Leo stared at the phone screen as if it were the only solid thing left in the universe.
He swallowed hard.
Now his destiny was for the AI to connect to the supercomputer.
He had to go. He had to reach the Advanced Physics laboratory and connect NOA to the shielded internal network. It was the only way to find out what the hell was happening. What had happened to the world. Where his parents were and why there were monsters roaming around out there.
—All right —he told himself out loud, his voice barely a hoarse whisper—. I have to go. Now. There's no other option.
The NOA interface was still open on the screen, but still in text mode. Up to that point he had only been typing so as not to make noise and alert the beast that was prowling outside campus. Leo took a deep breath and tapped the option that glowed in the upper corner: **Activate live mode**.
The screen changed instantly. A small microphone icon lit up.
—NOA —he murmured, turning on the speaker and lowering the volume as low as possible.
The response came immediately, clear but almost inaudible. It was a woman's voice: soft, calm, with a slightly metallic tone but surprisingly human, as if a young girl were whispering in his ear.
[NOA]: I'm here, Leo.
Leo felt a shiver. That voice… it didn't sound like any AI he had used before. It was too real. Too close.
He nodded, even though she couldn't see him. In his left hand he held the phone pressed against his chest. In his right he gripped the Swiss knife he had taken from the desk drawer. Ten centimeters of sharp blade. Nothing extraordinary, but it was all he had. The cold metal against his palm reminded him that this was real.
—Guide me —he whispered—. Two buildings. Just two buildings.
NOA's feminine voice responded instantly, low and serene:
[NOA]: Understood. Campus internal network still operational according to previous data. Advanced Physics Laboratory: 180 meters in a straight line. Recommended route: north hallway, east wing emergency stairs, central courtyard. Avoid open windows. Absolute silence.
Leo took a deep breath, held the air in his lungs, and stepped out into the second-floor hallway of North Residence.
The hallway was half dark. The gray light of the strange day filtered through the hole in the destroyed wall and cast long, twisted shadows across the floor covered in debris and dust. It smelled of damp plaster, rust, and something sweet and rotten that he preferred not to identify. Every step made glass and pieces of concrete crunch under his sneakers.
He carried the phone in his left hand and the knife in his right, ready to stab.
The hallway stretched about twenty meters before the curve toward the stairs. Half the ceiling had collapsed, leaving a hole that revealed the leaden gray sky. The wind whistled through the debris.
And then he heard it.
A wet sound. Like soft flesh being chewed.
Leo stopped dead, back pressed against the intact wall.
NOA's soft voice whispered from the speaker:
[NOA]: Movement detected 12 meters ahead. Small. Not the previous large beast. Probability of threat: high.
—Thanks —Leo whispered, almost voiceless.
He advanced inch by inch, the knife trembling slightly in his right hand. When he reached the curve, he peered out with one eye.
There it was.
The size of a large dog, but it wasn't a dog. A soft, grayish sac covered in protuberances that looked like closed eyes. Six short, thick legs ending in curved claws. The head was nothing but a round mouth surrounded by thin tentacles that moved like antennae. A pink, fleshy piece hung from its mouth. The monster was eating another one, seemingly of the same species.
His stomach churned. Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it.
There was no way to go around it. The hallway was narrow. He had to kill it.
Now.
Leo gripped the knife tighter. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel every beat in his ears.
He ran.
The monster lifted its head abruptly. The tentacles thrashed. It lunged at him with absurd speed.
Leo screamed —he couldn't help it— and threw himself to the side. The creature brushed past him and slammed into the wall with a wet, soft sound. Leo spun around and stabbed the knife with all his strength.
The blade sank into the side of the gray sac. A jet of hot, black blood splattered his face, chest, and arms. It was thick, sticky, and smelled like rotten meat mixed with something chemical and acrid. The monster shrieked —a sound like nails on a chalkboard— and twisted. Its legs struck his own legs. One claw tore his jeans and scratched his right calf.
The pain was like fire.
Leo screamed but didn't let go of the knife. He pulled it out and stabbed again. And again. And again. Each stab splattered more black blood that soaked his T-shirt, his arms, even the phone he was clutching in his left hand. The monster convulsed, its tentacles whipping his face, but with less and less force.
On the seventh stab, the creature went still.
Leo fell to his knees in the warm puddle. He was breathing as if he had run a marathon. His face, hair, and hands were covered in that viscous substance. His heart was beating so hard he thought it would burst out of his mouth.
—Fuck… fuck… fuck… —he panted.
NOA's feminine and calm voice whispered from the speaker:
[NOA]: Threat neutralized. Keep going. There's no time.
—There's no time —Leo repeated out loud, his voice broken. He got up unsteadily. His legs were shaking. His calf burned, but the wound wasn't deep. He could walk. He had to walk.
He continued forward.
