Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Disaster
A couple of minutes before the disaster happened, two scientists were in a hurry inside a building, typing on their computers and coordinating people.
The research center they belonged was the one charged to make a perfect recording of the Crimson meteorite falling on Saphyr.
That would be a historical event, so they needed to do everything perfectly.
'Not just recording, but also gathering a lot of data and studying the nature of those little red rocks falling on our homeland… I wish I could clone myself, this way I could do all these things at the same time without getting crazy because of it.'
While he was thinking about it, the scientist was scolding someone because of a smidge mistake made.
He didn't even realize who he was yelling at. He just snapped back to reality when it already happened, but it was pointless. Everyone there would hate him equally because of that stressful day, anyway, so he didn't care.
The other scientist remained on the computer typing so fast that his fingers barely could be seen. He was finishing a line of codes in artificial intelligence programming. That AI would be responsible to calculate, predict and analyze everything that the human mind wasn't able to do in such a short time.
Those two scientists were the heads of that projects, they couldn't lose too much time there, since they had a deadline and needed to make things as fast as they could.
The deadline was until the meteorite got 5 kilometers away from the surface where he would land. In Saphyr's case, the calculations showed that the meteorite would fall exactly in the middle of the capital. All the coordinates were perfectly aimed there, it was even unbelievable.
Fortunately, the last detail of their project was done just in time and all the team celebrated their victory.
People were throwing their pens, lab coats, hats, and even keyboards away. Jumping, hugging, shrieking…
The two scientists, though, were so tired that they just sat on their chairs and looked to the big screen that was on the wall, appreciating the imminent fall of the meteorite.
Suddenly, something happened that stopped all the cheers and celebrations of the team.
People got scared when the lights of the research center turned off, then lit up again. This oscillation was kept for some while until all the building suffered from a partial power outage.
The only things that remained usable in the laboratory were a few computers and machines, also as the one that was sustaining the AI. The big screen was still lit up, but a short circuit made 1/3 of the screen go black.
They could still see the meteorite falling, regardless, even without a part of the image.
"W-What happened with the lights!?"
"Why on this freaking time? A lot of data will be lost! I hope the AI can make up for this…"
"Why the power generators aren't working now? They should be replacing the electricity that isn't supplying the equipment."
"I just texted a friend! The power outage happened in all the city!"
"No way… Everyone, look at the news! There are different regions of the nation registering general Power outages!"
"Shit! Are you saying that all the nation is having issues with electricity? What the heck?"
The two scientists could do nothing but look at each other and start to connect the points. There was just one thing related that could be doing it.
"Hey… Are you thinking the same as me?" One of them asked and the other just moved to the table where the computer sustaining the AI was.
He started to search through all the data collected, his eyes quickly passing through each word.
'Ok. If he will be searching there, then I will try to get evidence with the human eye. Let's see what we find…"
In the middle of all the despair, those two focused on work.
Again, the electricity of the building oscillated, and this time everything died due to the power outage. Along with it, the entire building shook slightly, remembering an earthquake.
The people working there had their hearts racing and their bodies were trembling slightly. Some were pale and losing strength on their legs. A random scientist fainted in the arms of a friend.
"Could you find something?" One of the leaders asked, with his face serious and stiff.
The other who was working on the AI's collected data looked at him in return.
"The meteorite has unknown energy that interacts strangely with the space and matter… That's what it says."
His coworker nodded, looking at the calculations he did himself.
"This thing is not scientific at all! Depending on what will happen when all this energy gets out, we might be completely lost…"
The two scientists got beside each other. One of them took a cheap whine bottle somewhere and took two or three sips of it, offering it to his friend afterward.
The man looked to the bottle, then his clock, showing that the fall would be in one minute.
"Thanks, Rick." He accepted the bottle, taking a sip as well.
"You are welcome, Ash. May we have a good drink."
The seconds passed like minutes, the minutes as hours. They closed their eyes while waiting for what would happen. Their anxiety raised when they felt that wait to be too long.
Then, an intense shock wave exploded out of nowhere… and their hearts burned.
…
Owen opened his eyes slowly, blinking several times in the process. All his body was achy, and he barely found the strength necessary to get up from the ground.
Since his legs were the achiest of all, he raised just his upper body.
'Damn! You must be kidding with me…' He lamented. His eyes got moist and he held a scream of pain and frustration. He saw that his leg had a huge glass shard on it, almost 5 centimeters large, and 6 centimeters of height. It pierced across his thigh and the other extreme could be seen on the other side.
The manager looked around. What his eyes showed to him was more painful than the glass shard on his thigh.
'What…? What's that? Did I sleep on the train or something? That's a nightmare, isn't it!?'
He was going to rub his eyes to make sure that it was real, but he didn't need to; the pain on his leg was enough to show him that all that situation was a matter of fact.
The train he took to go home was overturned. Glass shards were spread all over the place, also as pointed metal pieces, bags, and soil.
Corpses of the people could be seen around. Lots of them, killed in different ways. Blood was spilled all over the place and its smell rose in the air, making Owen gag.
The man needed to do a painful decision: stay still where he was and wait for help or walk around the place with that glass shard stuck on his thigh and see if he could find survivors of that accident and help them.
'I can't get this freaking glass out of my thigh now. If I do it and start to bleed hard, I will eventually die. Anyway, stay at the same place and don't do anything is another no-go. If there are people alive, the best thing to do is to gather them and go out of this train for the time being!'
Prompting himself to get up, he endured the pain, grimacing in agony when trying for the first time. He fell to the ground again, letting out a scream.
He tried a second time and could not do it as well. Just in the third that he changed his position to make it easier and finally could stand up.
Stumbling, he supported himself on the nearest solid thing. Due to the intense effort, his breath was heavy and he felt like his thigh was about to explode
Owen identified different spots of his body with bruises and cuts.
'Probably the fall was really violent… What kind of thing happened, for God's sake!?'
He stopped himself to overthink and just got his cellphone, which was nearly intact.
He typed the emergency number and tried to call them.
'What…? My cellphone has no signal at all! What's happening here!?'
The man walked through that creepy and gloomy place, stepping on top of the broken glass and taking care to not cut himself on the sharp metal parts that were popping out of the train's structure.
He looked disgusted and sad to all those people spread on the ground, some hanging on the ceiling, others somehow stuck to the walls.
He couldn't see anything out there, since the windows were above now, and his last worry was how the world was going out there.
"Hey! Someone can hear me!? Say something, so I can go and help you!" He shouted.
For a minute, silence… Then, he heard a loud mumbling, that looked similar to someone saying "here!".
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone