1 Dawn Of A New World
"Compilation of 485 test results of newly discovered Substance X. Sample showed highly abnormal results, defying the commonly understood principles of chemistry and physics. In presence of the sample, energy seems to dynamically appear and disappear at random disregarding the laws of energy conservation. Noble gases abruptly become unstable and react with surrounding elements forming compounds never witnessed in the history of our planet. Living cells in vitro demonstrate periods of rapid growth and death simultaneously with the rate of mutations occurring in phenotypes appearing so fast they are visible to the naked eye. All attempts to find the cause of the phenomenon have currently failed".
Removing his hands from the keyboard, a greying man in his early 40s leant back in his chair as he surveyed the report. The fatigue of working for days on end had begun to take its toll on his mind as he couldn't help but close his eyes and massage his temples, pondering on the results of his week of hard work.
A myriad of facial expressions crossed his somewhat worn face, ranging from excitement to frustration, yet the most predominant by far was confusion.
"Burning the midnight oil again, eh V? I know this big discovery is important to you but it's not worth working yourself to the bone. I'm heading out for the night, make sure you get home and get some sleep alright?"
V made a brief nod to his colleague while his eyes remained closed, wandering within the realms of his thoughts.
The older, more rotund man couldn't help but shake his head in exasperation as he collected his belongings and headed towards the exit. Just before leaving however, he couldn't help but glance back at V with a glint of respect in his eyes. He allowed his eyes to linger on the seated man for a little longer as thoughts ran rampant through his mind.
V, this enigma of a man, was one of the leading scientists of his time. Any words that left his mouth were worth your weight in gold. There seemed to be no problem that existed in this world confounding enough to stop him.
Many may think such a person is simply born with such talent, as if the heavens preordained great things for his life. The kind of person that is born at the top of the world and yet only looks further upwards towards bigger and greater things.
Part of that might be true, but of all people, this colleague of V's could understand the true nature of his success. Gruelling, unrelenting hard work and diligence that exceeded anyone he had ever met. Never once had he seen V leave before every other person in the building had long gone home nor had he seen someone come to work earlier.
At one point he had been tempted to talk with the guys down in security to see if he even went home at night or simply fell asleep at his desk for a few hours before getting back to work.
Regardless, this man well understood that V was a legend, and for good reason. To see even this incredible figure holding his head in his hands in confusion at this situation only accentuated how crazy the state of the world had been for the last few weeks.
With a shake of the head and a slight smile, the man left, leaving V to the solitude of his thoughts.
"I've done just about every test I can think of and still nothing. I'm missing something, I must be. Something about this rock is simply beyond the current scope of human understanding. Looks like I'll have to wait to rest until I'm dead. At this rate, I can expect to get a good sleep pretty soon".
The throbbing of veins along V's temples forced him to rein in any complicated thoughts. Instead, a reminiscent mood overtook him. Every time he thought about that fateful day 3 weeks ago, he couldn't help but shiver in fear and excitement.
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*3 Weeks Ago*
V was caught in a rare moment of peace, trapped in his small uptown apartment. The decorations were minimalistic and practical, a small window illuminating the lack of any distinguishing features besides a lonely looking house plant. His work over the years had landed him a hefty fortune, enough to make anyone envious, and yet he felt no connection to material things like grand houses. After all, what use were 13 bedrooms? There was only one of him. If he had time to be at home, he could instead be working on something interesting. But that was the issue. There hadn't been anything that had truly captured V's interest in months. Even his current project was about to near a painfully disappointing conclusion.
V reluctantly clambered to his feet, locking the door behind him, without turning off the lights. He wouldn't be gone long. A short few flights of stairs to his car and a 10 minute drive to the local CDC research facility. Rain accompanied his journey, pattering in the eerie darkness of the evening sky.
With a dispirited sigh, V trudged through the rain and into the facility. Every eye in the room immediately fixed on his figure, whispers and murmurs roamed like a faint wind in the background.
"That's him!"
"I wonder if he really did it"
"Some people are about to be very unhappy"
V ignored the comments and simply barged into the head office. The dumfounded stare of the chief researcher wasn't enough to stop V from slamming a detailed report on the desk, and leaving just as quickly as he came. He only caught it for a moment, but the man was sure he could see V's eyes full of disdain.
Recovering quickly, the chief skimmed the report, his eyes only widening further and further with each passing second.
"The breakthrough of the year! No, the decade!"
