— Back On Earth —
A few hours ago…
The streets were busy this midday. The streets of Johannesburg were full of these people and they walked around like ants on an anthill, even on the streets while blatantly impeding traffic.
It wasn't morning rush time though, nor was it a protest as is an often occurrence in South Africa. It was midday on a scorching hot Sunday at the end of Summer. On a day like this, the only respite one might get from the heat would be the shade of a skyscraper. And yet funnily enough, none of the people stepped off the streets.
Even more bizarre was that they were staring straight at the Sun that was blazing as it always did. Some were wearing shades while others used the cover of their phones to take pictures of whatever was up there. When one looked closely at the images they would be shocked to discover that there was an object in front of the Sun.
The most mystifying part of this was the fact that this object was a clear shape. A cube. There was currently a cube about the size of the moon in space between the Earth and the Sun.
What??
Social media sites went crazy with images from NASA and other space agencies confirming the unidentified object. Satellites confirmed that the object was made fully of some unidentified metal substance.
The object was a perfect Cube, with no observable imperfections, dents or joints. And it was currently occupying the L1 Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun…
It was just sitting there.
That made the situation much worse with speculation on Social Media getting more and more crazed as time passed by.
"Holy shit! Are they aliens?"
"I don't know… Why does nobody think this is a man made object?"
"We're all gonna die…"
"If you're gonna curse people, do it to yourself and your own family. Don't include us"
"It's ET!! I'm so glad I watched the movies."
"What? It's obviously the time aliens from the movie Arrival!"
"No way. I think it's the Reptilians who have come back to reclaim their planet."
"The reptilians already claimed the planet a long time ago idiot. It's obviously the Anunaki who have come back to teach us more and allow us to evolve into a higher civilisation"
"Or maybe it's Jesus… I'll pray for your souls."
In actual fact, government officials were having their worst day in a while now. This occurrence just made it much worse.
12 hours ago, 3000 people disappeared from the Earth at the exact same time.
It was not that these people were special, no, people disappear all the time due to human trafficking and other crimes.
What made this different was wherever these people disappeared from, there was a symbol engraved on the floor that looked like a seven pointed star with a circle in the centre. The floors were literally molten and engraved. Everywhere on earth. Simultaneously.
These events were not isolated criminal events. They were connected. And the puzzling part was how these disappearances happened all over the world.
The resources it would take to make this happen were incomprehensible. The special circumstances in this case would mean that they had no idea how to go about this investigation.
There was no trace. No evidence at the scenes, no money trail… Nothing.
The worst thing was that some of the disappeared people had disappeared in front of others and according to the descriptions of the witnesses, everything was normal until those people disappeared in a pillar of light, leaving behind the branded impression of the seven pointed star on the floor.
It had caused some alien panic on social media, but the world government was able to contain the situation successfully while conducting their own investigations.
Hours later, that cube in the sky was spotted by independent astronomers, and the whole alien debacle was awakened yet again.
Governments could not contain the spread of information this time, no matter how they tried, so instead of containment, they attempted to frame the situation in a non threatening way as an attempt to quell the panic.
"We have no idea what that object is, but it is currently lodged in the L1 Lagrange Point and is not approaching the Earth. The people of Earth have no need to worry as in the case of any changes occurring, we will be the first to inform you. Thank you for your understanding.", said António Guterres, the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations.
But this did nothing at all, other than spread the panic even further than it had already come.
Doomsday preppers took to Twitter and Facebook, telling every person how they were right all along.
Scientologists started preaching how it was time to meet their creators.
Religious and Spiritual fanaticism hit all time highs in this time. And it had only been a few hours.
Everyone panicked in their own ways.
Right then, everyone on Earth heard a loud but gentle voice that sounded like it belonged to a woman:
"Greetings, my people. I am what you might call the Spirit of the Earth, Gaia. I have recently awakened and I need your help to make this world a better place. I know all of you are confused, or maybe even afraid. But I promise all of this will be explained soon enough. For now, I need all of you to say 'Index'"
The voice was heard in different languages by all different people. Some people chose to be sceptical and watch for more information to come through, while others did as they were told and got the surprise of their lives.
"What was that? Who was that? So loud."
"Gaia? As in the spirit of the Earth?"
"Earth-chan? We Must Protecc Earth-chan!!"
"I-Index! Woah… Hey do you see this?!"
"Bro, say it. It shows you information about yourself."
"Wait really? Index! Woah…"
"Index! Woah! Is this an isekai?"
The scenes all over the Earth resembled those that happened in the field where Midas found himself. Surprise, Fear and Curiosity is what people felt at this moment. Who was Gaia? Why was she here? What was this Index? Where did it come from? How did they implant it into them? Was it dangerous? Are they going to be okay?
In a house in the south side of Johannesburg, a woman was watching all this happen. Without thinking too much, she decided to do it too.
"Index!"
————————————
Index || Network | Trials |
—————
Earth Name: Belinda Mira
AC: 0
Gift: None
Conditions and States:
—————>
Nature: Neutral Evil
Trait:
Mental: Machiavellian Personality, Anxiety
Physical: -
<—————
Stats:
—————>
Dexterity (Agility, Flexibility) → 0.8
Strength (Speed, Power) → 0.7
Constitution (Endurance, Health) → 1.1
Intelligence (Memory, Reasoning) → 1.2
Charisma (Charm, Persuasion) → 1.3
Wisdom (Intuition, Adaptability) → 0.9
Spirit (Mental State, Character) → 0.9
<—————
————————————
Right then, the loud gentle voice came back again.
