Ethan Kane was running through the university hallway. His shoes hit the floor loudly as he turned a corner. He was breathing fast. His black hair flowed through the air and his black eyes were wide open. He looked at his watch and noticed that he was going to be late.

  “Oh no!” Thought Ethan.

  He was late for a special event. This event would determine 80% of the students' grades. This special event was held every semester by their professor. He would split the class into teams of three and let them work on projects on certain themes.

  Ethan was in a team with Lila Harper and Ryan Adler.

  Meanwhile at the event room.

  Ryan was looking at Lila as she stared at the clock. He noticed that she was getting angrier since Ethan was late. The professor wouldn’t let a team start working on the project until all three members of the team were present.

  “I have to tell her something… before she gets out of control,” said Ryan to himself. He slowly built the courage to speak but was still nervous. “Hey, Lila… We can still win, you know? There’s no reason to be so angry.”

  Lila looked at Ryan slowly and said, “Win? What do you mean, win?” Lila was trying to keep her voice down. “Ethan is 30 minutes late. Other teams have almost finished their projects already. I’m going to fail this class and then my future is destroyed—”

  Ryan didn’t hear anything else from Lila as he was lost in his thoughts. “Please, Ethan, come quick before Lila kills me…”

  The quiet talking in the room stopped when Ethan slammed the door open. Everyone looked at him as he was breathing heavily.

  “Ethan, you’re late,” said the professor, annoyed. “I thought we talked about this. Didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again!” responded Ethan.

  “We will talk about your behavior later. Now go, your team has been waiting.” As the professor said this, he pointed toward their team’s table.

  Ethan looked over and saw Lila glaring at him.

  He slowly approached their table. “Hey, guys!”

  As he got closer, he thought to himself, “I shouldn’t have been lazy. Now Lila hates me more. How am I going to make her fall for me if I keep making her angry? Her blonde hair and green eyes, they’re too beautiful.”

  Ryan greeted him back and then hinted to Ethan that Lila was mad.

  Lila slowly looked at Ethan and said, “You should know how important these grades are for me, right?”

  Ethan scratched the back of his head. “I’m so sorry, there was just heavy traffic and I couldn’t come in time—”

  Lila didn’t let Ethan finish his sentence. “Stop with those excuses. Because of you, other teams have a 30-minute advantage, and there’s no way we can get good grades from this! Do you even know the theme we are working on?”

  Ryan had to step in to de-escalate the situation. “Hey Lila, that’s enough. I think he already understands.” Ryan leaned back, expecting Lila to throw something at him, but she didn’t. “Ethan, today’s theme is wireless control. Me and Lila thought about building an RC car with a controller. Lila is going to design the car, you will design the circuit, and I will handle the code for it. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!” responded Ethan happily.

  The team started working on the project. Minutes passed and their project was coming to an end.

  “Time’s up, everyone!” yelled the professor. “I will call out team leaders and their teams will present their projects to everyone.”

  A few presentations later, it was time for Team Lila’s project presentation.

  “All right, well done Team Sam. I really loved your idea!” The professor looked at his list and announced the next team. “Next up we have Team Lila! Please come forward.”

  “Hello everyone. We decided to make an RC car which is controlled via this controller,” said Lila, pointing toward the controller. “This car uses really strong motor wheels and can reach over 20 meters per second.”

  After the presentation, Ryan grabbed a controller and showcased the car to everyone. Everyone loved the car and the professor was impressed.

  “Wow, that was impressive,” said the professor. “Making an RC car for a contest? That’s such a risky move for a project this big.”

  Ryan was so proud. He loved it when he got acknowledged for his work. He was always trying to show his professor how good he was.

  Team Lila was looking at each other amazed since they had never gotten a perfect grade.

  “See, Lila? We didn’t lose, did we?” laughed Ryan. “We actually won with a perfect grade!”

  “I’m so happy,” Lila looked over at Ethan. “Even though we won, that doesn’t mean you will be late for the next event as well. If you’re late one more time—”

  “Hey Lila,” Ryan interrupted, not letting her finish. “Don’t worry about that. The semester is about to end. The professor will pick new teams for the next semester.”

  Lila nodded her head. She understood that she was never going to be on a team with Ethan again.

  There was silence between them for a minute. They knew this was the last time they would work together.

  “Shouldn’t we celebrate this?” wondered Ethan. “We never amazed the professor like this. He was truly shocked!”

  “I guess it’s worth celebrating,” Lila stared at the ceiling. “Maybe we should go to Brightwood Park? It would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

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  “Yeah, I like that idea,” replied Ethan. “Ryan, you’re coming too, right?”

  “A park? Come on, That’s too childish for someone as intelligent as me,” Ryan adjusted his glasses. “I’m working on this one project to impress the professor, so I don’t want to waste time on that.”

  Lila looked at Ryan weirdly. “You will come, right?”

  Ryan knew what would happen next if he didn’t agree to come. “Of course I’m coming. How could I miss it?”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Lila. “We will meet at the front entrance at 9.”

  Time passed. The team met each other at the front entrance and went to Brightwood Park.

  Brightwood Park is one of the most popular and beautiful parks in Brightwood City.

  They were having a really good time: eating popcorn, talking, laughing, and riding roller coasters.

  There were a lot of people. Cheerful music played throughout the park, blending with the joyful laughter of children.

  Meanwhile, 400 kilometers above Earth, a weird object was heading toward Earth.

  One of the main commanders in a command center entered the main room. Suddenly, one of the employees ran up to them.

