Is this the end? Many wondered.
For two years, civilization fought against the impossible. Across the world, cities and landscapes became infected by something beyond human understanding. It tore the skies, broke the earth wherever it descended. This catastrophe would later be known as the Zero Event.
Some places simply vanished, as if they had never existed. Others stretched and folded like paper. Time itself lost direction, days repeated, seconds shattered, hours rewrote themselves. These places came to be called Zerolands, spaces where the fundamental laws of reality no longer applied. Inside them, there were no rules.
But something else lurked within that chaos.
No one knew what they were….. not until they attacked those unfortunate people who lived near the Zerolands. Yet, they did not kill. Instead, they dragged people into the abyss.
It is said that those taken did not die. They simply ceased. Their souls scattered, repurposed, or erased entirely absorbed into something unknowable.
Governments across the world fought back. Borders were sealed. Evacuations turned into mass exoduses. Small nations were the first to vanish, swallowed whole, leaving behind only broken landscapes and impossible structures. By the time the world realized there would be no victory, only survival, the last remnants of humanity retreated to their final refuge: Stenian Archipelago, an artificial network of hundreds of city-sized islands. A desperate attempt to preserve what little remained with us.
As far as we know, no one who entered a Zeroland ever returned.
Except for one.
A woman washed up on Stenian shores, she looked weak, with barely any strength left. No one knew her name. She spoke no words, answered no questions.
Hours later, she gave birth.
And then, as if she had never existed at all, she was gone.
There were no records of her. No witnesses could recall where she had come from. Only that, for a moment, she had been there.
Then silence.
The event was never spoken of again. The world moved on, blind to what had come into existence that day.
But Grandpa, where is that child now?
Oh, dear….. no one remembers what happened that day. Or if it even happened at all. It's just an old story, nothing more.
Grandpa….... Im lil' bit scared. I dont wanna get dragged into the Zeroland….
Ha, don't worry, sweetheart. It should be safe here. Anyway, it's past your bedtime. Sweet dreams.
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To be continued...