"What you are seeing is the information about you, and if you want to switch it off you may just swipe it away with the intent to remove it from your vision. Of course this is nothing more than an imitation of the true 'Index', but you people are incapable of seeing or understanding that information for now."
The woman was shocked beyond words. What was the government experimenting on now? And why did she have to be involved? Before she could do much more, the voice continued:
"I need you to understand two things. The first is that I, Gaia, have awakened after 5 billion years and this is partly due to the Laws of the Universe. I am what you might call the Spirit of the Earth, and you are my Incarnations. You exist because of me and I exist because of you."
"As a reward for Awakening, I have been given the chance to Ascend and become a higher level existence. Since there is a causal relationship between us, that means that you will Ascend too, in your own ways. The only way I could Ascend was to choose a group of Incarnations to undergo Trials to test whether or not we are worthy of Ascension. Hence the cube you see in the skies. It is a field in which the Chosen are going to be tested."
"Some of you might be wondering who the Chosen are or what criteria they had to be Chosen. Well, I will only clarify that they are the most special among my creations with the highest destiny. These trials will determine the future of the planet. If they pass, We survive and a new world opens up to us. But if they fail, we will be extinguished. Those are the rules."
"We have been given the rights to watch the Chosen's performance in the Trials, and you will see this as a new panel in your Index. There you can watch and follow your Incarnations and see how they fight for our right to Exist and Evolve. This is a huge opportunity that only comes once for a civilisation, and I implore you to give our Chosen your heartfelt well wishes and support."
"I will be in communication from now on so expect to hear from me more often. Till Next time."
"..."
Immediately after the announcement, the Internet goes wild.
Some think this is some government psyop, some social experiment. Some think that this sound came straight from the cube in the sky. Some thought that it was actually believable, while others thought this was the doing of demons and were waiting for the sound of trumpets and the Mark of the Beast to confirm that they were in the Apocalypse.
If the world's situation could be summed up in a word that word would be: Panic.
Panic buying from stores in preparation for unknowns. Panic speculation on the Internet, in forums, social media groups and text rooms. Panic speculation on the financial markets in the form of increased investment in space and aeronautics.
Meanwhile, governments were doing investigations the best way they can and speculating on what kinds of effects these new technologies and discoveries could cause. A voice projected into the minds of any and every human on the planet in their home language? That was not possible with modern technology.
At the top of the index, there was a new menu item called "Trials" that could now be navigated to. When they did, they came across options. Names of individuals that they could focus on and watch. The woman was currently scrolling through the names in a frantic manner. She was searching for someone. He had disappeared a half a day ago and now that she had heard about these Chosen, she hoped that her son was one of them.
"Midas… Midas… Midas…. Midas! Oh my God. I finally found you.", said Belinda with relief in her voice. Midas has always been so unreliable, always worrying her. She mentally clicked into it and the Index's view screen expanded to the size of a large flat screen TV.
In the panel she saw a handsome young man that was currently asleep, almost as if he was unconscious. The woman became even more worried when she saw that Midas didn't open his eyes even after a few minutes. In the meantime, she had learned how to navigate the system and realised that she could change the view directions. What she saw frightened her.
The more she played around with the interface, the more she felt that there was no way the government was capable of setting up something like this. How could they keep such advanced technology a secret?
Midas wasn't the only person there. There were other kids and they were all unconscious, with some finally waking up now. A few minutes later, Midas was awoken by a brown haired rosy cheeked girl and when the girl tried to talk to Midas he merely kept quiet and looked at her as if he was mute.
"What are you doing? I didn't teach you to be rude to people like that. If someone's being nice you have to respond, you idiot!" said the woman mockingly while watching the brown haired girl walk away dejectedly.
A few hours later, Midas was in front of the statue and he still hadn't spoken to anyone. He was merely listening in on others' conversations. The woman started receiving texts from friends and family as they also could see her son in their Indexes at this moment.
She had even received a call from her boss, telling her she could take a day off of work since this situation could be affecting her negatively. But she rejected him because she figured that she could milk a higher salary from her stingy boss during this time if she played this situation right.
Even her estranged family was pledging their support to her right now. If she navigated this crisis well enough, she could even end up on TV, she could be famous, and earn more money for herself. Her idiot son was finally useful for something.
She suddenly saw Midas panic slightly and realised that he was looking at something. When she spotted the green life-form that stood at 1 meter and looked like a 6 limbed lizard, she was shocked.
"Isn't this CGI a bit too realistic..."
She found this situation inexplicable. There's no way it's real. Some Aliens had come and abducted her son? What's so special about her son? He's a lazy bum who is failing to be filial to her parents. Well, more like 'parent'.
She had always had to take things into her own hands because her son couldn't help out enough at home and his deadbeat father is someone who she wouldn't mind beating until he was dead. She thought he had a bright future until she found out that he dropped out from University. He's even too lazy to get a job. Useless.
She kept thinking of all this until the heads of 20 odd people exploded and she let out a scream of her own. It looked so real. Wait… it was real.
The Chosen were brought there to determine the future of the world. They were going to be given Gifts that would help them survive the Trials. They should do their best. The green Life-form had explained that they were going to receive their second Gift when it waved its hand and all the Chosen disappeared.
"Where did they go?"
The woman waited for a time, thinking that something may have happened to her son. But she finally breathed out a breath of relief when Midas finally materialised in the statue plaza again an hour later. But this time, He looked different.
His eyes were deep and held undecipherable motives. His back was straight as a sword and his head was held high. Even his hair, which was previously dark brown in braided african locks was now a silverish grey colour, as if he was an old man.
There was now something about his temperament felt like he had seen the vicissitudes of life.
"What happened to him…"