1 Chapter 1: The Beginning

For as long as I can remember, I've always been calm when it comes to the topic of death. It subtly surrounded me from early childhood, making me pay more attention to it as time went on. Initially, it was bedtime stories from my mother and grandmother, followed by cartoons, and of course, evening war movies with my father. In each of them, the theme of death was present as an important stage in the life of every character. I couldn't help but be interested, but it wasn't all that simple.

While my parents avoided introducing me to the subject of death, aging, and the inevitability of their children's end to avoid traumatizing fragile young minds, I was a curious little boy. Despite their prolonged attempts to keep me in the dark, I eventually learned to read, which became my key to that hidden door. If you can't get answers directly from those around you, find them in the writings of those very people. So, I did.

I first encountered the concept of mortality in encyclopedias that were given to me for studying pictures and descriptions of not only contemporary but also ancient Earth's wildlife.

Among various descriptions of size, behavior, dietary habits, and habitat range, one single phrase caught my attention: "lifespan."

It varied depending on many factors: habitat, conditions, species, or the specific individual. But despite the differences, there was one absolute for each of them — One year... Two... Thirty... One hundred... or sometimes even counted in days and weeks, which is typical for insects. And finally, humans... seventy to eighty years.

At that time, I asked everyone I knew, "What is this lifespan thing?" It was more about confirming the fact than a lack of understanding. Back then, I was interested in answers to questions like, "Does life really have an end? Why are we born if this awaits us? Does it mean it will happen to me too?" Naive but quite grown-up questions.

They answered me reluctantly, evasively, "Well... Everything gets old and 'goes away' eventually." But where exactly they "go," they didn't explain to me, citing my very young age.

But now I know for sure, without embellishment or evasion, that for most, a dull epilogue awaits, one that no one will ever remember. Illness, the wear and tear of the body, and simple chance cannot be avoided, no matter how hard you try. A simple person is powerless against these phenomena, no matter how simple they may seem.

Years of my childhood passed, and I encountered it, you could even say personally. The slaughtering of cows, sheep, chickens, and other livestock for food in the village. Of course, such things were not shown to a child, but the fact of the deed remained.

Then came the death of my kind grandmother, who prepared various treats and always had candies to reward her favorite grandson for helping with household chores. My grandfather, who introduced me to nature, taught me how to fish, build shelters from branches and leaves, and acquainted me with chemistry and physics using the tools and books he used during his time as a university professor.

There were numerous deaths of relatives in my environment, as well as of pets and many other less significant ones.

In my more mature years, there were moments when we, as hyperactive teenagers, escaped our parents' control and engaged in various dangerous activities. We climbed onto roofs, ran through abandoned buildings, evaded homeless people and wild dogs, and I can tell you, there were plenty of moments where life and death were separated by just a few seconds, a few centimeters, if not less.

They say if you think about something a lot, it will inevitably come true, right?

"Well, they were right," I said calmly, not because I was not scared at all, but only because I had already accepted an unconditional fate that seemed to have been destined for me since birth, as I uttered the words that evaporated into the air, carried away by the steam coming from my mouth.

A rather out-of-place statement, if you say it out of the blue, right in the middle of the street. It would, at the very least, make passersby give you strange looks, prompting them to question your sanity or assume you have a hidden earpiece under your hat with someone talking to you. But unfortunately, no one was there to look at me, to show their "strangeness" with their talking glances, or even to ignore me after a brief glance and realization.

One of the most popular squares for the residents of a small town, where groups of teenagers liked to hang out, chatting about recently released games and movies. They enthusiastically discussed them with fizzy or energy drinks in hand, despite the cold, talking about their day at school or extracurricular activities, not sparing any swear words to demonstrate their "maturity."

Workers and students who had spent the entire day in classrooms and offices, only finishing their hard day's work in the evening, conversed about life while sipping coffee or cocoa from their cups, warming their bodies on cold, pre-Christmas days.

The only thing left of all this was the traces on the white snow and the deafening wails of sirens, car horns, and the distant cries of people.

Everyone tried to save themselves: some hid in bunkers, hoping to survive, some ran around in despair, some, like me, resigned themselves and simply waited, and some of the most unyielding either slept or engaged in something else, unaware of what awaited them soon.

