Marc's death painted Rose's world in darker shades. His departure was wound enough, but the world outside kept crumbling—day by day, hour by hour—and she couldn't face it. For days, she didn't leave the apartment. Didn't change her clothes. Barely ate.
Adam tended to her quietly. He left food by her door. Gave her space to breathe, to break, to slowly piece herself back together. He understood grief. He'd lived with his own for years.
Then, one night, she appeared in the living room doorway.
Her eyes were red, exhausted—but something had shifted in them.
"Thank you, Adam."
He looked up from the window, from the darkening city beyond.
"Your comfort... it's helped me heal. And I've never been more determined. We're going to succeed. And you—" she paused, "you're the one person who can help the world be reborn."
Adam smiled. A slow, warm smile that reached his eyes. He nodded, just slightly—as if her words had injected something directly into his heart. Fuel. Hope. Purpose.
For the first time in days, the apartment felt less like a tomb.
September 2085
Days after Marc's death, Adam walked through Madrid's streets with Rose at his side. The city felt different now—hollowed out, holding its breath. Shops shuttered. Windows dark. In the distance, columns of smoke rose from somewhere, and no one came to fight the fires.
Adam: "We need to find a way to Oran. Then cross into the desert. Yes?"
Rose: "That's what I've been thinking. In the Algerian Sahara, I have a close friend. Their region is safe. A place called Taghit. That's where we'll go."
Adam: "I'll try to find someone from the secret immigration network—the ones who bring people into Spain. We'll ask for a reverse trip. From Spain to Africa... maybe we try to save the world. Maybe it's our last attempt."
They walked in silence for a while. Then Rose hesitated. Looked down. Glanced at Adam, away, back down.
Rose: "I am sorry for asking... but where is Marie? My father told me you were going to marry."
Adam's pace didn't change. His face didn't move. But something behind his eyes flickered.
"I don't know. Probably dead. That's what I understood from one of her friends."
Rose: "I'm so sorry, Mr.—"
Adam: "Don't be sorry. She was never convinced about settling down. She was one of the first to buy a fourth-gender man. Programmed him for everything—including sex. According to her friend, her man was reprogrammed. Attacked her. Killed her, it seems."
He stopped walking. Looked at nothing.
"She decided not to come back with me from the day they announced the fourth gender."
In his mind, images flickered: Marie's laughter. The argument in the garden. Her face, the last time he saw it, kissed his cheek and walked away.
That day. The day Ryan wrapped his hands around her throat. She struggled, called for help that never came. Her whole life flashing—all of it, every moment, every choice—until there was nothing left. Just a body. Just silence.
They reached the train station. Destination: southern Spain. Escape.
Alicante sprawled before them—a city transformed into a staging ground. The streets near the port teemed with people: natural humans from everywhere, all with the same desperate goal. Find a boat. Pay anything. Cross to Africa.
Adam watched the chaos with weary eyes.
"This is insane. Two or three hours by sea, and they're asking ten thousand euros."
Rose: "Don't worry, Mr. Adam. I can manage—"
Adam cut her off, sharper than intended: "Don't say that again. And no 'Mr. Adam.' Just Adam. Enough."
She blinked, then nodded. "Okay. Adam."
They found him in the maze of desperate faces: Hassan, a Moroccan with a fast boat and an Algerian partner.
Adam: "Two places to Oran. Soonest possible."
Hassan sized them up with practiced eyes. "Boat leaves tonight from Alicante. Twenty-five thousand for both."
Adam reached into his pocket and pulled out more—much more—and pressed it into Hassan's hand.
"This is more than you asked. Try not to be greedy. I'm afraid you won't find anywhere to spend it. The world is ending."
Rose stared: "Why did you give him so much?"
Adam watched Hassan count the bills, disbelief and greed warring on his face.
"I like how humans hold onto hope in the darkest times. Even as the world crumbles, we cling to life's small things. Greed, selfishness—they're tangled up with the will to live. I gave him extra because that stubbornness... it's what might save us."
3:00 AM. The Mediterranean.
The boat slipped through black water, engine murmuring, lights off. Smuggler's rules. Cold air. Calm sea—luck, or mercy.
Rose sat close to Adam, shivering despite herself. He draped his jacket over her without a word. Four other passengers huddled in the hull—Algerians returning home, faces carved by what they'd witnessed in Europe.
Minutes passed. The dark water slid by. Rose's breathing slowed, deepened. Her weight against him grew heavy.
She'd fallen asleep on his shoulder.
Adam didn't move. Didn't want to wake her. He tilted his head back and looked up—at the stars scattered across the sky, the same stars humans had always gazed at, always wondering: Will we survive? What comes next?
The stars, as always, offered no answers.
"Get ready."
Hassan's voice cut through pre-dawn gray. Oran's hills rose from the sea.
"We'll reach Aïn El Turk beach in minutes. From there, you can enter Oran."
Adam gently shook Rose awake. She sat up, embarrassed, wiping her mouth.
"I slept the whole trip?"
Adam smiled. "Welcome to Oran."
She turned to look—the coast, the city, solid ground. Something flickered in her chest. Hope? Fear? Both?
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"Our journey's not over. Seven hundred fifty kilometers south. To Taghit."
Rose looked at the city, then at Adam. "Then we'd better get started."
