In a state-of-the-art bunker underneath about 50 meters of soil in a room full of medical equipment, a man lies inside a cryogenic bed attached to many life sustaining systems that keeps him alive but never able to leave the premise. The room looked like it has been there for years and no one has ever been present other than the patient within the bed.
A rectangular robot with two track wheels and two mechanical arms with an opposable thumb roamed around as it maintains the cleanliness of the room but its motor functions looked like it was not as great as it was making clattering noises while moving around.
That is because the patient has been in this state of being for over than hundred years and he was being kept alive by a self-sustaining clean room ever since his first day in comatose.
As the robot kept refilling the nutrition packs as well as changing the urine bags and cleaning up the other wastes the cryogenic bed has from the patient, a strong tremor graced the whole place that the equipment and the ones inside the room felt in full force.
Many things fell and got destroyed as the tremor has caused large substantial damage within the room.
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Massive Seismic activity has appeared]
[The Bunker's anti-earthquake measures are losing integrity]
[Water Recycler has been compromised]
[Air Filtration is in critical condition]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Alert!]
[Patient is losing life support systems]
[Initiating Emergency protocols]
The Robot that was in the room was tumbling all around as the earthquake that looked like it was worse than an 11.3 magnitude earthquake ravaged the room. But it tried it's best to protect the patient within the cryogenic chamber by using its body to stabilize the whole bed so it would not tumble all over the place, yet in doing so it has receive the burnt of all the impact made by various equipment tumbling around the room. After 10 minutes the room was left in disarray as the systems keeping the man alive now seemed to not work anymore.
[Emergency Protocols initiated]
[Sy-s-syst-tte-tems d-ddow-wwn]
Crackling noises were heard as the robot is now broken as it has tried to cover the patient as to prevent him from being hurt by the massive earthquake.
Soon as the shock period subsided, the patient within the protection of the Robot is starting to wake up as pain assaulted his sense. Over than a hundred of years in a hidden bunker takes a lot of toll within the body of a man and many of his muscles have already atrophied due to years of inactiveness.
It didn't take for him to start gaining sense of his surroundings and saw the devastation that happened to the room. He looked confused and uncomfortable as he could not make heads of everything yet, it was moments later he understood why he was in this room.
Trying to sit up as he moved his hands for the first time in a very long time, he pushed the broken robot that was on top of the cracked cryogenic bed.
*Thud!*
As the robot fell he made himself sit up for a bit to recall what has happened and realized that it has been a long time from what he can feel. Looking at his hands that were older than he had remembered means that he has spent a very long time sleeping; even if he was in a cryogenic sleep it would not stop his body's aging but it slowed the process.
It was also to slow down the progression of the disease he had before he was put to sleep. As he recalled this he started to feel dizzy, as memories came back in droves within his mind. Clutching his head he groaned in pain as the life he lived flashed before him.
It was not much special, it was just a life full of mediocrity as repetitive pattern as a white collar worker. Everything was normal until he was diagnosed with a terminal disease with no cure, things seemed bleak until a company offered him and those similar to him to participate in an experimental procedure but first they must be put into cryogenic sleep in self-sustaining rooms with a medical robot to take care of them.
Purpose of which was to make sure there are patients with his similar disease to observe for the doctors in case the medicine they are making needed someone for clinical trials as the disease itself is a very rare one for people to have. Lucky for him one of those people seemed to be a daughter of the pharmaceutical company that reached out to him.
Looking around as pain assaulted his senses the guy looked forlorn as he thought from the state of the room means that the world has progressed so far already but him being here means that no one has discovered the cure for his illness. He could tell as his lungs started to feel pain as well as his vision is dizzying, it was not abrupt but it was very similar to his state before he was put to sleep.
Smiling wryly as he sat, he looked to the ceiling then at the broken robot on the floor. He could see in the cracked monitor on the front of the robot the date which seemed to be 2192.
"*chuckle* One hundred and forty years huh? It seems I have been asleep for a very long long time *cough2x*!!" the man spat blood as he spoke, he could feel it, other than his disease is that the room is now suffocating him.
The air is getting thinner and things are getting bleak, it seems the quake has done some damage to the equipment that is keeping him alive and aggravated his situation.
