Chapter 1

I've been awake for an hour and my body was still shaking to the core. The nightmare felt so real.

I was on my parents' house taking care of my younger brother, who suffers from an autoimmune disease. We were in his room, talking about the horror movie he saw with his friends. He's into this kind of movies, so I let him tell the story even if it creeps the hell out of me. After he finished telling it, I went downstairs to pick his medicine from the kitchen, when suddenly the house began to quake, like a sudden large jolt, followed quickly by more strong shaking.

The shaking felt violent and it was so damn difficult to stand up. The contents of our house were already a mess and I desperately tried to reach out to my brother. Running to the second floor, I stumbled on the stairs when my breath was taken away, gasping and whispering my brother's name.

It was a strong pressure which held me to the ground, making the oxygen limited and hard to breathe. I was literally crawling on the stairs when suddenly the windows broke into thousands of pieces with such strength, I thought I'd gone deaf and, in that moment, I knew I was about to collapse.

Someone grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs, but being unconscious more than I was awake, I couldn't figure if the earthquake stopped, or if it was all in my head. I was feeling so weak and my body was floating. Somebody was there with me. Someone was holding my injured arm and all I could feel was pain and a severe headache. And there was a voice screaming at me "Up! DON'T!"

"What?"

I opened my eyes and there they were: 2 eyes staring at me intensely, with a hint of blue.

"DON'T!" The voice screamed.

Then I woke up sweating, shaking and screaming my brother's name.

The room was gloomy and these eyes were still there every time I blinked. I was afraid to get out of bed, like every move I could made would have brought the nightmare into real life. After a few minutes of listening to the world's noises from outside, my breath came back to normal and I took a long shower.

In my dream, there was something really bad. An evil brought to destroy this world and its creatures. An evil who was full of resentment, fury and hatred.

Anyway, I tried to wrap my mind about that and repeat for the 5th time the presentation that will be held in front of many important people. If they would buy what I was selling, my boss would give me the much-desired promotion. It was definitely not a good day for nightmares and apocalyptic shit.

My anxiety got worse when I thought about Trevor. He is my colleague, the bastard who made my life harder to bear. Once the promotion was mine, Trevor would have become my subordinate and I was dying for that to happen. He was a miserable piece of shit with barely any semblance to a human being. Or I was being harsh. But he still was a major asshole.

When I got out from the taxi, I politely saluted the driver while making sure that I didn't forget anything on the back seat. I entered the tall and prim glass building, taken by assault by all the office workers dressed up and ready to "conquer the world".

I lived in a rented apartment which was localized in the center of Bayas, the capital of Carayan. I'm 27 years old and I loved the modern and complicated life of the 21's century, like every ambitious young person with big dreams ahead. I worked in a big company with lots of opportunities for which you need to have many sleepless nights in order to gain any of them.

That being said, on the way to the elevator, I was hyping myself up, when I heard a voice greeting me:

"Mia, good morning!"

"Good morning, Daniel! Looking good! Big day?"

"Not bigger than yours. If you fascinate us as you did with the oil project, it's yours, babe. Guaranteed!" Daniel said confidently with a large white smile.

"Be ready, Daniel. I'm coming up with a pretty controversial topic...for some people."

"Ha-ha! For Trevor, you mean?"

"Oh, God no. You give him too much credit. Unfortunately, this project is of interest to all big and important companies and the debates will be very heated."

"Ok, you caught my attention already. See, you just got a vote." He said winking.

"Then it's almost mine." I said laughing nervously.

"Thanks for your moral support, Daniel!"

"Anytime, princess!"

Daniel is a perfect and smart Don Joan who is always putting on great deeds, which also include a large number of girls in his bed. He made his move on me 3 years ago when I got hired. After a month of playing with each other, he realized that I wasn't going to sleep with him. But we still stayed in a good relationship, almost friends I would say.

When I got out of the elevator, I headed to my office, left my stuff and then went to the women's toilet. Unfortunately, it was next to the men's room. I've suddenly come face to face with Trevor, who had instantly changed his surprised face to a devilish face.

"Mia Russel! You look like you have lost a project." He grinned.

"Trevor McAss! You look like my future fired subordinate."

And without waiting for his reply, I stormed into the toilet, swinging the door into his face, which I was almost sure was paler than the one he had before.

Trevor is a 35 years old, frustrated guy who wasn't helped by his intellect to achieve the 2 things he most wanted: to be manager and to bang Ms. Bauer, the director of the Sales Department. She just got married with a German businessman, the 3rd husband she had. The missus doesn't seem to be a consistent woman, but we all know that Trevor had met all three of her husbands, so we can allow her a dose of consistency here and there, however.

The meeting was about to start as I saw the world gathering in the meeting room.

The real purpose of this meeting was to really impress my boss Ken Olsen, the potential influential client Ken has hunted for years, Alexander Petersen and his IT consultant, Andreas Reis.

I was already in the room with all the materials arranged, the video projector open and my heart in my throat. I saw Ken right in front of the door and over his shoulder, a pair of eyes were looking at me intensely. I do not know why, but in that moment my heart started to beat insanely fast and after a second…

…Day Zero started.

Broken windows. Screams. Crying and prayers were breaking my eardrums and the wind was whipping my face. The building seemed to collapse, sounding like a child who cries and screams at the same time. I was desperately looking for Ken, but all I could see were images overlaying with other images that lasted only one second, each and every time I was opening my eyes. As if I'm in the dark and the light-bulb turns on and off continuously from second to second, giving me a very severe headache and feeling like I was about to vomit.

Someone grabbed my hand so hard that I thought it was going to be torn off and I didn't understand who would do such a thing in moments like these. Trevor?!

Then I felt like I was floating, like the earth was no longer under my feet and only my arm, which was in terrible pain, was holding me anchored to...someone.

I was trying to open my eyes, while I was screaming something incomprehensible, when a gigantic energy pulse swept all the buildings, cars, us and our lives.

All of this lasted less than 1 minute.