Jamila Allen (1)

Inside a poorly lit room, a woman was lazily browsing the internet with the computer on her lap. She had brownish skin, a thin face, with a broad nose, large yellow eyes and beautiful curly hair that was not entirely brown nor red, but something in between.

It was early in the morning, a few hours before dawn, and even though she had been working all night long, she just couldn't sleep. It was news eve's and for some reason she felt restless, perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't able to see her family over this last week. In any case, browsing through the internet wasn't helping at all.

Jamila looked over the feed of some social media and felt even more depressed after seeing many photos of people enjoying the new years' eve with or without their family.

Just as she opened the chat to congratulate a few friends, she felt the whole apartament tremble!

"An earthquake!?" Jamila immediately jumped out of the bed and hid under it, scared. Earthquakes weren't so common where she lived, in fact she had never felt one so strong in her whole life! "What the ****!?"

The whole building shook heavily, books on its shelf toppled, crockery fell from the cupboard and broke. All Jamila could think of was hiding under the bed, scared, praying the building wouldn't topple over and bury her alive.

The situation was hopeless, she could hear from afar people screaming, cars crashing and sirens from ambulances. The city was in chaos!

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the tremors to stop, in fact, what seemed like an eternity of terror was just a few minutes. However, people were still screaming outside. It looked like the after effects weren't small, but she never thought they could be like what she saw next.

Jamila Allen got out of the bed slowly and looked over the messy state of her room: plates and cups were broken, scattering broken glass all over the kitchen, her books were all over her room and her tv laid down, probably broken as well. Sighing to herself at that mess, she decided to take a peek over the window.

As she opened the blinds, the light momentarily blinded her. After she grew accustomed to the twilight, the first thing she saw was the canopy of a beautiful tree, with colorful leaves that reached her window. The leaves were unlike anything she had ever seen, at the size of her own hand, each leaf had three colors!

Marveled by that sight, she unconsciously extended her hand and grabbed the nearest leaf. The leaf was a mix of blue, yellow and purple, and was soft by the touch. Thin lines like veins covered branched on the leaf. She pulled but was unable to pluck it off.

"Hmm?" She tried even harder but the leaf did not even move.

"Wait… how is there a tree here!?" She exclaimed surprised after realizing the weird situation and stumbled backwards, trying to stay away from that leaf.

She lived in an apartment on the tenth floor downtown, there was no tree nearby, not to mention one so immense!

[What if it is poisonous!] The thought crossed her mind and she quickly went to the bathroom to clean her hands.

Few minutes went by and her had didn't turn green or had ulcers.

"Phew!" She relaxed a bit and watched as the leaves swayed, blown by the wind. [The wind can move it, but I can't pluck even a small leaf… if that was not weird enough!]

After rubbing her eyes and realizing that she was not dreaming, Jamila decided to look out the window again.

The view left her even more shocked!

The city was completely in chaos, immense trees sprouted out in the middle of the streets destroying anything on its way, reaching heights higher than any building nearby. Some cars had crashed on the tree trunks or made an accident trying to evade it. Many people were doing just like her, looking with amazement mixed with horror at that sight.

Fortunately, as far as she could see, no buildings were destroyed by the earthquake nor trees nearby. It seemed as if the city had been perfectly enveloped by these trees and because of that, she could not see the end of it. Her view was blocked by the colorful leaves wherever she looked.

Jamila Allen immediately remembered her parents and grabbed her phone to contact them.

*Out of signal*

"Shit!" She threw the phone at the bed and went to grab the notebook under it.

However, before she could look at her notebook a strong voice boomed through the sky.

"Don't be afraid as for now you are safe." An imposing masculine voice resounded in her apartment. The voice seemed to come from afar and at the same time close, was it from god? "There is a book near each of you, use it to cultivate! One week is all I can guarantee for you all!"

*******

"I remember running to the window and searching the sky for the one behind the voice but found nothing, the canopy of the trees completely blocked my vision from it. Thinking about it now, it's been a month since I've last seen the blue sky…" Jamila Allen narrated to the soldiers, who listened attentively. Her voice turned somber at the last sentence and she took a few seconds to continue. "In the end, there really was a strange book over my bed. An old book with the technique I now cultivate. I was totally isolated from society, there was no internet or any signal inside the city. Many people went crazy down the streets, fortunately I had plenty of food in stock so I decided to stay at home and give a try at the cultivation thing…"

"You were indeed more fortunate than us, it took me two days before trying the book." One of her teammates added.

"You'd still be weaker than her even if you started a day earlier Kian…." Joked another one.