I sat on one of the many empty white benches, matching the color of the snowdrifts. In my right hand, I held a voluminous cup clearly meant for hot drinks, to be enjoyed in a dark, cozy room illuminated only by colorful garlands, under a warm blanket, while watching some cartoon, anime, or a movie like "Home Alone."

My left hand held a green bottle of alcoholic beverage, one of the most expensive I found on the shelves.

Although I did drink alcohol, I didn't do it very often and, consequently, didn't have much expertise in it. It made me extremely drowsy, and my overly strict parents, with whom I lived until I came of age, instilled in me the dangers of alcohol from childhood, even though they stopped drinking after an unpleasant incident. All of this together kept me away from drinking, which I was actually grateful for.

Setting the cup aside, I tried to open the bottle, but the annoying wrapper, covered with some kind of plastic layer resembling a lollipop, began to irritate me. "Who was the idiot who thought to decorate the bottle like this for the New Year? Couldn't they just leave the factory cap and tie a ribbon around the neck for the holiday?" I clicked my tongue, deciding not to waste time on futile attempts to peel off this annoyance and, in the old-fashioned way, tapped the bottle cap against the rim of a nearby trash bin a couple of times. This trash bin, like a devouring monster, eagerly swallowed the shattered glass.

"I seem to be going crazy," I chuckled, shaking my head, dismissing the irrelevant thoughts.

As I picked up the set-aside dishes, I decided to take a closer look at the rather vivid design on the brown background. A smiling Santa, in his red, holiday outfit, extended a blue gift box from under the slightly open lid, inside which a drawn orange gemstone gleamed, generously sprinkled with glitter for added realism. Although in reality, it looked quite "cheap," I didn't bother dwelling on it.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Especially when a very real, much brighter, and larger stone from the depths of distant space falls from the sky, bringing destruction with it.

"Why wasn't it reported long before entering the atmosphere?" I began to ponder this quite reasonable question, with a hint of bitterness in my throat. But without waiting for an answer to my question, I simply waved it off, saying, "Forget it," to avoid burdening myself with pointless questions and becoming like the panicking crowd.

The green bottle, on which there was a picture of a predatory animal with English writing that I couldn't be bothered to read, slightly trembled in my hand as it poured out amber liquid. The quick stream of it playfully reflected the surrounding light, resembling numerous stars in the night sky, which I would never see again.

As I poured the drink halfway, I noticed the reflection of the asteroid, yellow-red from burning in the atmosphere. It matched perfectly with the beige bottom of the glass and the spicy alcohol, making me raise my head and simply watch its inevitable approach.

I was quite relaxed and didn't show any signs of concern. If someone were to look at me, they might have assumed I was an unflinching robot. However, a small, barely noticeable tear that froze on its way from my right eye, crystallizing in the cold air, and a lump in my throat served as evidence, at least to myself, that I cared deeply.

"Heh," I chuckled to myself, sighing and wiping the tear away with a glove I had put on earlier to avoid discomfort from the low temperature. "I don't want to die, at least not like this."

No matter how much I tried to deceive myself, I was genuinely afraid, to the point where I just wanted to get up and run without stopping. But I quelled those urges. "There's nowhere to run now. I should have done that fifteen minutes ago. It's too late."

*Inhale — Exhale*

"Relax," I muttered my lately favorite phrase to myself.

"There's no point in panicking; you can't change anything now," I thought, taking a sip of the stolen drink from the deserted store.

"Alcoholic crap... I don't like it," I complained disappointingly about the whiskey, then took another small sip in the hope of tasting the liquid and understanding its flavor. However, after barely swallowing it, I poured it onto the nearest snowdrift, leaving an unusual mark.

If someone else had seen it, like a random passerby, they would have simply thought that someone couldn't hold it in and did their business right on the square. But it was just me and the crappy whiskey – disgusting.

Throwing the bottle under the bench, I simply relaxed, leaning back with my hands behind my head.

"I'm weak..." I accepted this fact without any sarcasm or reproach. "If I die, then I die, what's the point of stressing out? I wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway, even if I wanted to. 'If life is such that you can't do anything, then what's the point in it?' " Having made my decision, I just watched the approaching giant rock that would end my life.

"Five..."

Counting down the time until impact, I covered my eyes from the blinding light that was now impossible to look at and waited with a touch of apathy.

"Four..."

"Three..."

"Two..."

"..."