Ryan's laughter slowly subsided, and he came back down to the earth.
"No, it's not 2024," he said, serious.
Aria's eyes still held confusion."What do you mean?" she asked.
"Are you sure you are okay?"Ryan asked, concern, how can she still be insisting that it's 2024.
That's one hundred and fifty four years ago, is she fucking with me, he thought.
Aria shook her head."No," she whispered. "I think am in coma."
Ryan's eyes narrowed, This girl is crazy, he thought. Maybe all her years in the military fucked up her head.
Aria shook her head, trying to remove the idea that she was thrown to the future but why.
"Just continue what you were saying about what happened here," she urged.
Ryan hesitated, unsure if he should add more to her delusions. He studied her face , searching for any sign of insanity.
"Fine," he said finally, "But you need to understand, this is a lot to take in and I don't need interruption"
Aria nodded with anticipation. " Tell me," she said steady.
Ryan took a deep breath, his chest expanding beneath his worn out faded shirt.
"Okay. So as I was saying," he began, his voice painting a vivid picture.
He settled back into his chair, "It all started in the year 2172 , A scientific company discovered a creature at the bottom of the Earth, deep in the Mariana Trench.
They found something that defied explanation.
An ancient being that had been dormant for millions of years. They called it the 'Samatu Entity'."
Aria listened intently.
"This entity was more than just a creature," Ryan continued.
"The scientists were fueled by curiosity and ambition that they brought the entity to the surface.
They started to study it and experiment on it.
But they soon realized that they had made a terrible mistake.
The Samatu being was a being with immense power and technology that was beyond our understanding.
The scientists began to extracted pieces from the Samatu being.
They experimented on animals at first and when they saw the astonishing results, they started to experiment on humans too.
They injected human subjects with the Samatu's DNA, altering their genetic code.
But the results were catastrophic.
The subjects all began to mutate, their bodies twisting into different forms. They became violent, unpredictable, and uncontrollable.
The animals too shifted their behavior and form.
The scientists realized too late that they had unleashed a terror upon the world.
The mutated humans and animals escaped from the lab, killing any living thing that came in contact with them.
They became creatures with no regard for human life.
They crushed defenses and the world as we knew it collapsed.
Different governments fell, societies broke down and The few remaining humans that survived formed factions, fighting for survival but not so many is now alive." Ryan finished what was common knowledge to all the remaining humans.
Aria sat frozen, her eyes glazed over as she struggled to process the overwhelming information.
So she had died in 2024 and now, somehow, she was in 2178.
The thought alone sent her mind reeling. It sounded insane, like something out of a science fiction novel.(^^)
How could she even begin to wrap her head around it?
Aria's eyes drifted around the room, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.
"This can't be real," she whispered, she doesn't believe it.
Ryan watched her, waiting to see her reaction if she has finally gotten her senses back or if he had finally fucked up her head more.
Aria's face turned in horror.
"I died," she whispered to herself. "I died and woke up in this...this fucked up place that looks like an apocalypse."
Aria's shoulders slumped down in defeat as the weight of her reality crushed her.
The dimly lit room seemed to close in around her, suffocating her with the reality.
Her face was casted downward looking down on her feets.
Without warning, a strange, hollow sound escaped her lips.
"Hahahah," she laughed, the sound growing louder like a manic,
The sound echos off the walls like a haunted movie.
Aria's body shook, her shoulders convulsing as tears streamed down her face.
Ryan's expression turned concerned as he saw her reaction, had what he said gave her a reality check.
Ryan quickly rose from his chair, his movements cautious, as if approaching a wounded and wild animal.
"Aria?" he asked soft and gentle, trying to pierce through her despaired form.
Aria couldn't stop, Her laughter grew with a mix of emotions, from grief to anger and then desperation.
She felt like she was drowning in her own sorrow.
"Oh god," she gasped between giggles,. "This is...this is just too much. I lost everything. My life, my family, my friends...and now I am here, still dying."
"Aria, stop," Ryan whispered as he approached her cautiously. "You are going to draw attention."
But Aria's laughter only went higher, a raw and primal scream. She felt like she was shattering into a million pieces.
"How cruel can fate be?" she exclaimed through the deserted room. "I died, and now I'm trapped in this nightmare. What's the point? What's the point of any of this?"
Aria's sobs slowly subsided, replaced by ragged breathing. She felt drained and empty.
Her mind was consumed by the memories of her past life. She thought back to what she had left behind.
The loved ones she would never see again. Her mother who was frail and sick.
Her poor mother who was also struggling with depression after her husband's passing.
Aria's heart ached as she remembered her father's warm smile and laughter.
Tears streamed down her face as she recalled the day her father died. She was only six years old, too young to understand the meaning of loss.
Her mother's tears still rings in her ear after she heard the news from the battalion that her husband was dead from a mission.
Her father's death was what made her want to be in the military, but now she is regretting it because how would her mom cope hearing that her remaining family was dead to from a mission.