The chief couldn't extricate himself from the chair, thunderstruck by what he had read. Despite that, he immediately passed the message around the department and within a minute, every man and woman present knew what V had done.
So, what was this project that V was so disappointed about?
Well, to an outsider, that disappointing project would undoubtedly be called a medical breakthrough of the ages! V had singlehandedly developed a treatment for HIV that had shown incredible results in all clinical studies and was set to be rapidly bankrolled by the large pharmaceutical companies. It showed excellent efficacy in inhibiting the destruction of CD4 T-Helper Lymphocytes, largely mitigating the progression of the disease. Naturally, V could expect a handsome compensation for his work.
V hadn't involved anyone else in the project. The CDC had commissioned his help given his stellar reputation and V had simply accepted and stated he would handle things himself.
Rushing from his office to catch the seemingly enormous shadow of V, the chief shouted
"You're a genius, a Heaven-sent genius! How? How on Earth could you of done this?"
V only laughed with contempt,
"How? I have a better Question. How could you people not think this up by now? How many years have you all worked on this disease and what's come of it? Nothing. If I ever make a company of my own, I'll be sure to hire all the monkeys in the world before I reach out to you". V had left that vicious comment as he waded through the dumfounded crowd of CDC researchers.
Nothing bored V more than easy problems, and that was just the issue: things always seemed too easy.
V had been worked on the project for 5 weeks. 5 WEEKS. And in that time, he overcame their progress of decades. Most of the researchers lay their heads low in shame at his biting words yet one woman couldn't help but vent her indignation,
"Who do you think you are coming in here and slandering the work of all of us! What gives you the right?"
V stopped dead in his tracks, a mocking smile broadening at the corners of his mouth, unbeknownst to the furious woman. Without turning, V simply left a few words and continued his exit.
"Because I'm smarter than you".
Pin-drop silence, broken only by the clattering of the closing door signalling V's exit.
As V walked towards his car to return home, the echo of a volcano erupting seemed to bellow from the laboratory.
It seemed she hadn't taken his words too kindly.
Smiling in satisfaction, V considered for a brief moment if his words had been too harsh. V had always struggled to empathise with other people, especially those who were driven by their emotions like the female researcher. He had quickly understood during his childhood that he was different. Whatever wiring was supposed to exist in his brain seemed to have suffered a major shuffle.
Remaining calm and cold was natural for V, and it had helped him in both his professional and personal life. Being an outsider had allowed him to observe 'the human condition', and V quickly became adept at manipulating other's emotions and routing out their deepest insecurities. He discovered it was a useful tool in life with the often cruel nature of the world.
V's smile only widened at the thought of his actions, he didn't regret what he said. Not for a second. He was always smarter, always better than other people for some reason or another. He didn't know why, but he did know that he would use every advantage he could to better his own life and he certainly wouldn't feel guilty about it.
Shaking away those fleeting thoughts, V lowered his hand to reach for the car door, when all the world seemed to stop in place for but a moment.
When he regained himself, V noticed his back was drenched in a thick blanket of sweat. His heart thundered in his chest, every muscle in his body screamed with the desire to run for his life.
"What is going on? What is wrong with me?" V shivered, but his questions were swiftly answered when the dark evening sky lit up like a supernova.
V was compelled to shield his eyes else he be blinded instantaneously. In the brief moment before he could react, he had managed to catch a glimpse of the spectacle that the whole world was bearing witness to right now.
A monstrous meteorite surging with divine might towards the Earth, threatening to eradicate every feeble existence in its way. It resembled the fist of a God, striking with fury the pitiful species before it.
Thoughts swirled and raged in V's head like a typhoon,
"How is this happening? How could no-one of seen this coming? Surely the government, NASA, someone would've spotted this thing if it was on a collision course with Earth?"
Laboured breaths were expelled from V's hoarse throat as he slumped down the side of his car in desolation. His body seemed to give in on its own, with V losing all control.
"So, this is it, this is how I die. I'll admit, I half expected to die at a desk, working myself into an early grave. At least if I was wrong this whole time and an afterlife really exists, I'll be able to say I went out in style"
A cold, self-deprecating smile hid the anguish in his heart.
V kept his eyes closed and thought about his family, his loving parents, his reliable older brother and problematic little sister. They were the few people in his life that made him feel something like love or affection, though he couldn't be sure he felt it the same way as others. His achievements and regrets came next. All 43 years he had lived on this planet flashed through his mind as if the game he called life had finished and his score was being evaluated.
