take a breather.” There was a murmur, but I saw the flicker of curiosity spark in a few eyes. Good—that was something.When evening came, I set up a small gathering space in the center of camp, a
The Rise of Anomaly WarfareThe air around the sanctuary felt charged, a tension like the edge of a storm. It had been days since we’d welcomed Morgan and his people, days spent combing over the information he’d shared about The Coalition and experimenting with new defenses. There was no mistaking it—the fights ahead were going to be unlike anything we’d faced before.I stood in the clearing at the center of camp, watching as the team gathered in a circle around me, faces set with grim determination. Today was going to be different. We couldn’t rely on luck or makeshift tactics anymore; it was time to see what we were truly capable of.“Everyone here?” I called out, my gaze sweeping over them. Eli, Hana, Morgan, and the rest of our crew. Each of them had something unique to offer, powers that, if used right, would make us a force no one could take lightly.“Today, we’re focusing on harnessing our anomaly powers,” I continued. “We’re not just going to be survivors. We’re going to be re
Scouting and New AlliesThe morning sun broke through the thick clouds, casting a pale, washed-out light across the desolate landscape. There was a strange calm about it, the sort of silence that stretched on for miles in every direction, broken only by the wind carrying dust and whispers of the devastation that had come before.I adjusted the strap on my pack, scanning the broken skyline of what was once the town of Fairbank. Abandoned buildings stood like grave markers, silent and still, each one holding its own story of whatever last stand, last struggle, or final failure had taken place. Now, they were nothing but remnants, waiting for someone—or something—to reclaim them.Eli was a few paces behind me, eyes sharp and alert. His movements were quieter now, more controlled than they had been even a few days ago. Out here, you either learned fast, or you didn’t last long. Hana, our head of reconnaissance, scouted ahead, her figure small against the empty streets but every step delib