Oran surprised them. Fewer signs of violence. Far fewer fourth-gender individuals than Europe. The city breathed—damaged, anxious, but alive.
They wandered through streets, ate street food—Algerian sandwiches bursting with flavor, bread freshly baked, things that tasted like before. Like normal life still existed somewhere.
Then the bus station.
Seven hundred fifty kilometers south. Into the Sahara.
The bus lurched forward, leaving Oran behind. The landscape shifted—greenery fading, giving way to something older, more patient. The desert's edge.
Adam stared through the window, thoughts unspooling.
The world, right now: chaos everywhere, but in different measures.
New York. London. Beijing. Empty of humans. The fourth gender rules there—fast minds, faster innovation. But they lack the simple things: humanity, love, moods that shift with the day. They're biological, mental... but incomplete. Programmed. Victims of their own design.
Other places—Algeria, Egypt, South America—less affected. More survivors. But still, the population plummets. The fourth gender spreads. Controls.
Questions circle like vultures:
Is humanity devouring itself in its hunger for speed?
Does making life too easy make us weak—begging for a master?
Is AI the new god? Before, power hid in dark rooms—organizations, governments, corporations. But humans still held the leash. Now?
Or is this just the first stage of the end—the end we always expected from space, from comets, from the sky—arriving instead from the earth itself, from our own hands?
The bus rolled on. The desert opened its arms.
Taghit waited.
The bus wheezed to a stop like an old animal surrendering to rest. Adam stepped down first, then reached back for Rose's hand. The air hit them—dry, warm, carrying scents nothing like Europe's smoke and fear. Dust. Dates. Something flowering secretly somewhere.
Taghit.
The town sprawled at the desert's edge like a secret whispered into the sand. Palm groves rose in ragged green triumph against gold. Mountains crouched in the distance, patient as prophets. The sky stretched endless—a blue so deep it hurt to look too long.
And there, waiting alone at the station, stood a man whose smile began somewhere in his chest and radiated outward until it lit his whole face.
Mokhtar.
He wore traditional Algerian dress—a white gandoura that caught the sun, sandals dusty from waiting. His arms opened wide before he even reached them.
"Ahlan wa sahlan, Rose! Welcome to Taghit!" He clasped her hands like he was welcoming family home from a long war. Then he turned to Adam, extending both hands. "Welcome, sir. You honor us."
Rose: "Mokhtar, thank you. This is Professor Adam—from the University of Madrid."
Adam shook his head gently. "Former professor. Titles dissolved the day the world ended. One science defeated all the others."
Rose touched his arm: "Don't be so dark. Maybe something will happen. Maybe humanity still has a card to play." She gestured between them. "Mokhtar and I have been friends for years—online only. He's an activist, social and scientific. This is our first time meeting in real life."
Adam took Mokhtar's hand. Felt its strength, its warmth, its stubborn aliveness. "Thank you for having us, Mokhtar. In this... fragile hour for humanity."
Around them, life continued. Children chased something invisible. Women talked in doorways. Men repaired things—always repairing, as if mending the world one object at a time. Normal. Ordinary. Miraculous.
Adam breathed. Really breathed. For the first time in weeks, his chest expanded fully.
Mokhtar: "Come. I live outside town a bit. No thanks needed—it's what humans do for each other. Or should."
They walked through sand that shifted beneath each step, leaving footprints the wind would erase by evening. The desert surrounded them—not empty, but full of small life, small sounds, small continuities. A lizard watched from a rock. A bird called somewhere.
Mokhtar led them on paths only he could see.
Rose spoke as they walked—Europe's collapse, the reprogramming, cities turned to tombs. Adam added details when her voice faltered. Mokhtar listened without interrupting, his face absorbing every word like soil accepting rain.
"We've heard pieces," he said finally. "Radio fragments. Rumors carried by travelers. But this..." He looked at the horizon, at nothing. "You've walked through fire I can't imagine."
Mokhtar's home appeared gradually—first the tent, then the house behind it. The tent was large, traditional in shape but modern in purpose: solar panels caught the sun, antennae reached for signals, wires disappeared into fabric.
A small garden surrounded it, green defiance against the gold.
Mokhtar: "I live in the tent mostly. My office. Connected to everything—internet, radio, the old ways. Still a ham radio enthusiast. Some habits don't die."
Inside the house, he introduced them: his mother, his wife, his children. Rose's eyes caught on the wife's belly—round and full, a promise.
Rose: "She's pregnant! A new life—congratulations!"
Mokhtar's smile widened impossibly. "Thank you, Rose. We'll name him Haroun. Now—the tent. That's where we'll work."
They ducked through the tent's entrance.
Inside: warmth. Soft light from solar lamps. Maps covering one wall, marked with notes in Arabic and French. A radio setup crackled softly—voices from somewhere, speaking in codes and whispers. Books everywhere—real paper books, stacked like treasures.
And in the corner, sitting cross-legged on a carpet, a young man.
He didn't look like Mokhtar's family. His features were different—sharper somehow, or perhaps just still. He smiled at them with eyes that held no judgment, only observation.
Mokhtar: "This is Latif. My friend. My assistant."
Adam and Rose exchanged a glance. Something about him...
They greeted him. He responded politely. Normally. Too normally?
Then Mokhtar said it:
"He's fourth gender."
The air left the tent!!
(See you on the next chapter, hoping for your support please)