End of civilization
A note from the author.
Dear readers, the text below does not contain sexual or pornographic material (though I might add something spicy in other parts!) and is the first part and a small preface of the story. I will post the other parts as I can (I'll try to be quick). I have many ideas, I hope you find it interesting! I look forward to your ratings and comments!
The beginning of the end.
When it all started, I was 18 years old. Rumors were spreading online about various things... Of course, I wasn't going to believe everything, and there was always too much false information on the internet, but this time it was noticeably more than usual.
Some wrote about encounters with strange people, incomprehensible creatures, or unusual phenomena. As a fan of all things supernatural, I would spend a long time poring over these little articles, trying to separate truth from delirious fantasies. Of course, most of the stories were completely unbelievable, but still interesting. For example, one guy wrote that he went to sleep in his house in Ryazan and woke up in a forest near Voronezh, and on his own bed at that. Another believed he could control other people's minds and was planning to prove it. With each day, the number of such stories grew, and entire websites on the relevant topic appeared. The world began to whisper... And, although the government stubbornly denied any rumors, people wanted to believe.On that day, which I consider the starting point, I was sitting in my school in a provincial town during a history lesson, trying to focus on the boring lecture. The holidays were approaching, and I really, really didn't feel like studying! My classmates were dreamily staring out the window at the spring scenery. In the middle of the lesson, it got too noisy outside the classroom door; numerous voices echoed in the corridor. The teacher went to see what was happening, and we started throwing paper balls, chatting with friends, playing on our phones. Suddenly, the school principal came in and announced that classes were canceled and everyone was to go home immediately. No one understood what was happening, and they didn't explain anything to us. Honestly, we didn't care then; the main thing was that classes were canceled, and they didn't even assign homework!
I found out what had happened when I got home and turned on the TV to have it on in the background while I did my things. My parents weren't home; it was still a workday! As I was ironing the dress I planned to wear for an evening walk with friends, I listened to what was on TV and was surprised that the music channel was broadcasting the news! I thought I must have gotten the wrong channel and started switching, but the same thing was on every channel... And they were talking about how the president had been killed live on air! During an interview, some man in a black hood asked the president a question:
— How long do you think you have left to live?
— I hope to live until the next elections and spoil my competitors' mood a bit more! — the president smirked.
— Wrong answer! — the guy said calmly and raised his hand toward the head of state. At first, no one understood what was happening, and the president began to be covered in a thin crust of ice! He tried to gasp for air, as within seconds the ice reached his throat, and he ultimately froze like a statue. Froze forever. Panic, screams, and running around began, and just a couple of minutes later, all the people in the room were frozen. The guy walked up to the president and shattered the ice statue into tiny pieces, then looked into the camera, which had been broadcasting this live on central television the whole time, and said:
— Dear viewers, how long do you think you have left to live?
And after that phrase, the camera lens cracked and the broadcast cut off.
Everyone was in shock; television, radio, and the internet exploded! The existence of superhumans was being talked about all over the world! Parents stopped letting their children out of the house, and the news kept reporting more and more stories of strange crimes involving inexplicable forces.
Life became truly scary, especially in cities where the crime rate was high even without all this. But not all people with paranormal abilities were criminals and murderers; many stood up for ordinary people and saving the world.
My parents and I decided to move to a village where we had a house quite far from populated areas. I was forbidden from being on the internet and communicating with friends for safety, but I sometimes snuck out of the house under some pretext and caught a cell signal to find out how things were in the city. One such evening, I called my best friend, and she told me that a good acquaintance of ours had gained an ability—he could spit acid! A few days after that, he disappeared without a trace... His family knocked on every door in the government, but no one answered. As my friend reported, such cases were happening all over the world! People began to disappear, sometimes entire families; mass unrest and even civil wars began. And all this in just one year! No one could explain the nature of these abilities; scientists, influenced by the authorities, remained silent and shrugged, though they clearly knew much more.
One night, I woke up from intense heat; my temperature was approaching 104°F (40°C)! My parents had gone to the city for groceries and hadn't returned yet. Since it was winter, I went outside and fell into the snow to cool off somehow. I closed my eyes and lay there for a while. Gradually, the sensations began to change; the heat was receding, but I wasn't getting cold either. When I opened my eyes, there was no snow around, and I was on bare ground, and a tree trunk a few meters away from me was charred and smoking. When I felt normal again, I of course realized that I had become one of Them; there was no other explanation.
My parents returned in the morning with groceries and various household items. I didn't dare tell them what had happened, as I was simply terrified! The next night, the situation repeated... And so it went for a week. I managed to hide my condition by running far from the house. I began to understand that the cold was no longer scary to me at all, and I could walk barefoot in the snow as if on a carpet, leaving melted and smoking footprints behind me. I started trying to control my peculiarity, but it only got worse! During one of my next nighttime escapes from the house, the heat washed over me with such force that smoke started rising from my skin; I was seriously frightened, and then I caught fire! My hand became covered in red flame, as if it were made of it. Out of despair and fear, I directed all my energy far into the sky, and a pillar of fire appeared above me, burning all the trees to the ground within a 10-meter radius! After this incident, I couldn't stay and put my loved ones in danger! Gathering the bare essentials into a small backpack at night, I ran away... Without a goal, without any plan for my future life... So began the end of everything I knew and loved in this world.