‘Is that a bridge?!’ Dante was startled out of his brooding mood. For most of the day up until this point, he had been hoping to find signs of human civilization, but he was losing hope as he made his way along the river bank until he stumbled across what he believed to be a bridge.

He thought it was strange when he saw the structure that partially spanned the river, the structure looked aged and decrepit. The apparent bridge was no longer able to support itself, it had partially collapsed into the river. Even more unusual was that it was covered in snaking vines, small trees, long grass, bushes and all sorts of greenery.

Dante hurried his steps as he made his approach and saw that it was a human-made bridge. As he got closer he could make out more details, there were rusted metal girders, smoothly cut wood that had been rotting away for years and white paint flaking away from the metal structure. These were obvious indications that at one point in time it was something humans had created to connect the two sides of the river, but now it was ravaged by time and neglect. ‘What happened here? Is this an abandoned bridge?’

Upon finally reaching the old and worn bridge which nature had reclaimed, he noticed it had two metal tracks running along it, ‘this must have been an old railway bridge. That means I can follow the tracks to a town or station!’

Dante's spirit was lightened, he gained renewed hope that he would soon be seeing people's faces again, he was desperate to know what became of humanity since the wall of light. The prospect of some normalcy, returning to his life was something he desperately desired, everything had been too fucking crazy lately. He also admitted to himself that he would appreciate a nice refreshing beer and some warm food, heck any food would be appreciated. In his starving and emaciated state thinking about food was a terrible mistake, his stomach grumbled at him, pangs of stabbing hunger caused him to hunch over while holding his arms in front of his belly.

The bridge appeared to have collapsed long ago, he only had one direction to travel in and so he resigned himself to heading back into the woods following the train tracks.

Dante had some difficulty following the train tracks, there were long stretches where the tracks were buried under soil and green growth. He had wandered off the tracks several times, managing to return to the tracks each time. This continued for some time before he began to see more signs of humanity and products of human civilization. There were damaged train signal posts, empty old rusted train coaches, long since reclaimed by nature. There was even a train that was connected to many flatbeds, they were at one time used for transporting all sorts of cargo. The flatbeds appeared to be mostly empty, they seemed to now be the beds of plants and trees instead.

These were machines that were no longer required to transport goods on behalf of humans, nature had absorbed these old human-made constructs back into its bosom. Re-purposing them to grow new life. Continuing down the track, he began to get more and more dispirited, with everything around being old and discarded he was starting to doubt he would find civilization anytime soon.

The sun was starting to set, the sky turning a beautiful spectrum of colours, Dante was getting worried he would be caught out in the woods while it was dark again. He had made some progress in becoming stronger, considering that he now had his newly acquired means of defence. What he would prefer is to find some shelter and preferably soon. He had already experienced what these woods had to offer to those that left themselves outside and vulnerable.

Picking up the pace in hopes of finding something soon, he started lightly jogging along the rail tracks, keeping an eye out for any kind of buildings or structures he could potentially spend the night in.

The sky had turned from an azure blue to a canary yellow before taking on a fiery orange. Dante had been rushing along the tracks and had built up a sweat, the fur of his Grey wolf cloak was slightly sticking to him. He was slightly distracted with the discomfort of running barefoot, looking down at the floor when something large cast a shadow before him.

He looked up, it wasn't anything that would put him in immediate danger. Nevertheless what he saw caused his stomach to sink with trepidation. He had reached an old train station, which under better circumstances would have caused him to jump with joy. It was the fact that not too far from the station, a swathe of green covered buildings was visible before him. As he looked upon these buildings, it appeared as though nature’s wrath had not spared even these remnants of humanity. Nature was a juggernaut, and her campaign had begun long ago. She was in the process of recovering what was rightfully hers, she was taking back from the humans who had treated her so poorly, and she could not be stopped.

Dante made his way towards the town with some trepidation. The whole town was overgrown with all sorts of plants, trees, shrubs, grass and vines. A kaleidoscope of greens and spots of colour from different vibrant plants that now flourished amongst the ruins of humanity. It reminded Dante of photos he had seen of Chernobyl, a forcefully abandoned city that was ruined because of a terrible mistake that had made the area uninhabitable to humans.

‘I can’t be in Chernobyl, can I? No, don't be an idiot, that would be far too convenient or rather inconvenient. I kind of doubt that I would find myself landed there of all places on the whole of planet Earth, assuming that I am on Earth.’ There was a brief moment of panic as the thought of finding himself irradiated in his attempt at finding some other humans.

It would be a bitter kind of irony, like a person lost at sea finally reaching an island. Only to find it was deserted with no resources on it and the only ‘food’ was poisonous to human consumption. He reasoned it was very unlikely that F would have left him near somewhere that was abandoned by humanity decades ago.

He strolled through the streets, rather than being met with smooth flat tarmac, or pathways of concrete slabs that showed humanity's capacity to tame its environment. Instead, these streets resembled a green-carpeted pathway, with patches of cracked and broken tarmac, shattered paving stones and rusted lamp posts covered in ivy. There were shop fronts that had smashed windows, their insides were filled with vines and other invasive plants.

Some of the shop windows were coated with what looked like years of filth and grime, which made it difficult to see into the shops. Dante also saw broken down rusted vehicles that were lined up on either side of the streets, the occasional car had a door been left open, it was as if people had just stepped out for a moment with plans to return to them. Contrary to the vehicles' momentarily abandoned appearance, the obvious state of disrepair and the way in which all the vehicles had been overtaken by nature proved that the owners never had the opportunity to do that.

