1 CHAPTER ONE : END OF THE WORLD

The world ends tomorrow, and I get to live.

That's a big statement, isn't it? It's true though. For the last couple of years, we knew the world was ending. A cataclysmic meteor is due to hit the planet tomorrow there is no stopping it. I was standing in line waiting to board a massive ship, a ship meant to hold seven hundred million people. Ten percent of the world's population.

I grabbed my ruffled black hair and sighed, "This boarding process is taking a while." I muttered turning my head to see a line of people going back as far as the eye could see. Another step forward and another. I'll give them one thing they aren't letting this line stop. I looked ahead maybe another thousand people were in front of me.

"Have you figured out what class you are going for yet?" A woman said poking me on the shoulder.

"It's a big choice. I'm still thinking about it." I responded. I wasn't lying the character class we choose is stuck with us for our entire lives. I spent days watching videos on tier lists on all the classes and how the whole system worked. The class known as Cryoblade was on the bottom while classes like Flamelord and Lightningblade are on top.

"I'm going to be a Cryomage." She said happily as we took another foot forward.

"A Cryomage huh? Cryomages are seen pretty much in the middle of the road. They don't have high DPS in dungeons but they have the most CC out of all classes. In any party, they are a must but they can never solo clear any dungeon or field play. I don't know about having to rely on other people just to make a living." I said to the girl. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Her eyes widened seemingly in shock, "You put more thought into this than you look, but isn't it a good thing to rely on others. Being needed is a good thing isn't it?" She questioned with the same dumb smile on her face.

We moved further up. We have been making gradual steps I couldn't remember the last time we were actually standing still in line. "I'll figure it out when I get up there," I said quietly looking ahead there was now maybe a hundred people ahead of me. I stood on the ramp of the ship this was it the last time I'd be moving my body around. Our lives on this ship will be entirely in the virtual world. It could be thousands of years until we land on a planet where we can survive... something I'd never see.

"Are you scared?" The woman asked me. It seemed she was desperate for conversation. Maybe she was scared and this was her way of coping.

I thought about her question for a moment. I didn't have anyone. No family no friends really except people I met online. I didn't really have any schooling besides high school. I mean I planned on going to college but the announcement of doomsday was made the day after my high school graduation. All schooling was canceled including college. I turned around and looked at her, I tried to reflect the same wide smile she had frozen on her face, "No, I'm not scared. I'm seeing all this as a new start."

"You must've had a hard life." She said with a more serious look growing on her face.

I sighed, "I guess." I looked behind her as I walked backward with the line. Everyone in the line looked to be about thirty and under. I knew the qualifications were forty but they probably had them at the end of the line. Some kids were in the line but they were few and far in between.

"Name?"

I turned around noticing I was at the entrance to the ship. Two large men with full metal armor stood imposingly looking down at me. I did my best to smile even though my heart was racing in my chest, "Adam Ronin."

The soldier on my left briefly looked down at the tablet in his hand and nodded his head, "You're on the list. Go to the left."

I followed his command and went to the hallway to the left. I smiled listening to the metal clanging sounds that my feet made as I walked. The hallway I was in was thin and metallic. I approached a door that automatically opened up, revealing a massive room with a countless number of egg-like structures. People were laying in them. I continued to walk forward and was greeted by a woman in a white lab coat with black-rimmed glasses and long bleachy blonde hair.

"You seem nervous," She said with a smile pressing a button on a remote as an empty egg structure came down to my left. The one that was there and occupied rose up the ceiling. "Strip." She said her steely blue eyes beaming at me through those glasses.

I nodded my head and did what I was told even though this room held a countless number of people not to mention that I never was naked in front of a woman before. My face was blushed red, but I didn't have much time to be embarrassed as the woman walked up to me putting something on my neck. I immediately went limp. I couldn't move a single part of my body... or even breathe.

She lifted me up and put me in the egg it closed over me with a clear glass top. I still couldn't breathe I knew I had to be turning bluer by the second. I watched in horror as tubing began to attach to me impaling themselves into my veins and nerves. It was freakishly painful that felt like stabs all over my body. The egg began filling up with a thick viscous light green liquid. I haven't been able to breathe in a long time. Things started to go black as I lost consciousness from the lack of oxygen.

It was like the changing of a channel. I was standing in blackness with the words "WELCOME TO THE REST OF YOUR LIFE." Moving across my vision.

"Thought I was going to die." I said quietly to myself, "They weren't kidding that getting in here wouldn't be pleasant. The blackness around me slowly started to fade away I was sitting on the moon looking at the Earth. A timer appeared above my vision. "What's that for?" I questioned to myself realizing quickly that it was the countdown timer for earth's destruction.

Sixteen hours and fourteen minutes until a meteor the size of a planet hits earth and destroys everything. Destroys my old home and all the life that's left behind. Part of me felt guilty... Why did I get this chance to live when so many people didn't? That feeling didn't last long, because I realized that matter of thinking wouldn't make anything better for me or for anyone.