Six years ago ( part 1: The dome has been broken! )

  The 15th of January 2078 was a typical rainy day outside the dome since we were in the coldest month of the year. But the thing that made that special, negatively, was that for the first time after 10 years, the people inside the city which was supposed to be covered with the crystal cage sensed the drops of water falling onto their skins…

It wasn’t the feeling itself, the strange thing. Almost everyone there had the habit of going to the uncovered areas from time to time for different reasons.

A young boy sat hugging his knees in a corner of a cracked road to take a brief break, watching people pass by, after passing long nights of hard work to keep damage to its minimum. It was raining cats and dogs.

The rain had turned the narrow-cracked road muddy, and there were a surprising number of people travelling on it, or sitting in protest, making a fuss about something, or even fighting for no solid reason.

An elderly man, who had not received rations, was gnawing at the roots of trees using all the force that he had within his weakened body, injured by bomb shrapnel. He was trying his best to stave off his hunger, but before reaching his goal, his eyes bulged, and he lost consciousness.

Even if it wasn’t the boy’s responsibility to save people, he couldn’t help but feel a small feeling of guilt growing slowly yet surely in his heart. He couldn’t force himself to look directly at that scene since, like most people who had once had no choice but to eat grass and bark; he knew it would make him sick.

The boy who thought, in the near past, that World's End was only a TV show based on fiction and fantasy, saw, and for the first time in his life, a hell on earth. He found himself stuck in a black fantasy like the ones he tried to read when he was younger but hated them from the depth of his small heart. He hated them because he thought that life can never be that cruel and yet there he was, living in that hell…

The young boy would’ve never guessed that this might happen. No one actually did...

For him, it was for the simple reason: He was very young when all the major events of the century happened.

A big event he only saw in a documentary was the nuclear bomb ‘Despair 4’ that wiped an entire country from the globe. Even his parents were maybe kids when such a massacre happened.

It was only 10 years ago when the United Nations declared the start of the new era as they presented proudly the image of the new earth as a world where lethal weapons were only given to patrolling android police officers also known as security bots and a percentage of 97% of the cities around the globe protected with crystal domes the burning heat of the sun and the ultraviolet radiation outside of their cities.

If the boy was fully conscious, he would have easily spotted a bald-headed man who was selling small pieces of crushed biscuits at an exorbitant price and whose pockets were filled with bills of money that were basically useless scraps of paper at that time. The man’s skin looked so pale. He was skin and bones and he seemed to be the most in need of nutrition.

People were leaving their homes and all their possessions, fleeing towards Tokyo. Most of them had lost one of their families. But even the capital could not accommodate refugees from all over the nation. And travel wasn’t as easy as it was before building those domes…

To travel from one city to another, you must take the subway as they are the only method to go from town to town in the same country or continent.

Meanwhile, if you wish to travel to a different country, you’ve got to leave the area covered with that crystal dome to take the airplane. None of this was possible during this chaos.

As the accident kept getting worse by the day, the number of dead people became countless. It was impossible to make proper funeral ceremonies for them. Essentially, after the spread of an epidemic disease, it was hard to distinguish between those who died in an explosion and those who died after being infected with sickness.

The dead were either piled on top of one another and then burned or, recently, to save fuel, they were being thrown into a mass grave and covered with dust and dirt. The air became thick with the smell of burnt corpses and carrions.

Suddenly, the boy was overcome with a great listlessness, and his consciousness faded away. He didn’t know what he should do. He didn’t have a place to go home to, either. His father, when the serial accidents started, disappeared, leaving him behind. His grandfather was just found killed days before that.

His mother was the only one left to take care of him. But he simply couldn’t get in touch with her for many years. The boy’s eyes were filled with tears, but he couldn’t cry. He was holding them back with a lot of effort.

In his right hand, the young one was holding a sword that looked like a Katana, while it had nothing similar to it aside from the looks. A prototype of a new type of weapon that was made to be used by humans who had never implanted electronic devices into their bodies. That was a gift from his father.

Just after the alarm in the city started ringing on the first day of the incident, he gave him the blade saying that he should use this gift only when the boy sees that the time for that has come.

Luck wasn’t by the boy’s side in those days. He wished to die but then felt that he wasn’t yet ready to give up on his life so easily.

Suddenly, he heard a loud voice coming from a mile away. He was certain that if he hadn’t run towards the source of the sound, he would have regretted that hesitation for the rest of his life.

Even though people were running in the opposite direction of the one he was taking, his resolve to reach his destination was immeasurable. He didn’t think twice before running, and not even once when it came to the consequences of his actions that defied every single law of wisdom.

His feeling of unease about the sound had a solid reason. Screams and walls of an orphanage falling down to the street. This is the scene he found when he arrived. This orphanage was so dear to him. He used to go there every day, playing with the kids and sharing laughter and tears.

They were the only ones who had the courage to talk to the boy casually and become friends with him… Before the scene he found, his blood boiled, and he understood that the so-called government’s efforts to keep everyone safe were just too insufficient. Some children were thrown on the ground.

“… They are dead now. If I only had come a bit earlier, if I hadn’t fallen into despair on the city’s road, I could have saved them… I am just so worthless!” That’s what he thought. Meanwhile, he saw some survivors trying to escape from something. He was happy to at least find some survivors. “… At least it was worth the effort.” A smile started to appear on his sad face as he whispered.

He looked at them with a happy face full of tears and then screamed as loud as he could so they could hear him in all the noises surrounding them: “… Come over here! You’re safe now!” The orphanage’s kids were so happy to see him standing there waiting for them to ensure their safety, but they were so terrified at the same time.

At the moment when they got so close to their hero, the remains of the orphanage simply exploded. A moment later, a man dressed in white clothes appeared from the fire…

“… So, we finally met! Those white clothes, that bloodlust that I can sense from here, 10 meters away from you, and those shiny black metallic arms. You’re one of the first test subjects of the half-android humans! It looks like you’re the one who’s responsible for the damage that happened in this area. You’re the one who exploded the crystal dome!”

“… Well! What do we have here? To think that some random boy knows this much about us! I shall reward you for your professional research and hard work, even though there are some mistakes…”

The boy’s face became pale out of rage as he was preparing himself to attack, but when he heard the words of this monster, he mumbled, “… Mistakes!! You said mistakes?” A devilish smile spread across the face of the villain as he laughed: “… You see, the explosions were not only in this pathetic city or only in this country. After all, my colleagues and I received direct orders from the boss to cause destruction and chaos in all the east of Asia. This city is just one of the targets we choose… You are just unlucky that one of our targets is living here. In this chaos where all the government efforts are deployed to rescue the citizens, I can execute our plan perfectly.”

Suddenly, the look on his face became a serious one… The boy was stunned, or so he pretended. While the awkward silence was ruling over the place for some seconds, the children kept running in a straight line with all the force that was left in their weakened bodies.

“… Aah! I think I said too much. They always warned me to keep my mouth shut when facing an enemy… I hope the boss won’t get angry when he knows what happened. This is bad! Why did I even come with him to this city exactly! If we went to Osaka or Yokohama…”