It Appears
31/12/2028
10:00 PM
The rain hammered against the windowpanes, a constant drumming that mirrored the tumult inside Marius’s chest. He sat on his bed, shoulders down, his phone in hand. Each unanswered call to Zayn felt like another weight dragging him down into the depths of his own mind.
“Come on, Zayn, pick up,” he muttered, dialing again. But the ringing echoed in empty air, swallowed by the storm outside.
Marius forced himself out of bed and went up to the window, sighing in frustration. Rain ran down the glass, obscuring the view beyond. He poured himself a glass of water from the bedside table, the cool liquid providing a small respite from the intensity of his emotions.
As he gazed out at the darkened sky, a small measure of calm settled over him. Maybe Zayn was just caught up in something important, he reasoned. But the ache in his chest refused to be silenced.
Returning to his phone, Marius dialed once more, his heart sinking with each unanswered ring. Then, just as he was about to give up, a voice crackled through the line.
“Marius? Is that you?” Zayn’s voice was faint, distorted by static.
Relief flooded through Marius. “Yeah, it’s me,” he replied, his voice tight with emotion. “I... I needed to talk to you about something.”
Zayn’s voice was hurried now, barely audible over the sound of rain. “Sorry, Marius, I’m in the middle of excavation. I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay?”
Marius hesitated, the weight of his thoughts pressing down on him. But with a resigned nod, he finally relented. “Okay,” he said softly, his words lost in the storm. And with that, he ended the call, the connection severed by distance and the deluge outside.
Meanwhile, in the depths of the cave, Zayn hurried towards the dusty object lying forgotten, instructing his assistant to clean it. Frustration mounted as Zayn attempted to call his high-ranking officer, only to be met with the frustrating silence of a failed connection. As the cleaning progressed, the object revealed itself—a necklace shrouded in mystery and potential peril.
31/12/2028
10:15 PM
Brax, a young employee, was enjoying the movie with chilled wine in his house. He just had a good plan for this night; he was about to go to his girlfriend’s house.
But his plans for the night were quickly disrupted when his phone buzzed with an urgent notification from his office’s emergency alert system. Curious, Brax opened his phone to view the message, his brow furrowing in anxiety as he skimmed the text.
“Emergency assembly at the office. All employees are required to report immediately.”
Brax’s heart raced as he processed the message. What could be so urgent that they needed to assemble in the middle of the night, especially during such a fierce storm? He glanced out the window.
Without hesitation, he hurried to his bedroom, tossing aside his damp coat and grabbing his keys from the dresser. As he made his way to the door, a sudden realization struck him—he had just bought a new sports car earlier that day, eager to test its capabilities on the open road. Brax dashed out into the storm with his car.
31/12/2028
10:50 PM
Ten minutes ago, panic broke out in the cave when portions of the ceiling collapsed and fell to the ground. Zayn now finds himself in the middle of a packed mob.
Pushing through the crowd, Zayn neared the barred entrance, where many rocks acted as a dismal barrier between them and the outside world. With a deep breath, he reached for his phone, a spark of hope flickering within him.
But as he turned on his phone, the screen remained stubbornly blank, devoid of any signal. His heart sank as the reality of their situation sank in. They were truly alone, cut off from the outside world by the merciless hand of nature.
“We need to find another way out,” Zayn declared, her voice echoing off the walls of the cave.
Zayn reached out to his assistant.
“Is there any other way out?” Zayn asked.
“No... I mean... I don’t know,” replied his assistant.
“Fu*k!” he yelled and then asked, “How many people are outside the cave?”
“Around 200”
Zayn glanced at the crowd, then back at his assistant. “Okay, make the workers clear those rocks using the instruments we have; maybe the workers on the opposite side were also trying.”
His assistant nodded. “There has to be another way out. A back exit or something. These caves are old, they might have more than one entrance.”
“Yeah,” Zayn said, “I’ll go look for it.”
31/12/2028
10:50 PM
Brax stepped into the lobby of his office building; the floor was wet with a little water. Brax approached the elevator.
He pushed the button and waited a second. The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, and Brax stepped inside. His usually neat hair was plastered to his forehead, and his clothes were damp and wrinkled. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to restore some semblance of order, then tugged at his shirt and blazer, hoping they would dry quickly and look less disheveled.
The elevator slowed to a stop on his floor, and with another ding, the doors opened. Brax stepped out, glanced at his colleague’s nervous expressions. He went over to a friend to ask what was happening. But, as soon as he approached his friend,
“The manager is waiting for you,” he said. “He is in the room.”
Brax proceeded to the manager’s room. He opened the door and discovered no manager, but an unknown person in a black suit standing at the window, staring at the storm outside, and enjoying his coffee.
31/12/2028
11:00 PM
Marius was on his laptop, looking for something in his workplace file.
His anxiousness stemmed from the fact that the day before, at his office, he was inputting stock values and buyer lists. He made a huge typing error, and a couple of stocks were missing.
A pop-up message had appeared in the corner of the screen, jarring Marius from his reverie. His eyes narrowed as he moved the cursor over the notification and clicked. The profile picture was unusual—an ominous black suit with no visible face and an unsettling void where a person should be. Marius felt a chill run down his spine. He opened the message hesitantly but curiously.
“Why are you so depressed? What are you searching for?”
He took a deep breath and proceeded to type a reply.
“Who is this?” he typed, his eyes flicking to the dark corners of his room, half-expecting a figure to appear.
A few seconds passed, and then another message appeared.
“Just a friend who noticed you seemed down. Sometimes it helps to talk.”
He considered ignoring it, but something about the anonymity and specificity of the message bothered him. Maybe this person was just a well-meaning stranger, or perhaps they knew something he didn’t.
“Yeah, I was searching for something,” he replied, “and yesterday in the office, I made a mistake, so I just wanted to delete the whole file.”
The response came almost immediately. “That doesn’t work. Listen, I will guide you to recover the loss. Trust me.”
31/12/2028
11:05 PM
He paused, squinting into the gloom, and saw it—a gnarled, twisted tree that seemed out of place in the subterranean world. Its roots resembled the tentacles of an ancient beast, spreading out across the cave floor. A tiny gap at the top of the tree allowed a flicker of light to peek through the shadows and provide a seductive view of freedom.
Zayn approached the tree, his hands trembling as he gripped its rough bark. He started climbing, but then recoiled in horror. The bark was crawling with ants—large, black, and relentless. They emerged from the tree in waves, their legs skittering across his skin. Zayn gritted his teeth and swatted at the ants, but it was ineffective. There were too many. He slipped, his fingers losing their grip, and fell to the cave floor with a thud.
“Zayn!” a voice called out, echoing through the cave. Zayn turned to see his assistant, a flashlight beam cutting through the darkness.
“Your friend found another way out,” his assistant said, urgency in his voice. “Come on, let’s go!”
Zayn’s brow furrowed. “My friend?” he echoed, his voice wavering. He hadn’t come with any friends.
A chill ran down his spine, and he stepped closer to his assistant, peering into the shadows beyond. “What do you mean, ‘my friend’?”
