In shock, Kale suddenly woke up to find himself on his bed, in his room. His body was covered in sweat and his eyes were filled with fear. He looked around in shock before calming down and coming to his senses.
"So it was only a dream..." Kale breathed out in relief.
He quickly grabbed his smartphone and checked the news. There were updates about the peculiar incident from yesterday.
"The victims of the freak accident at CERN have shown anomalous symptoms similar to patient zero... huh, the patient zero turned invisible?" Kale was shocked as he read through the news.
Kale shook his head. This was something totally beyond his comprehension. He sighed and tried to not think about it, but the vivid imagery from his dream filled his mind, one of an empty world devoid of any human except himself.
Semester had ended, and Kale was planning to head back home for the week long leave and have a good rest. This semester was particularly gruelling for him as the subjects were ones he found particularly difficult.
After freshening up, Kale went to the mess to gobble down breakfast and found many people were sitting in huddles discussing about the curious incident.
Kale took his tray of morning cereal, croissants and coffee and headed towards on group before slamming his tray on the table and sitting down.
"What's up with you murmuring ghouls?" Kale asked with a smile.
"What else? Everyone's discussing about the indivisible man!" Tom smiled with a groggy and sleepy face. He looked like he had just jumped out of bed to have breakfast.
"Jeez, I wish I could turn invisible as well... The possibilities would be endless." A slimy looking fat guy smirked as his evil thoughts were clearly displayed on his face.
"You are already wild enough, fatty. Last thing we need is you sneaking into the girls dorms as an invisible creep." Kyle laughed as he made a disgust filed expression at the fatty, whose name was Rick.
An intellectual looking young man, who had well coiffed brown hair and stylish clothes on, even at this early breakfast hour, was more serious.
"That man not only turned invisible, but he seemed to have also turned crazy and savage like. He has been restrained and under heavy surveillance. Even the other victims seem to be showing similar symptoms as him." The man named Arnaud said.
"I wonder what accident CERN had. Did they discover aliens? Like in Half-Life?" Tom smirked. "May be they stole some alien technology."
Kyle snorted. "Your imagination sure is vivid, Tom. The news said that the victim was undertaking maintenance work of the supercooled liquid system when the particle accelerator was accidentally turned on."
Arnaud looked at the others and sighed. "I saw an analysis by a physicist on youtube who suggested that the victims might have been affected by some subatomic particles at an extremely high velocity."
Kale shrugged. "The physics seems beyond my comprehension. Here I'm struggling to understand basic electromagnetism. The experts are dealing with it I guess."
Tom interrupted the conversation with a sudden outburst. "Well forget about that stupid thing. What are you guys doing this week? Semester just ended, let's head to the beach, what say?"
"Count me out mate. I'm heading home now. It's been a few months since I went back." Kale shrugged with a smile.
"You really are an expert at being a killjoy!" Tom snorted. "Forget about this mama's boy, what about you guys?" He asked as he turned towards the others.
---
After breakfast, Kale packed some bare clothes into his backpack and walked to the bus station. After purchasing a ticket, be sat down in the waiting area, waiting for the bus to arrive, when an old man in a red outfit that looked like a priest's outfit walked up to him.
"Young man, pay heed to this old one's words! The apocalypse is coming! Humans, the scum of this earth will disappear!" The old man suddenly began spouting out what could only be considered gibberish in Kale's eyes, but he felt a chill from the old man's crazed look.
"Old man, back off." Kale said sternly as he turned around and ignored the old man. A guard deployed at the bus station came and shooed of the old man. He looked at Kale with an apologetic expression.
"Sorry about that. The old man frequently comes to this station and begins spouting gibberish about the world ending. Just ignore him, he is harmless." The guard said.
Kale nodded and didn't say anything further. He ignored the matter and got up, as he saw his bus arrive. He entered the bus and sat down on his designated seat, closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.
When Kale opened his eyes, he found himself standing on top of a large skyscraper's rooftop. The skyscraper was incredibly tall, so tall that the winds were extremely strong and pushing Kale around. He found that the rooftop was actually a helipad.
In surprise and confusion, Kale walked to the edge of the rooftop to see where he was, only to realize, that he was in New York. Below him was the sprawling concrete and glass metropolis, and he was standing on top of the Empire State building.
However, this wasn't the New York he knew. The skyscrapers of manhattan had all turned into ruins, the concrete jungle was covered inn dense foliage of grass, roots of trees and all kinds of creepers and climbers. Kale saw the tiny silhouettes of three deer running across the abandoned and ruined asphalt street, as not a single human seemed to be around.
As far as his eye could see, New York had turned into a dilapidated ruin. Everything was destroyed and abandoned. Humans seemed to have... disappeared.
With a start, Kale woke up to find himself in the bus. His face was covered in sweat, as he let out a turbid breath and looked out to find the quickly passing landscape and the bus seemed to be zooming along.