"Hmm." She nodded and smiled lightly. "That was the best decision I ever had. It goes without saying how some people went crazy over the week, many gangs controlled entire city blocks as the law crumbled. With no one to call for reinforcements, the authorities had no way to act. Looting increased and deaths were constant as many people disregarded the warning of the gods. Later, I discovered that we could not leave the city, there was a barrier trapping us inside…"

"Yeah, I've seen that barrier with my own eyes." Said the older of the team, he had long dark hair and a small beard that was turning gray. " It was a translucent thing that encompassed the whole city! Nothing could transcend it, no object or living being."

"In fact, we realized later that the barrier was protecting us instead." Added another companion. "It was the one week period the voice talked about."

"Yeah, the thing only got worse one week later…." Jamila sighed and started to recount her history.

*********

Jamila Allen had just eaten the last of her canned food. It didn't taste good, but the nutrients would help keep her alive. She had no electricity since last week and the water ran out yesterday. Yet, weirdly, the light coming from outside felt like an endless twilight, never changing over the course of the week.

Days and nights passed by with no changes in the lighting. The climate was a never ending twilight with a gently warm breeze that kept the treetops swaying. If not for the huge tree and collapsing society she was in, today would be a good day for a picnic. However, with nothing out to do but cultivate, Jamila was bored most of the time.

Luck seemed to be on her side the last week as she easily avoided contact with her neighbors who left the building and the looters who she saw ransacking the stores.

Isolated from the rest of the world, the city she lived in was barely able to maintain order. The authorities were already burning the midnight oil to preserve certain areas in an apparent peace. But with the limited resources, it became increasingly harder to do so by each passing day. With food becoming more and more scarce, rebellions were starting to pile up. All of these facts were unknown to Jamila as she looked over the now empty can, wondering if she would soon need to resort to looting to feed herself.

"AHHH!!!" A terrified scream woke Jamila from her thoughts. Shoots soon followed but she took no heed, that was a normal occurrence inside the city.

Unfortunately, the screams only got louder and more numerous by the second, as did the gunfire.

With her curiosity now picked, she walked over the window to take a look and immediately regretted it. Stunned, she saw from afar people running fast, fleeing from a multitude of… wild animals!?

Jamila could not discern exactly what people were running for. Were it lions, apes, cheetahs and elephants that ran around killing people? But why did they seem to be bigger? Why did that elephant look more like a mammoth?

Suddenly, from the end of the road she saw an immense snake coming, sliding across the asphalt. The beast had the thickness of a car and was tens of meters long. The snake was so big that it partially destroyed the road as it glided in the street, eating cars, humans and other beasts alike.

Jamila was horrified by that sight, immediately closed the window and cowered in fear near her bed. This was far more terrifying than anything she had seen in the last week, now, the true apocalypse had indeed arrived in the city.

"I'm safe here, I'm safe here, I'm safe here…" Jamila repeated to herself over and over again. Trying to ignore the sounds that reached her ears from below.

Unfortunately, sometimes you could not escape reality, no matter how fast you ran nor how much you deceived yourself. Moments later, she heard her window shatter.

It took any courage she could muster to take a look over the window. There, she saw a long and thin black leg entering her room. Immediately afterwards another four long legs joined the first and the beast, or rather the insect, became visible for her to see.

"S-Spider!" Jamila screamed as the four deep black eyes of the insect focused on her.

Jamila was terrified of spiders, let alone one that big. She felt her legs shake as her whole body froze and she could only stare as it slowly creeped forward. The spiders walked slowly as if enjoying the moment, it was the first prey it would have in a long time - so effortlessly.

*Tap Tap Tap*

Its hairy leg made small sounds on the floor as it got closer and closer to its prey. Less than a meter was left and the insect opened its arachne mouth big.

Jamila felt the death coming closer and closer, paralyzed, shivers ran down her skin and she felt extremely cold.

"Will I become spider's food!?" Jamila closed her eyes to not look into the moving fangs of the huge insect. "No no no no, I can't die like that!"

At that moment she felt a small warm energy spread to her body, calming her mind and relaxing her body. Realization struck her! What had she been doing the whole week? Cultivating! Didn't the god say to cultivate well for one week? He or she was trying to help us!

She had noticed the changes in her body after cultivating for a week, even more so after she stepped in the First Stage of Body Cultivation a day ago. However, as a simple girl that she was, Jamila never thought she would need to use the power in this kind of situation.

"Red Lion Cultivation Technique!" She shouted out loud, trying to shake off her fears and activating every single bit of Qi inside herself.

The spider discovered that her prey was not so easy! Just as it was about to enjoy its delicious lunch, the girl exploded with power and held its chelicerae with her small hands.

"I'm not going to be spider food!"Jamila mustered even more strength by focusing the Qi into her arms.

*CRACK!*

The beasts' chelicerae were broken.

"DIE!!"