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"I don't know."

?? of ????? of ???? at ??:??

Philip opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything, an intense gray mist covered the place.

It looks like ash.

As he stood up, he realized he was on the asphalt.

"There are no volcanoes here, and I doubt the smoke from a fire would cover such a wide area."

He tried to make sense of what was happening. He felt something running down his face, he passed his fingers over it, it was blood. He had a large wound on his head.

"What happened?"

His field of vision was just over a meter and a half. He didn't want to walk without knowing where to go, but it was better than staying there waiting for help that he didn't know if he would receive. As he moved around, he saw cars scattered randomly and even one embedded high up in a building.

There wasn't a single person in sight, as if humanity had been erased and he was the only survivor. If he tried to make sense of the situation, his head hurt.

"There's no way I can find an answer with so little information."

He continued walking for an uncertain amount of time, since his electronic bracelet wasn't working, along with the traffic lights and any other electronic device he found. Just when he was about to lose hope of finding anything other than empty buildings and cars, a very bright light appeared at the end of the street he was walking on. It was purple and intense enough to illuminate several meters through the thick gray fog. Philip cautiously approached it, not knowing what awaited him.

Philip continued to approach the light slowly. The mist grew denser with each step, so he was careful not to trip. He arrived in a wide area where there was no fog, no cars, no buildings. The only thing there was a crater much larger than the one left on June 21 in the center of the city. The only difference was that this one was much less deep, about three meters deep, he estimated. In the center of that hole, about 10 meters in the sky, was what was causing the light he saw. He stood at the edge of the crater and saw that it wasn't just one light, but seven lights very close to each other. As he tried to visualize what was emitting them, something pushed him from behind, a gentle touch. He rolled several meters inside the enormous hole. Inside the crater, unlike the one created on June 21, there was no dust from the disintegration, caused by dark energy, of buildings, plants, animals, and humans. It was just an empty space.

"What is this, was there a space earthquake?"

After thinking about that, which was a joke to himself to relieve tension, he analyzed some possibilities of what could have happened and ruled them all out.

"Dark energy would leave dust, a meteorite would leave much more traces. Agggh, I can't think of anything else."

He looked up again, the 7 purple lights were still there, but being closer, he could distinguish better what was producing them.

He couldn't help but widen his eyes as much as his eye sockets would allow. What he saw left him completely stunned.

The lights were being produced by humans, specifically psychics. He couldn't distinguish their faces or even their genders, but he knew they were human figures. He reached out his arm in a futile attempt to reach those lights; he wanted to reach them because they looked like deities in his eyes. At that moment, everything around him started to disappear, turning into small particles of light. Philip ignored that and became absorbed in the seven figures in front of him.

"Why? Why is all this happening? It doesn't make sense."

Absolute darkness surrounded him, everything around

him had vanished, and he too began to disappear.

"Why are you doing this? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

Everything turned into darkness.

...

A voice echoed in that intense darkness.

"In that case, can I give you my dream? It's something I can't fulfill, several things prevent it, but... It's something I don't want to leave behind, even if it's impossible for me to make it come true."

"If you don't know what to wish for, I will entrust you with my wish. What do you say?"