As far as I remember, the only good memories I had with my family were in my childhood.

My father was a successful man, having many politicians and rich people as his friends, his occupation was that of a scientist and my mother was a beautiful woman. I also had a sister. We were a complete family figure in the eyes of society.

My father was a serious person. Always taking his work as the first priority. My mother was exactly the opposite of him. Weak and timid all she was nothing else but she still persisted her strong will. I loved them both

The last memories with my father were really indelible.

I remember. We were both sitting in our veranda. Which was covered on top and partially covered on the sides with fences.

I was sitting in his lap and he was sitting on a rocking chair. Father had high cheekbones and sharp jawline, his eyes were covered by old style glasses which gave him perfectly professor approach. The sun was about to change its shift with the moon, gentle sunlight touching our skin before submerging into the horizon. I always used to ask my father random questions to fill my curiosity and I did the same that day.

I asked him "Father, what do you think about God?" My tone was playful. Father looked at me , his eyes were gentle and caring, he gently rubbed my hairs and replied "Son god is something we can't understand he's everywhere we can't possibly be able to see him if he was standing in front of us and listening to our conversation, He's the flawless imagination humans have created" he paused.

"What happened father?" I didn't look at him, just fiddling with a random toy.

"Oh nothing, to tell you the truth.I am not competent enough to know what god is" he said in an amiable approach.

That pissed me "If you don't know what he is or how he is , why do you always pray to him dad"my attitude was a little tempered.

Father didn't look at me , just stared at the setting sun to nothingness. The silence was awkward enough for me to hide my gaze from him.

"Son,"he said.

"Yes father" I replied in a meek tone.

"Why do you think we plant trees?" He asked.

I was just a 8 years old boy at that time so I said impostuously "for fruits and wood, father"

My father stopped patting my head, I thought my impostuous answer made him unhappy

"Why does a father raise his child?" He asked in an even tempered altitude.

I said "cause that's what father does" I gave this answer a little thought.

My father's expression changed, his face had a desolate appearance.

"That's true" he looked inconsolated

"Father you still didn't answer me why you pray to god" my heart was filled with sudden confusemest , i didn't know how these two topics had a relation.

"Son, I pray to be assured" vacancy filled his speech.

"ASSURED?" I asked , not knowing what this meant.

"Son always remember that, All a man needs is assurance of a certain someone or something no matter what it is or who it is" his eyes were hollow , still staring at the already set sun's last fighting rays against darkness.

That was the last memories I had of him. After that came great disasters.

YEAR 2024

Humanity was in turmoil. A sudden virus took over the world with natural disasters and calamities.

It was an unfateful apocalypse.

Strange phenomenon started to take place around the globe, humans suffered an unknown disease, this disease clause them intense headache that still didn't had any treatment but that wasn't the worst part. After some days the humans who were infected with this virus died but their brains didn't stop functioning. Within a second or two those dead bodies wake up. Their skin latter changes into a hueish blue colour. These weren't humans anymore. We called them

voctures. These were like zombies we had seen in video games and movies. But the difference was that in movies and games zombies had no mind and thoughts of their own but in reality the voctures were a newborn species made by their past self malice. They had minds and thoughts of their own and were not much different than humans. The only difference was that they were strong and humans were not.

Some humans had already premonition of apocalypse, remaining humans started to live under the soil.

They made a city underground. This.city was basically made of tunnels. Each group of people of family were given a tunnelhold by the ruling government in this city, the underground civilization had 4 floor. Upper floor was for the workers and miners. The lower floor were made for important people's.

My father karl heuther as the leading scientist of humanity, had to leave us. He took my sister and moved and went to the main quarters of this new underground world.

Me and my mother were left alone

Santha heuther my mom was a determined woman. After father left us , she whores herself to feed me. I didn't know much at the time. Till she got std and died when I turned 11.

Fury turned me into a vengeful man. I despised my father for quite some time.

Working my ass off in mines to feed myself one time a day. It wasn't enough but just barely to keep me ongoing.

As time went on i realised vengeance was a foolish thought, it will just ruin my heart and corruption will spread throughout my inner self. I gave up on it

Televisions on the sky which were holographic, depicted the cruelty of voctures. They had already defeated America after 6 months of war. People never thought that America, the supination, would fall. Our underground civilization is on brink of extinction as well. Voctures were sighted in the upper most layer of the civilization. Where I live. There are five layers, as I remember father is in the 4th layer and the 5th layer is publicly restricted.

