The year was 2030...
Sparks flashed across the sky, while the echo of gunpowder shook the continents. World War III was that ominous period when humanity dug its own grave. The strong grew stronger; the weak were condemned to be erased by dust in the margins of history books.
2032.
Before the ashes of the burned cities had even cooled, the world's population had plummeted from 12 billion to 6 billion. The continents reeked of corpses. The World Health Organization, in its final warning, broadcast on television, spoke with a single sentence:
"Clear the corpses. At least let the dead not kill you."
But no one listened.
While states polished the inside of their walls, the outside became a wasteland. New colonizers squeezed every drop of blood from the lands they conquered, used people as fuel, and uprooted the resources.
The world—was suffocating.
2034.
Hunger was gnawing not only at the stomachs but also at the morality of humanity. The global hunger rate reached 60%. In some cities, people started licking the paint off the walls… because it contained starch.
2035.
The population halved again. Now there were only 3 billion people.
Many more lay underground.
2036.
An unknown virus scorched bodies before it could be named.
Medicines didn't help. Walls didn't help.
The world dwindled to 900 million.
And silence... reigned again.
2037.
A vaccine was discovered.
But by then, cities had fallen silent, languages had broken, and nations had turned their backs on each other. At the end of that year, humanity sat down at one table: the Earth Summit.
For the first and last time.
A single decision was made:
"Stop scattering. Bring everyone together."
And so, people—all of humanity—were united on one continent.
A United World was born.
2038.
Prosperity was artificially injected. Robots proliferated, factories operated without seeing human faces.
The word "work" became a nostalgic term in history books.
Pregnancies began to be completed in three months; babies were born in laboratory-glow, flawless gene pools.
New people... would not make the same mistakes as before.
So they thought.
2039–2041.
The years passed with announcements: "The Year of Science," "The Year of Prosperity"...
But behind the scenes, the population was growing rapidly.
2048.
Rebellions began. They were not suppressed, only postponed.
They made history repeat itself.
And finally, the inevitable happened.
2049.
The Great World War.
The united world was shattered.
People once again sought refuge in tribes, nations, and borders.
The land was divided.
But the sky was still shared...
The ashes were still there.
By 2079, the world's population had once again surpassed a single threshold:
100 million.
That night...
Humanity slept.
And opened her eyes in a completely different place.
In a world of play.
In a punishment.
In a gift.
The World of the Gods had begun.
In the night's rotten light, the woman's skin appeared like a pale haze in the frost.
Her cheap makeup had been wiped away by tears, and red lipstick smeared the corners of her lips. Her fingers still bore the marks of the customers who had scraped the night away. But she thought of nothing else now.
Only her child.
She stood there in front of the enormous mansion, a tiny shred of hope wrapped in a cloth in her arms.
For seven hours.
Her knees had cracked on the cold stone floor.
Every plea, every scream had stripped her of her dignity.
But something inside her still resisted.
"At least... a door will open."
The security guards initially tried to push the woman away.
Two used force, one only cursed. The woman fell to the ground several times, blood, mud, and rain mixing together.
But he didn't go.
He didn't go.
Finally, someone gave up. He put his fingers to the earpiece in his ear.
A click.
A short voicemail.
Half an hour later, the massive doors groaned.
A silver-haired man in a neat suit stepped out silently. He looked not at the woman, only at the child.
His gaze was dead.
Then the door opened. The woman was let in.
He disappeared into the darkness.
...An hour later.
When the woman came out... she was different now.
She looked around with dull eyes.
A slap mark still lingered red on her cheek. Her lips were bleeding.
And now... the surname the child carried in his mouth would no longer be hers.
No identity.
No rights.
Just silence.
It was as if she had become an automaton.
She walked for several hours.
Her shoes were torn, her unbandaged toes crawling over the cracks in the asphalt.
People looked at her—but no one intervened.
Because no one could save the dead.
She passed the city's decaying borders.
The buildings had skeletons, but no soul.
This was a cemetery for the forgotten.
And finally... she came to a school construction site.
Abandoned.
Cold.
Silent.
She gently laid the baby in her arms not on the concrete floor, but on a rusty sheet.
Tears welled in her eyes, but not a single tear fell.
She slowly walked away.
Disappeared into the darkness.
Without a trace.
The same night. Another street.
Lesa, weary of fate, let out another curse.
She hadn't been able to get her fortune cards read by anyone for hours.
People mocked her, young people shouted "Charlatan!" after her.
Her answer was always the same:
"You are the charlatans! Time will tell everything!"
She reached into her dirty coat and pulled out a crushed cigarette pack from her inner pocket.
It was her last cigarette.
She frowned.
She put it to her mouth and lit it.
A breath… then a cough. The street lights flickered. Raindrops lingered on his cigarette.
The cigarette fell, making a crackling sound.
Lesa sighed and flicked the cigarette onto the pavement.
She had quickened her pace when she heard an unexpected sound:
Crying.
A baby's cry.
She stopped.
She took a few steps back.
And then she saw it.
Behind the rusty iron bars, before the rotten boards, in the very heart of abandonment—a baby.
His skin was pure white.
His eyes were open.
And somehow… it warmed Lesa's heart.
"You were supposed to find me," she said with her baby's eyes.
The woman approached, almost reverently.
She held out her hands, trembling.
As she took the baby in her arms, the sky rained down once more.
But this time… with a different meaning.
She didn't know the baby's name.
Nor his past.
But this child's fate had been determined by the stars.
And fate was sometimes written on the threshold of an abandoned school.
The story of Alkinos—that's how it began.