"How quaint, it seems I have been forgotten down here." The guy looked around and saw that the vault door did not even move which means either he was forgotten here or the world ended and no one would come down for him since it was over a hundred of years already.
Standing up with all the strength he could muster he walked to the large cube on the corner of the room. This was the main power source which was fueled by a renewable energy or something. He did not understand it but he knows how to handle the machine, as he drew closer he looked at the status of the equipment and realized that everything inside the rooms is trashed thus he needed to get out of here.
Looking around he saw the vault door was kind of loose so he walked there in his hospital gown hoping that there might be people outside that could help him. Maybe he was just forgotten here and there might be medicine for his condition already, it was the future after all.
Sure everyone he knows might have gone already but what else could he do, it was not like the doctors placed him in a prank which he hoped they had but his hands and body says otherwise. He is old, very much so but he still hopes to have some years left to spend his life. He is in pain but even if he wanted to end his life he just couldn't.
He grew up with parents that drilled into his mind that his life is not something that should just be thrown away and give up. As mediocre as he is at best at least he would not lose hope until everything has ended which seems to have not.
As he pushed the door it made a creaking noise audible within the hallways. As he stood within the halls his heart dropped seeing the dust and disrepair of the place, maybe he was indeed forgotten but he still walked. His chest hurts as he breathes as the dust came in his lungs, he does not know why but he is starting to feel weaker.
Still he persevered as he walked the hallways looking around, even of the place has dust and mold growing around he could still remember where the stairs were leading to the ground floor. He wheezed as he walked up the stairs but he stopped after two floors like a statue because he was now outside.
By outside he means he was now on an open area where he was in some low part of a large crater. Looking around he felt his heart stop as he thought of a dreaded scenario which he thought might have caused this.
War
Seemingly from the smoke coming out from the ground which indicates that some sort of bomb went off which explains the quake that woke him up. His heart beat fast as he looked around the place but another tremble of the earth appeared which made him off balance for a moment but from what he could tell the cause was a bit of a distance away.
He felt his throat tighten as he swallowed hard thinking that maybe where he is standing might be full of radiation. Feeling a bit scared he pushed himself to walk out of the crater or else his chance of living out the rest of his life will be cut down if he stayed longer.
Mustering his will he walked as fast as he could but the crater was very large. As he walked he felt himself weaken as time goes by making him believe that it was the radiation killing him so he muttered to himself…
'I don't want to die…'
'I don't want to die…'
'I don't want to die…'
'I don't want to die…'
{Why do you not want to die?}
He was not sure why he was hearing things thinking that maybe his mind is hallucinating but he just answered as he was scared and starting to feel hopeless.
'I want to live'
{Why? What is it that you want?}
'I have not lived my life the way I want, I have so many things I want to do, places I yearn to be and dreams that are still unfulfilled yet I spent it all asleep trying to cling to hope that I might live through this disease that riddled me with pain.'
{What do you wish for?}
'I want to live with no fear of dying…'
{I see, what else?}
'To be able to go where I want…'
{Then the dreams you said you wanted?}
'To be strong and be a mighty guy…'
{Do you only wish for such things?}
'Absolutely, nothing else matters…'
As the guy walked and answered this voice in his mind out of nowhere, his heartbeat was getting erratic, his face pale and body shivered in cold yet sweating. It was when he reached the top he stood stupefied as the scene before him did not make sense.
Desolation
That was all he could think of as everywhere he looked there was nothing but dust and a broken world. There were no wars or anything, signs of neither soldiers nor anymore explosions from afar. It was just a vast plain of what civilization was supposed to be, a husk of its former self that is left to dry and dead.
"Wh-what is happening?"
That was all he could say as he looked around with no other life in sight. He stood there blank and alone as the world seemed to not make sense anymore, if there was a war then there would have been dead bodies or fighting going on but there thing at all. Even the distant explosion was just debris falling from the sky which might have been the ground around him.
{Was that all you wished for?}
'Y-yes?' Unsure of where the voice was coming from he answered as he was still looking around not sure of what to do.
{Then it shall be granted but the excess energy will be used to improve the wished you have asked for…}
'W-what?'
That was all he could say before a light swallowed him whole and taking him away.