  “Sir, our satellites have noticed this unidentified meteor-like object heading toward Earth,” said one of the orbital analysts. “We did multiple calculations and at first we thought there was a 0% chance of impact, but that percentage grew for some reason. We double-checked all gravity that might act on the asteroid, but something is dragging it toward Earth. For now, the percentage is at 100%.”

  “100%? Are you crazy?” the commander was shocked.

  “No. We don’t know clearly what areas will be affected because of the unpredictable movement of this asteroid, but we have estimated the areas it might hit, which is written on this document.” The orbital analyst pointed to the document. “We will have to warn everyone about this.”

  The commander took the document. “I will contact the government right away!”

  Meanwhile, in Brightwood Park

  Ryan was starting to fall behind Ethan and Lila. He was getting tired of walking.

  “Hey, let’s sit down for a minute,” said Ryan. “I’m tired of all this walking.”

  “Yeah, I would like a little break as well,” agreed Ethan.

  The trio sat down on a bench looking up at the sky, feeling peace and happiness.

  But unfortunately, this peace wouldn’t last for long.

  Suddenly, the peaceful silence was broken by nuclear siren sounds and mobile phone ringtones.

  “What’s going on?!” wondered everyone.

  Ethan's heartbeat got faster. He was scared. He looked around. The cheerful park music was completely silenced by the siren sounds. Everyone started to scream and run.

  The happiest day for Ethan quickly turned to the worst day.

  Ethan’s hands were shaking, but he had to check what was going on. He slowly looked down at his phone.

  THIS IS NOT A DRILL. COMMAND CENTER HAS FOUND AN ASTEROID WHICH IS GOING TO IMPACT EARTH IN AROUND 1 HOUR AND 7 MINUTES.

  WE SUGGEST NOT TO PANIC AND TO LEAVE THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

  ….

  “No…” said Ethan to himself. “That’s… that’s where my parents live!”

  Ethan looked up. The situation got worse. More screams from the kids and the people in the park.

  “We have to run!” screamed Lila. “Brightwood is listed as one of the areas it’s going to hit!”

  Lila and Ryan stood up and started to run toward Ryan’s car.

  Ryan looked back. “Ethan, hurry up! We have to go!”

  Ethan was staring at the floor. It took a few seconds to hear his friends’ voices. He couldn’t move.

  Ethan slowly looked at them and said, “No… I can’t.” Lila and Ryan looked at him confused. “I have to check on my parents. They live in the area it said will be hit.”

  Lila and Ryan stood and stared at Ethan, not knowing what to say.

  “You guys go,” said Ethan as he started to move back. “I will go check on my parents!”

  As Ethan was running toward the west exit of the park, he called his brother.

  Lila was staring back at Ethan. She didn’t know what to do at this moment. Follow her friend and help him? Or save herself? As she was thinking quickly, Ryan grabbed her hand and pulled her since she was not moving.

  Meanwhile, Ethan was waiting for his brother to pick up.

  “Come on… come on, pick up!” thought Ethan to himself.

  Suddenly, the call was answered.

  “Hello?” said Ethan’s brother.

  “Connor, have you heard about an asteroid?” asked Ethan.

  “Yes, I did. I saw that our parents' house is one of the affected areas. I will pick you up. Where are you?”

  “I’m running toward the west exit of Brightwood Park. Hurry up, we don’t have that much time. Dad’s car is broken down, you remember? We have to hurry.”

  The brothers met up and Ethan sat down in Connor's car.

  48 minutes before impact.

  Ethan and Connor finally arrived at their parents’ house. Both the front and back yards were full of green nature and beautiful flowers.

  They got out of the car and saw bags in front of the door. Their dad walked out of the front door with a few more bags.

  “Dad!” screamed Ethan.

  “Boys! How are you?” said their dad. “We didn’t know you would arrive at this moment. We were planning on escaping using my boat since it’s faster to sail across Turtle Lake in this situation.”

  “Where’s mom?” asked Connor.

  “She’s packing her bags on the second floor,” answered their dad. “Help me set up the boat. She will come down soon.”

  They set up the boat, brought all the bags into it, and waited for their mom to arrive.

  Ethan looked up. “Dad… Connor… I think we don’t have that much time anymore.”

  Everyone looked up and realized that the asteroid would hit even sooner than they expected.

  “Oh, this is bad,” their dad started looking around. “Ethan, go tell your mother to hurry up. And Connor, help me move this boat down into the water so we can sail as soon as your mother arrives.”

  Ethan went looking for his mother in the house. From the kitchen window, he saw that she was in the backyard collecting her grandfather’s gnomes. Ethan walked out into the backyard.

  Suddenly, a blue circular cloud appeared in the backyard.

  “What the hell is that…” Ethan was confused.

  Out of nowhere, a human figure was thrown out of the portal. It was thrown so fast that it crashed into the kitchen wall with a deafening thud, shards of glass flying everywhere.

  “What… What’s that…” Ethan couldn’t move as he was too scared.

  Meanwhile, near Turtle Lake.

  “Huh, what was that noise back there?” wondered Connor.

  “Ah, it’s probably your mother dropping some stuff,” said their dad. “That means they are coming.”

  Out of the same portal, a slightly bigger dark blue glitched figure came out. Ethan hid behind the door as he was way too scared. His mother was scared as well and stared at the dark blue glitch figure. Ethan looked toward the kitchen and saw the second figure more clearly.

  Ethan looked back toward the backyard and saw how a dark blue glitched figure was moving toward his mother. Ethan couldn’t do anything because he was too scared, just like his mother.

  End of Chapter 1.

  In the next chapter, see how these events will unfold. Will Ethan do something about these figures? What do these figures want?

  Find out next time!

  Estimated release for the next chapter: 5/24/2025