Exiting out of the house Zack was stupefied by the desolute scene outside his yard.
As he had suspected there were no moving vehicles nor were there moving pedestrians going up and forth doing their everyday business, instead outside, the roads and the streetways were completely empty, devoid of any vehicle or person.
Zack was clearly at loss to what was happening, something was definitely out of place and despite his great mind, this time he couldn't speculate what it was.
Various possibilities came to his mind but he later dismissed them after sensing that his intuition was not aligning with them.
"Could it be one of the falls that have descended earlier than its pretold time.
After a careful consideration, the young boy then shook his head,
'No this can't be it, the dates of the falls were divined by true diviners, no matter how powerful the Anomaly is, it can't mislead the wills of fate.
Maybe something other than the anomaly has occurred, yes this might be it, after all there are still other terrible situations that could occur.
Maybe there is something on the news that could explain all of this'
Coming up with a solution, Zack pulled out a small rectangular device from his pockets.
Assessing the device, the young boy went to the recent news of the week and what he saw was shocking to say the least.
The first news he saw was the shocking speech of the president of the World United Governments.
Scrolling through the speech, he later saw another world shocking news, that gave him the answers to what he was looking for.
Staring at the earth shattering news, Zack silently mumbled to himself in shock.
"What are they thinking, this is madness, how can they even suggest this"
As he was thinking, Zack silently recalled a sentence from the president's speech yesterday.
"We are in desperate times where we will need to implore desperate measures.
'Is this the so called countermeasures of controlling the deaths to its minimal, but with this method, they are already weeding out the weak before the falls descend, how is that even fair"
The news had clearly startled Zack, it hadn't been something that he would have expected.
Now after a careful consideration, everything was starting to fall in the right place, his family's mysterious disappearance, why the road was devoid of any people or vehicles.
Reading the news again, Zack scrolled down to its end, where he saw a specific line that contained important information.
(All residents are to meet at their nearest local center where the corresponding procedure will be held)
Knowing that this was a direct order from the government, Zack knew full well that there was no use in escaping the procedure, the government surely had other convenient methods of making sure that he arrived there, so to avoid trouble he seemingly decided to follow the order.
After making his decision, Zack then went towards the closest local center he could find, which in his case was the academy of research where he attended his studies.
A local center was a place owned by a Government or a place owned by a Institute, these places could range from being private academies, local academies, hospitals, business centers etc.
Since there were no active vehicles in the road, the black haired teenager decided to walk to the academy.
Luckily for him the place wasn't that far from his current location.
Fifteen minutes later, Zack arrived at a luxurious white building that had the Insignia of a book that was placed at the middle of an intersection between a sword and spear.
The moment Zack arrived at the place, he could see large armored coumaflouge vehicles with the Union army badge on it.
He also saw some white trucks that had the badge of the Institute of biological altering and genetic enhancement on them.
Seeing these vehicles, Zack's face displayed a grim expression.
Gritting through his teeth Zack them moved towards the academy.
The academy's gates were guarded by six military soldiers clad in thick exoskeleton suits.
Zack walked towards the gate entrance of the academy with stiff motions, the scrutinizing and menacing gazes of the armored soldiers were causing him some discomfort.
Just when he was about to pass through the gates, one of the amoured soldier moved to block his way.
The soldier draped in a thick exoskeleton of mystical iron, then spoke to Zack.
His voice was gruff and unpleasant to hear as he spoke,
"Student's ID please?
It was exactly at this moment that Zack realized that he had forgotten his student ID.
Showing a helpless smile towards the soldier, Zack then said,
"l-l think l fogort it at home"
After hearing the boy's words the armoured soldier did not say anything else, instead he moved back to his post and from the remaining five soldiers, one of them then stepped forward.
The soldier moved towards Zack's position in silence and then stretched out his hand towards the young boy's face.
A red ray of red light beamed on the dark haired boy's face, momentarily blinding him.
The beam only flashed on the Zack's face for a second before completely disappearing.
A green light then appeared on the wrist watch on the soldiers armour.
Upon seeing the green color, the armoured soldier turned to his comrades and gave them a short nod, before he seemingly stepped aside.
The other soldiers followed his actions and gave way for Zack to enter into the academy.
The young boy wasted no time, after being approved of entry, he brazenly entered through the gates of the academy.
After entering the gateway, Zack saw a large crowd of grouped up students, waiting at an open space area.
Besides this crowd, Zack also noticed some humanoid machinery that were draped in white lab coats.
These machinery ranged from mechanical robots to engineered androids.
These machines were a byproduct of humans, a creation that had been brought forth by Mr. Aegis Steinfield himself.
The robots were made up of a thick black armor, their arms shone with a bright silver luster.
The androids on the other hand were completely different from robots, although the robots were a creation that was created from the human structure, they did not have human features and characteristics like skin, nose ears and hair. Thay were just metallic in structure.
But the androids on the other hand, unlike robots had a perfect resemblance to ordinary humans.
The skin, eyes, mouth, teeth and ears almost resembled that of humans. The only thing that differentiated them from normal humans was how fixed their facial features were, like their eyes for example, they did not blink like normal human eyes and only remained fixed in one place as if they were not part of the body but just drawn as a decoration.
These humanoid machines were the artificial army of the Union army.
Since the world was made up of one army, there was the problematic issue of the standard number of soldiers.
The scientist had pondered over this problem and with success they had then introduced a better solution.
They would add artificial soldiers to the army to make up for the lack of soldiers.
Once Zack was inside the Academy, one of the artificial soldiers, a android with a female appearance, then approached him.
"Excuse, Zack Mason, please proceed to your designated learning area"
Looking at the female android in military attire, Zack was reluctant to follow her instructions, but after an internal struggle, he followed the instruction.As he was walking, Zack could already see that the procedures had already begun. A few moments later Zack soon emerged inside his designated study room.
Inside there were other students, of the same age who were sitted in a grim silence.
He noticed the blonde haired girl, with the name Cassie, among the sitted scholars.
He also noticed, Aya Umber, the girl with dark hair, that was fastened into a ponystyle.
He also noticed other familiar faces among the sitting students, there was the familiar handsome face of the strongest student of the academy, the young boy was sitted at back area of the classroom.
The other familiar face that Zack noticed, was that of a certain kid with disheveled brown hair and gloomy brown eyes, who had not long ago beaten him up in combat class.
The boy was sitted at thecornerback of the study room and the other chairs near him were empty due to various petty reasons.
Seeing no other free sitting spot to sit on, Zack moved towards where the brown haired boy was sitted.
Once he was sitted Zack soon regretted his decision to sit there.
Apparently Leon was a chatter box, there was no end to the boy's stories.
Zack had only exchanged a pleasant greeting with the boy at first with the intention of being polite.
Unfortunately for him, it seemed that Leon took his kind expression as a willingness to talk to him, within just a few minutes of their greeting, Leon was already recounting his storylife back at home.
After a torturous recount of the past with Leon, Zack was finally thrilled to see one of the military soldiers enter the room.
The soldier was a middle aged man with dark hair, green eyes and a thick black beard on his chin.
Behind the man there were two artificial soldiers and a instructor of the academy that was accompaning him.
The instructor was a fierce old man with gray white hair and a husky body.
The instructor was none other than the savage instructor of combat class, instructor Rollo.
Once the group was inside the class, the dark haired soldier with a average sized muscular body, began to address the students.
"Good morning everyone, l am lieutenant Hugo and l have been sent to supervise your enhancement process. All of you are to cooperate without raising any objections and the experimental procedure is mandatory for everyone except for those who had already survived the process or those with awakened abilities. Now are there any questions?