At some point of time when I was thirteen ,I was taken to the 3rd layer to work at some rich TunnelHold of an elder politician. He was a generous person. After some time he started to pay me a handsome salary. My life changed. I could feed myself twice a day now. He also gave me a quarter in his Tunnelhold. It was a dream of a miner to get a room in the 3rd layer. I thought my life changed but I was wrong.

This elderly had a young wife. She was Very beautiful, maybe the same age as me. Morals and ethics didn't matter in this underground civilization. Humans were desperate enough to increase their number . After a couple months of working there. I was now the assistant of the head house maid. On a particular evening she instructs me to clean the room of mistress roza. I went and did as I was instructed. There was no one in the room. But the shower was on in the bathroom. I felt a tingling sense of fear. But the curious me opened the bathroom. Miss roza was standing next to the bathtub and her husband was lying dead in the bathtub without a single movement, his eyes wide open. My fear arised. Her wife was out of her breath. I tried to turn from the doorway without making noise but the floor was slippery. As soon as I took turn to leave, my leg slipped and i falled down. She saw me,

"What are you doing here" her face was filled with sudden terror.

"I came t" I hesitated and panicked. I thought of making noise will solve this madness

But before I could shout. She shouted. Patrolling police came immediately.The handcuffed both me and roza, We were both accused of murde. I stood my ground and said what I saw in the court. But apparently roza said that we did it together confessing

This was not good. What she did was simple ,if she gets imprisonment why go alone? I basically ruined her life here. Why won't she do the same. She was mutual in what she did to me , I was desolated to what she did to me.

We were both sentenced with death with two years of imprisonment. I was traumatized for a whole month. But the life of prison slowly took over us. It was harsh but i started to adopt. Roza was given her cell next to mine. We never talked.

Days went by, i had been counting days in my cell. The walls and ceiling were filled with counting lines. On the 730th day of our imprisonment, me and roza were taken out of our cell, this was the first time since I saw her after that incident. She was all bones, nothing else. Her figures still radiated a certain excellence of pureness. I hated it. They masked us after some time.

When they removed the mask I was in lift. Lift that will take us to our death. Central unit forth layer. Where my father lives. But when we came to halt at the fourth layer. We were moved to another lift. With other guards.

Fear awakened in my body. We were being taken to 5th layer. This lift was much smaller than the other ones that were used to travel between the layers. The lift door opens after sometime. There was only one way tunnel in front of us. We were stunned after that.

After some time when I opened my eyes, I analysed my surroundings and found that Seven children the same age as me were sitting on chairs in the same way I was, three boys and three girls. One of which was roza.

This faculty was like a test lab. It was situated in a long and elongated tunnel. Bigger than most of the tunnels I have ever seen in the 3rd layer.

Later we got to know that we are an experimental project. Scientists found that humans have been evolving since the apocalypse.

The humans that were announced as the voctures in the name of some unknown virus were just progressing by the process of evolution. They were not immuned enough to withstand it.

We seven were the only ones in the entire humanity who are able to evolve. We were able to conquer the deathly headache. I don't know how I got here but I have never in my entire life experienced a headache this deadly. The only time I got a headache was when I thought of dad or was hungry enough to starve.

Other kids said that they had the ability to sense certain flow in their body. Later after some experiments. Scientists discovered that we were able to regenerate. Like voctures could.

I didn't feel any of this. I don't know how they got me here but I kept quiet. Because life here was easy and ennui was nothing to me other children considered this prison whereas for me it was heaven. I get to eat properly here.

We were now ranked on our physical poweress and how fast we can regenerate. Roza was 1st one in regeneration only a millisecond faster than a guy. This boy was exceptional. He was ranked first even after being second in regeneration. His physical nature was unnatural, breaking the law of nature. Others were ranked accordingly. I was 6th and I got to know that I could regenerate somehow. I wasn't just a fluke. But it was slow. And I had the strength of an average bull, nothing more. But the guy below me had it worse. He was bullied by both researchers and our labmates. They never touched me. Upper ranked children tried, but the researchers intervened.

Later we were labelled as 'labrats' in short LR. I was LR 6. Roza was LR 2.

Days passed by , when I was 16 our little underground world was destroyed by voctures. They never got to us though. We knew that this was the 5th layer and only us seven 16 year olds, the scientist that researched on us and a few unfortunate newborns who were born and evolved lived.

Us 7 had only a single purpose. It was to sleep till the distant future. We were to pe out in sleepingcells for 500 years and our cells will only hatch after that time. Our goal was to lead the upcoming humans who will have no knowledge of this old world. Now I also know what the purpose of those newborns are. They are just mass reproduction machines.

Days went by when we all turned 19 , time to sleep for years came. We were drugged with some unknown medicine. Our eyes weren't blindfolded this time. This time we were taken to somewhere entirely different. We were brought in front of a secret tunnel at the end of this faculty. The tunnel had no source of light; we didn't know where it took us. There was a hyperloop train at the start of the tunnel. We were set to the train for 20 days. I don't know how many kilometres we have travelled. But this Tunnel looked to be unending loop. Finally at the end os 20th day it came to half. We were taken out of the tunnel. What we saw took us by surprise

There was a large open space, with no roof top. The top looked like a well; it had an end but it was far higher. They had reddish yellow sand with a cool breeze touching my skin. The ceiling was curved at the top and was stretched like well at top. Only having a single opening.

Suddenly the hyperloop train at the end of the tunnel exploded. The rock above the tunnel submerged into ground making this hall having only one opening.A circle Sunlight was coming from that hole. Where it landed stood a man.

Karl huethers.

Dread spread throughout my body, I started to shutter. My face became one of horror, eyes frowned, mouth wide open.

Karl huethers opened his mouth and said in a serious tone. "Welcome, saviours ." He paused and clapped his hands. Suddenly 7 cocoon-like things fall to the ground. It didn't touch it. It was 1 metres above the ground, hanging by a rope to the ceiling area which wasn't open. These things were throbbing.

"These are mutant creatures which were combined with specific floral DNA, these will help you sleep till your destination." karl elaborated with a professional tone

Soon after that one by one my labmates were placed inside this cocoon like creatures. Inside it was filled with dark green liquid. One by one they all were in deep slumber. The only remaining one was me.

Soon I was brought near my cocoon. Standing beside it was karl. With a deadpan expression. At first I thought he wouldn't recognise me. But I was dead wrong.

"How have you been zarth?" He had a somber expression not meeting my gaze.

I kept quiet. He used my name. I haven't heard it since my mother used to call it, the word zarth was like an abandoned home in my heart. It hurts. My eyes watered. The only thing I asked was.

"Why are you here and where is Zara" I cried and shouted at the same time.

"Your sister is fine zarth, don't worry today she will die with me here today the only ones who will remain will be the newborns." His words killed me.

"You fucking lifeless idiot, I don't need your stupid consolation" fury enfolded my entirely. Rage filled me so much that my eyes were blood red.

"Zarth don't cry, it's time to go" his eyes were hollow.

He asked me to raise my hand. I didn't. The guard behind me forced me to do it. karl pulled out a knife and made a small cut at the top of my finger. And gestured me to put my finger on the cocoon. I still hesitated. But did it nevertheless. The cocoon stretched from the middle part. And cutting open it like a wide mouth to swallow me. A wine-like thing came inside from the cocoon and shot towards my shoulders. Submerging into it. I was suddenly lightheaded. It was slowly pulling me inward to the cocoon.

Karl stood there watching everything. He leans toward me. Before being entirely pulled into the cocoon he came near and leaned towards my ear and whispered in a crestfallen approach "pls don't ruin this again". He then approached his pockets and pulled out a syringe and struck it hard at the vine that attached itself on my shoulder.

My face goes from sad to dark. My thoughts alter from one to another. "What are you doing?"I bit my lips.

He pulls out the syringe. His expression ashens more than before."500 years is too less for you, give me sweet fruits my son" he smiled at his own words. It wasn't a cruel or bad smile. It was a good smile, a fatherly smile.

Before I could speak the wine swiftly pulled me toward the cocoon swallowing me whole. But before losing my consciousness I heard him whisper something. I know what he said "be assured" then came the sound of explosions. My consciousness faded soon after that.

To be continued-