Questions and thoughts tumbled in Dante’s head as he looked around in bewilderment, ‘What has become of humanity? Is it possible that I have been placed near an old abandoned town or has something else happened? seems like the kind of trick F would play, that mad bastard.’

Having a sudden thought, if he could find clues that might indicate when this town had been abandoned, he’d be able to build up a better picture of what had happened. There didn’t appear to be any chance of finding dates in newspapers or anything convenient like that, so he sought out a building that was the least neglected. After wandering the town for several minutes he spotted what appeared to be someone's home. It was in a slightly better state of repair than most buildings, he thought that perhaps what remained inside would be in better condition than the rest of the ruined town.

Walking up to the door of this home that contained his hope of clues to answer just what the fuck was going on. Dante reached out his hand towards the door handle and pushed down, a crunch could be heard and the handle came away in his grasp.

Dante shrugged before smashing his shoulder into the door, the door ripped off its old rusted hinges, his body following the door as it collapsed to the floor. A cloud of dust had enveloped him as the dilapidated door broke to pieces, he coughed and sputtered, gradually getting up and brushing the dust and dirt off his fur cloak. He wasn’t quite used to his newly acquired strength or expecting the door to be so brittle.

Glad that no one was there to witness his embarrassing moment, he began looking around the home. Despite the appearance of most of the town, it seemed to be left in a reasonable condition. Though there were clear signs of neglect, there was mould, dirt and dust everywhere.

It was obvious that the home had been abandoned for many years, he couldn’t put a finger on how much time might have passed. There were more signs of the passage of time, such as peeling wallpaper, cracked paint and mould. He began to look around the house, hoping to perhaps find clues to what had happened to humanity in this innocuous old abandoned home.

The furniture in the home looked fairly modern in contrast to its dilapidated appearance. Continuing to wander around the home, something caught his eye, he saw a cupboard which for some reason drew his attention.

A sudden pain struck in his head like a nail was being driven into his brain. A fragment of memory surfaced, ‘That’s right, I remember something!' It was a mere fragment of his past, something that belonged to him, or the person he used to be. He recalled that the cupboard resembled one he also had at his home, it was a mass-produced, cheap piece of furniture that he recalled having bought relatively recently.

He remembered having to put it together himself, but by the time he was finished, there were still several leftover pieces. He remembered hiding the leftover pieces from someone, for reasons he couldn’t recall. But the fact that it should have been relatively new furniture and yet it was sitting in this house aged by many years of neglect. The dots began connecting, he couldn’t ignore the obvious anymore, it made a cold sweat break out on him.

‘It can’t be! It’s been two days! Hasn’t it?!’ He ran to different rooms, everything in the home was neglected and falling apart, but to him, it looked modern in relation to his vague recollection. There was furniture, broken televisions, computer game consoles. Modern kitchen equipment. All of it was aged well beyond what should have been possible.

Dante started to feel dizzy as the implications of what might have happened were becoming more apparent. The facts were beginning to align and paint a clearer picture for him, the main problem being that they didn’t align with his memories of the past few days.

The wall of light, the cave, surviving in the woods, the walk to this town. For him, it had only been two whole days, almost three. Looking around the home, everything seemed to indicate that decades had passed perhaps longer. ‘How long has it been?!’

Finding himself in a bedroom, his head was spinning from the implications of the abandoned and derelict buildings. Something occurred to him and he palmed his face, he was hopeful that it would work but he didn’t bet on it. Dante was also worried about what he would see, that possibility that he was right was too frightening for him to process.

Not sure of the command, he just phrased it as a question in his head ‘System what’s the date?’

[Planet: Earth, Time: 21:04:11, Date: 02/07/2342 AD]

[Date and time set to user’s previously preferred format, would you like to change date and time to Ascended Universal? (Yes/No)]

“2342! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” Dante started to experience a full-blown panic attack, his rate of breathing increased, he was holding his chest and the room was spinning. Thinking the date over and over again in his head, the system's date collided with his thoughts and memories creating a dissonance that made him wretch.

Dante rolled onto his stomach and his body tried to force him to throw up. He heaved, but only water, bile and spittle came out from his mouth. His thoughts were still jumbled and his brain was refusing to process the facts ‘It can’t be. It can’t be!’ The reality of these facts, the things he had seen, the old buildings, not encountering anyone, the date that was mentally projected to him by the system. ‘Fuck, what does this mean?’

Dante was lost in a delirious state of confusion, his mind was going through fear and refusal at the facts. He started thumping his head into the floor hoping that he would wake up from this nightmare. He knew he was missing memories, he knew for him not that much time had elapsed, he knew he couldn’t trust his own sense of reality anymore.

Since being struck by a wall of light, waking up in the cave, the experiences he had with magic, the system trials he had endured. Everything was fucked up. The night was passing, his erratic behaviour began to calm down. His mind slowly resigned itself to this new reality, it began to rearrange his thoughts, realigning his beliefs, adjusting his expectations. Everything that was necessary to make this new reality easier to digest.

He was now in a universe where magic was real, the memories that made him who he was were stolen from him, he was left with the vaguest parts of himself. Then as far he could tell, there was the fact that all of humanity had disappeared. He had to accept that the world and everything he was familiar with was lost. And that this was a universe where the system ruled all.