And yet, moments continued to pass, and the catastrophic shockwaves or rupturing of the Earth that he expected to come did not. Only an eerie, heart-wrenching silence remained. Mustering some courage, V opened his eyes, and shock filled his heart.
Nothing. Everything was normal.
No more light, no destruction, no anything.
No evidence that the world almost faced its extinction.
After a short few seconds that felt like hours, even the birds began chirping again, seemingly recovering from the false alarm.
"What the hell is going on? Why am I not dead? There's no way I imagined that right?"
V knew he was a hard worker and mentally stressed at the best of times but he thought such drastic hallucinations were a little out of his league of crazy.
A few more moments let V collect himself, replacing his confusion with determination and even excitement. His weeks of boredom were eradicated and replaced with a heart-burning passion.
"Something crazy is definitely going on, something never seen before in the history of humanity. I need to be a part of it!"
V leapt to his feet, engaged his car, and returned to his home as quickly as possible.
He had some calls to make.
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*2 Days After Collision Event*
The dense undergrowth of the Amazon Rainforest sprawled for miles, encompassing everything in sight, and concealing its mysteries in a thick layer of shadows.
Jungle vines were severed from the root, reluctantly giving passage to a small group of explorers. 4 men and 2 women emerged, faint rays of sunshine seeping in through the cracks of the leafy sky. Among them, V, equipped with a backpack full of diagnostic tools, a flask of water and a small handgun, deeply inhaled the humid rainforest air.
How had V managed to end up halfway across the world, far from civilization?
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Shortly after returning home, V rampaged through his contact list. Call after call was made with curses and promises thrown around haphazardly. With the connections he had built up over his years of success, V eventually managed to wrangle a video-meeting with a high-ranking official within the government's military called Oswald. Oswald was an older man with pristine white hair slicked back and a long beard to match. Despite his age, his body seemed to exude a palpable pressure, and his demeanour commanded respect.
Letting his eagerness get the better of him, he skipped any pleasantries and barraged the man with questions, to which he was only willing to answer due to V's glowing reputation and potential usefulness.
"Here is what we know, earlier today, a world-ending event should have occurred. A meteorite large enough to annihilate the planet somehow evaded all means of detection and appeared in the Earth's outer atmosphere seemingly spontaneously. All means to prevent disaster proved ineffective. As we resigned ourselves to our pitiful fate, the object struck earth, excavating a crater in the surrounding area and then seemingly froze in place. All laws of momentum seemingly ceased to exist as the impact caused no further damage.
I'm sure you can image the faces of all of us in that moment. It would've been more believable if our drones had malfunctioned in some cruel twist of fate, but no. Things were seemingly stable, and our lives weren't in any immediate danger. Our collective sigh of relief broke the silence and we all rushed into action, liaising with the local government, and organising field teams to navigate the situation".
The official took a long sip of water to soothe his hoarse throat and heavy head.
"What we discovered next, well, it was simply in the realms of fantasy". The man seemed to age years in the seconds those words left his mouth. The video call of the phone did the man's ageing features no favours as his accumulated stress took its toll.
"What are you talking about? What did you find?" V couldn't help but let an intense gleam of excitement flash in his eyes, one that didn't go unnoticed by the official.
A hearty chuckle left the Oswald's mouth,
"Your reputation really does proceed you Professor V. A man driven by an intense desire to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Admirable indeed, and the exact reason why we would love to have your help."
With a final sigh, the man released the weight of the secrets on his shoulders,
"Life around the meteorite was found to be highly abnormal. The local flora and fauna began to rapidly change, developing characteristics never before seen. To explain it succinctly in words would be difficult, I will send over some videos we captured in these few hours".
Taking his phone in his hands as if it were the holy grail, V's mouth hung wide open, his eyes trembling in shock from what he saw.
A Jaguar suddenly sprouted a second head and tripled in size in seconds. A green anaconda began to shine with a dark light as it evaporated into the shadows. Huge scaled wings erupted from the back of a black caiman, its body warping into what could only be described as a dragon. A seemingly innocuous plant suddenly bulged and spewed masses of gas that eroded the surroundings.
The video suddenly cut to black.
V shuddered uncontrollably, falling from his seat. He didn't even get up as he lay on the floor, engrossed in his thoughts.
A vast new world had just opened up on him, one which beckoned every fibre of his being.