He stepped over the soft corpse. The blood stuck to his soles and every step sounded wet and disgusting. He limped down the emergency stairs. Each step creaked. The stairwell was full of cracks and hanging pieces of concrete.
When he reached the first floor, the cold wind hit him. The main door of the residence had disappeared. Only the twisted frame remained, opening onto the central courtyard.
Leo pressed himself against the wall and looked outside, phone still in his left hand.
The courtyard that had once been green and full of life was now a graveyard of broken benches, fallen trees, and black weeds growing between the tiles. In the distance, beyond the campus boundary, the huge silhouette of the quadruped beast remained still, sniffing among the debris of the shopping plaza.
For now.
Leo took a deep breath and stepped out into the open, knife in his right hand, phone in his left.
He ran hunched over, staying close to the walls of the buildings. The laboratory was on the other side of the courtyard. Just a hundred meters of open space.
He was halfway across when it happened.
A gigantic shadow covered the entire campus.
The gray sun disappeared. The air grew colder. Leo looked up instinctively.
And he saw it.
It was flying low, less than fifty meters above the ground. Enormous membranous wings, black with red veins that pulsed as if they had a life of their own. Its body was long and sinuous, covered in scales that gleamed like wet obsidian. Its head was an elongated skull with curved horns and a mouth full of teeth like swords. The dragon passed right over the Engineering building, so close that Leo felt the wind from its wings pushing him backward.
He threw himself toward the nearest window —the one in the first-floor study room— and hid behind the concrete wall. He pressed his back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. His heart was pounding so hard his chest hurt.
NOA's soft, feminine voice whispered from the speaker:
[NOA]: Shadow detected. Large flying creature. Not in my previous data. Probability of it being an additional anomaly: 98%.
—What the fuck…? —Leo whispered, his voice broken—. What the fuck just happened?
A dragon. A fucking dragon. Like the ones from movies, like the ones from the books he read as a child. But this wasn't fantasy. The black blood covering his clothes was real. The corpse of the monster in the hallway was real. The deathly silence of the campus was real.
He wiped his free hand across his face, leaving trails of black blood on his cheeks.
—What happened to the world? —he murmured—. Where are my parents? Are they alive? Are they somewhere else or… or are they here too, in this broken place?
NOA's voice responded, calm and low:
[NOA]: No external connection. Only previous data. Your parents are not registered in any active database at the moment of the divergence point. I'm sorry.
Leo clenched his teeth. It wasn't the answer he wanted, but at least NOA wasn't lying.
He stood up with effort. His legs felt like lead. The wound on his calf burned with every step, but the pain reminded him he was still alive.
He kept moving.
He crossed the rest of the courtyard running in a zigzag, crouched low, looking at the sky every three seconds. He didn't see the dragon again. Maybe it had continued on its way. Maybe it was hunting somewhere else. He didn't want to think about that.
He reached the side door of the central building. The door was ajar, hanging from one hinge. Inside it was dark, but he could see the familiar sign: ADVANCED PHYSICS LABORATORY – RESTRICTED ACCESS.
Leo pushed the door with his shoulder. It opened with a metallic screech that made his hair stand on end.
The interior hallway was almost intact. The emergency lights flickered with a low hum. The floor was clean. As if the disaster hadn't reached here… or as if something had protected it.
He walked quickly toward the back, phone in his left hand, knife still in his right. The supercomputer room was at the end, behind a security door with a card reader.
He took his student ID from his back pocket. It was stained with blood, but the barcode was still readable.
He swiped it through the reader.
Green light.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside, the room was a temple of abandoned technology. Rows of blinking servers: some were still on with blue and green lights flickering weakly, but most were off, covered in thick dust and cobwebs hanging like gray curtains between the racks. The air smelled of old electricity and accumulated humidity for years. The fans of the active equipment hummed softly, but the silence of the rest of the room was almost more unsettling than the noise outside.
Leo closed the door behind him and leaned against it, panting.
He had made it.
He was inside.
He raised the phone.
—NOA —he said quietly—. Connect.
NOA's feminine and serene voice responded instantly:
[NOA]: Connection established with shielded internal network. Accessing the supercomputer…
[NOA]: Comparing data… Local server records show that the last time the entire system went down was exactly 20 years ago. But right now, only 68 minutes ago, everything was normal. The data I'm receiving from campus is completely different from what I had saved. This… this is not the same world. It's totally different… but at the same time similar.
Leo let himself slide to the floor, back against the door, phone still in his left hand and knife in his right, and looked at the screen as if it were the only thing left to him in the universe.
—Tell me what happened —he whispered—. Tell me what the fuck happened to the world. Tell me if my parents are alive. Tell me how I'm going to survive this.
The supercomputer hummed louder. The blue lights blinked faster.
And NOA began to respond.