[---------30 minutes earlier-----------]
"Hahahaha!! Did you see that? I told you no mortal would win this game I have made, no matter the way they try to win it will always be the same. They will all die along with the Demon Lord I have placed to spread terror! Hahaha!!" Within a large Hall filled with golden accents and holy aura a large humanoid being made of light laughed as he bragged to his peers of what he has done.
"All you did was have them kill each other, it is just like what the other did to various mortal worlds but how could you have them go to such path of self-destruction?" Another being within the hall asked as they looked within a small planet which their peer has chosen to play with.
"Simple, I have given them a prize to fight for." The first guy answered gloatingly as he looked at the envious looks given to him by his fellow gods. Yes the beings in the room were gods but not the ones that cared for the beings that pray to them.
"What prize is it that you have promised that they were in such a frenzy to die? It did not even go over 200 years but you made them all extinct in their planet." Another being radiating divine aura asked.
"Simple, I used the Grand Deity's well of wishes. I did show it to them which stoked their greed and promised that the last one alive would get the wish they desired. And no one could get it as long as another one is alive!! So they will kill each other for sure and with my demon lord guarding it to make sure that no one will be left alive, I am a genius!!" The guy laughed as he proudly stood beside a pedestal where a small marble bowl filled with glittering cosmic powers.
"That Well of Wishes? Isn't that the one made from the essence of a strong being that came from the Outside? I heard many of those things could make up multiverses on their own and the Grand Deity was able to defeat and forge one into a Well of wishes!" one being that bloomed divine scholarly aura said in amazement as he said the origins of the Well of wishes.
"You're Crazy? Your Great Grandfather would be incensed if the well loses its acquired energy! You know that it's our only hope should a tragedy befall our Divine Kingdom don't you?" a female goddess spoke in disbelief.
"Relax, I have done this many times already and no mortal has ever won in my arrangements." Said the arrogant one.
"So in other words that party of heroes earlier that were the last living humans fought only for you demon lord to self-destruct taking them all out thus no one could make the wish? Why did they trust you though?" Asked a female goddess that was intrigued by the show she just watch, it might be hundreds of years to humans but for them it was just a fleeting moment.
"I made an Unbreakable Oath to the Well of wishes that whosoever live last then they shall be granted the wish they desire. The mortals believe it as they have no choice and I did make some miracles that made them believe my words which was indeed true as I do not want to suffer Karmic retribution."
"I see, but it is brave of you to use the Well of wishes of your great grandfather, you know that there are only two of such level of divine artifacts right and even a mortal could become a High Deity in one leap using the power of the well and it will take about a billion years to gather enough energy for it to be used again?" a know it all god pointed out to the arrogant one.
"I know I know, thus I arranged for such things which do not violate my Oath and the Well of Wishes still unused. Trust me; I have done this a thousand times already to many mortal worlds within out Omniverse. It is just fun watching humans fight for such small things and no one is gonna win anyways with my arrangements." The god said haughtily as he pushed his chest put in pride.
"Well it was indeed entertaining and luckily that the last human died in that explosion. Having the Demon Lord apply scorched earth to all the lands so no life will sustain the humans making them more desperate is a good move. Greed and urgency made them die faster than most worlds and the faith they produced were so pure that it was intoxicating." Another god who looked fat and large said as he reveled at the amount of faith that the world exuded when they were in dire times.
"I know right? That's why I do this cause it is much faster than have some mortals recover and rebuild as they will forget you anyways in a few hundred years and they will not produce much faith as they will worship fake idols instead of us that brought them these wonderful powers." The arrogant god said as he felt happy his peers acknowledge his ways are better and faster. Soon he will be a Great Deity and have more powers to influence more mortal worlds.
Just as they were talking the Well beside the Haughty God suddenly glowed and released a burst of cosmic energies that pushed these gods away tumbling about in the large Hall. A Bright blinding light shone all over as a small speck flew from the small planet and pierce the fabric of reality bringing that speck away from this Omniverse and unto another world far far away from this place beyond the reaches of the 'Outside'.
The gods were dizzy but they all looked at the marble bowl which was now dry of cosmic energies. The haughty one looked like a statue as he was processing what just happened.
"WHO MADE THE WISH!?"