Chapter One

Dave lettermen were halfway through his shift, and he already felt his eyes getting heavy.

He was driving the I40 just past Albuquerque, heading west.

He saw a truck stop up ahead and decided he should take his break there.

Even though it was half-past one in the morning, there were still plenty of parking spots.

It was the year 2039, and most trucking companies have gone to self-driving automated trucks, so there weren't many people parking at truck stops anymore.

They converted all the rest areas on the freeways to fueling docks for the automated trucks, so most truck stops have gone out of business over the years.

Dave's company was one of the last to give in and convert to automated trucks, but his boss was pressured continuously and finally broke from the constant attacks against his company, so this was Dave's last haul before he was let go.

He wasn't too worried about it though, he was 39 years old and almost 20 years of driving for this company, with no wife or kids, so he had a lot of money saved up just if something like this would happen to him.

He walked into the store and got himself a cup of coffee, hoping it would help with the drowsiness.

He handed the man at the register a blank metal rectangular object to pay for his coffee. The metal object was called a 'Money Disk,'" but everyone just called it a credit card cause it looked like one, except there were no real writing on it, no name, no number, it just looked like a grey metal card that was half the size of a regular credit card.

"ID please," the man behind the counter asked.

Dave placed his left wrist on the table. The man scanned it, then nodded.

There were no discernible markings on Dave's wrist, but in 2025, people are given an identification chip placed in their left wrist.

At the age of fifteen, people were 'advised' to get their identification chip put in.

What they left unsaid was that if you don't get it put in, you will never make any money cause the American dollar was a thing of the past, now the country doesn't have tangible assets, now we use what they call 'Credits,' and anything else will not be accepted in any stores.

The man handed Dave's card back. He accepted it and walked out of the store.

He was halfway back to his truck when someone walked up to him.

"Hey, you got any money to spare? I lost my job and have three kids to feed," he asked when he got near Dave.

Dave rolled his eyes, and he would never understand why people begged for money when anyone could get on welfare nowadays.

"No, I don't, and this is my last day I'll have a job, so I have no money to spare," Dave said, annoyed.

You could give someone money with the Money Disk, and it was as simple as getting on an app on your phone and putting in the man's identification number, then placing the amount you want to give.

Not that he would have even considered giving the homeless man any money anyway, the guy hadn't looked like he's missed a meal in his life.

He looked like he had a hundred pounds on Dave at the very least, and Dave knew he was overweight.

Dave always thought about losing weight but never found the time, or he would make an excuse not to, out of laziness.

Dave walked past the guy ignoring his sob story, and headed to his truck.

"Give me your wallet, and nobody gets hurt," the bum said from behind him.

Dave turned around slowly

and noticed the bum had a knife in his hand.

Dave felt his hands going above his head automatically, and he hadn't even realized they were moving until they were almost above his head.

"Alright, you can have my wallet," Dave said reassuringly. "I'm just going to reach over and grab it, so let's just calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! And if you so much as move that arm another inch, you'll be sorry," the bum said almost in a shout.

Dave brought his arm back over his head.

"Now turn around, I'll grab your wallet, don't worry, you can trust me." "Hold on, let's,"

"I said turn around!" the bum shouted, interrupting Dave's attempt at defusing the situation.

The bum waved the knife at Dave threateningly, waving it from side to side.

Dave decided he had enough, and he lunged himself at the bum. His hand grabbed hold of the bums' wrist that was holding the knife and twisted.

There was a pained cry, and the knife fell to the ground.

Dave didn't let up though, mere moments after the knife fell out of the man's hand, he struck the mans face hard with his other arm, there was a loud thudding sound as his fist knocked the bum clean off his feet, he hit the ground a couple of feet away.

Dave was glad he took some martial arts in high school.

He kicked the knife away, and he watched it skid across the parking lot.

He heard a gunshot and knew he screwed up, his gaze locked into the bum, in his hand, there was a gun pointing straight at him, while the tip of the gun had smoke coming out of it.

He looked down, noticing there was blood flowing out of a hole in his stomach.

It wasn't long before the blood-soaked his entire front side, running down his legs and onto the ground.

Dave clutched the wound; still, in shock, he stumbled a few steps back, before falling face-first into the pavement.

It didn't take long for the pain to come to him at full force.

He screamed out; he had never felt pain like this before in his life. It felt like someone stabbed a hot poker inside his stomach and left it in there.

He felt warm tears falling down his face. He also vaguely felt someone dig into his back pocket and steal his wallet.

Dave wasn't sure how long he lay there, wishing he would just die to relieve him of the pain he was feeling.

Now his body just felt cold. His wound felt numb and was no longer hurting.

He struggled and got himself turned around onto his back. If he was going to die, he might as well enjoy watching the stars one final time before he left this world.

There was a splattering sound when he got himself onto his back, as the warm red liquid underneath him was disturbed.

Dave saw what he could only describe as a massive wave of white light heading right towards him.

The wave of light seemed to go on forever, engulfing what seemed like the whole world.

What is that light? Is that the light you see when you're about to die? Does that mean I'm going to die? But why does the light seem to be more solid than not? That doesn't make any sense. It's also not producing any light outside of itself, how strange.

It didn't take long before the mysterious wave of white light enveloped Dave's whole body.

The white light covered his entire body turning his insides warm.

The pain In his body was gone now, and it wasn't even put in the background. It was gone like it was never there from the beginning.

He tried getting up but figured out he still was too weak even to move his arms, let alone his whole body.

He noticed a strange feeling in his lower body as if his feet were no longer there, and it felt so weird he decided to lift his head to investigate.

It took a lot of energy for him to lift his head far enough to see his feet; he wished he hadn't looked, though, for what he saw was far more terrifying than the gunshot wound in his stomach.

His feet were no longer there. Instead, there was a white light coming out of his shins and working its way up to his body.

Wherever the light passed, ashes was all that was left, as it was carried away by the wind.

It wasn't long before the light had reached Dave's chest. The rest of his body turned to ash and was blown away by the wind before his very own eyes.

"Help, please, someone help me," Dave said barely more than a whisper.

He wasn't ready to die, and he hadn't even started a family of his own. He never experienced what it was like to get drunk, high, or even lay with a woman before.

He was too busy working for anything else and never found the time.

"Anyone, please help," he said again, this time not even he could hear his words. His whole body was turned to ash, and no one came to his rescue. His pleas were utterly unanswered.