Early morning, birds flew around and chirped bringing melody to the quiet surroundings.

Inside an apartment in one of the residential buildings of the city.

A ray of light flashed through the curtain of the room on the face of a boy, sleeping without a care about the world. The blanket was lying on the floor kicked from bed during sleep.

'Beep .... Beep'

'Beep .... Beep'

'Beep .... -'

The alarm clock goes off but is not yet noticed by the boy.

Slowly, the volume rose till it is ringing in his ears that he reluctantly got up and stopped the alarm.

He was still feeling sleepy as he was up till late at night reading novels and watching videos. Rising out of bed, he searched for his slippers. Upon not seeing them in sight, the boy made a helpless face and bent down slowly to search under the bed.

After finding his slippers, he pulled them out & wore them. Then, he headed towards the washroom.

He walked like a drunk stumbling all around till he finally reached there. While brushing his teeth, he looked into the mirror.

There was a 19-year-old youth in the mirror with above-average looks and black hair. He was light brown in complexion and was considered tall among his peers because of his height of 183 cm and was a tad bit overweight at 92 kg but he looked fit enough in clothes. Even though he had a bit of stubble, it only accentuated his looks giving him a rough edge. This was Noah, an ordinary student at St. Michael's High School.

After freshening himself up, he reached for his specs and put them on. He was myopic with -2D in both eyes. At this moment, Noah seemed to have remembered something and hastily went for his SA(Smart Assistant). He checked the date and upon realization, went into a panic.

24th August 2069

07:12

Today his class had a presentation and he also had a part in it. They were told to arrive early at 7:40 because the assembly starts at 8:00 and he forgot all about it because of his disinterest as well as his minor role in it.

He had no interest in being a monkey in front of his classmates but his class teacher wrote his name in the group, insisting he needs to participate in such activities despite his reluctance. He even told them to work hard on it.

"Hard work, my ass. Come on, does he seriously thinks anyone listens to the crap that students copy-paste out of Google and Wikipedia for weekly presentations." Noah sighed in frustration.

He then got ready in a crazed manner. Using deodorant in place of a shower, he was now dressed up. All that's left was breakfast, so he made a jam sandwich in a rush and munched down on it. Then putting his laptop and necessities in his bag, he made a run towards the street while locking his apartment through his Neural Interface(N.I.).

Upon arriving at main street out of breath, Noah called the nearest autoEV through N.I. and jumped into it. He directed it to go to his school campus. Noah then sat comfortably to the side plugging the earpods around his ears and scrolling iTube using his N.I. trying to enjoy the 15 min ride to the school.

.....

The World has changed a lot over the past few decades while at the same time not much has changed in general. Poverty is still there, wars are still going on in some corners of the world and Flat Earthers are still present in the general populace. But it's not as if nothing has changed. Humanity has formed a colony on the Moon as well as Mars with the latter declaring itself independent just 6 years ago.

Science has made many breakthroughs opening up fields like quantum computing, anti-gravity engine, nuclear fusion, room temp superconductors, and the likes of it and bringing their applications to common people in the form of GWS(Global Weather Surveillance), free electricity, Neural Interfaces, Commercial Spaceships, AI capable of selective evolution, LIVE Games - A new genre of games with massive worlds similar to reality in complexity and interactiveness and many more such inventions.

This led to ushering the world in a new age making humanity a type-1 civilization according to Kardashev scale harnessing a total energy equivalent to the entire energy on the Earth.

Medical technology also had many breakthroughs making artificial organ cultivation and transplantation of vital organs such as lungs, kidneys, and heart feasible and commonplace. Genetic diseases and cancer are now curable albeit at expensive costs through nanotechnology.

Life extension is now possible through stem cell regeneration allowing people to have an average lifespan of above 100 years and maintaining their physical fitness at older ages resulting in retirement ages increasing by a decade on average.

But Technology didn't just bring joy and prosperity with it. Due to increased life expectancy, the population steadily declined through the years and also brought with it a new era of war-BioWarfare.

With every country shifting to this new cost-effective option and rising tensions between the countries, it was only a matter of time before something unforeseen happened.

And it did.

On 28th December 2054, a new strain of bio-virus now called as "BlackDeath" virus was supposedly leaked from one of the top-secret research facilities of a Bio-technology MNC in Africa. The aftermath of the virus resulted in approximately 470 million direct deaths devastating the entire world with the indirect death toll to be estimated at around a billion.

Countries dissolved overnight. Almost everyone lost at least one of their family members. No single country could escape from its effects. Fortunately, the virus data could be directly obtained from the MNC, and within 6 months and through the combined effort of all countries, the virus was contained. According to scientists, Humanity could be on the brink of collapse if they were late by a year.

All senior-level staff of the corporation was charged with a crime against humanity and the company was abolished but this gave humanity a rude wake-up call leading to global protests in hundreds of millions which forced the governments to sign the 'Bio Weaponry Handling Act(BWHA)'.

This Act restricted the study of Bio-weaponry on Earth and any research with risks of the same magnitude as of the 'BlackDeath' virus was only to be held on the moon in isolated facilities. This pandemic also brought about huge political changes with the merging of many countries.

It also led to the birth of the Earth Federation in 2055 with continents as well as subcontinents assigned as different zones and districts with different governments and the reshuffling of the entire political landscape.

Noah was one of the many children who was orphaned by this event and has been living in an orphanage till he was 14 and afterward was able to live alone with help of government welfare schemes.

He had above-average intellect with a few introvert tendencies. It was not that he didn't like to socialize. He just liked to socialize more with people of similar interests. That's why he was an active person in many forums and communities related to novels, anime, and iTube in sharp contrast to his almost asocial behavior in school. He was also a geek interested in tinkering and making various stuff.

He got enrolled in St. Michael's High School, a prestigious school in the district with a scholarship due to his intellect, and was in the 2nd semester of the second year of high school. Noah led the average student life, there was nothing unusual or out of the norm in his day-to-day activities. To be fair though, all of that could be attributed to him being a low-key nerd.

.....

Noah saw the school was near so he closed all his devices and put away both his nanopods and SA in the bag.

The EV stopped near the entrance gate and Noah got off after paying the fare. Looking at his school, Noah thought, 'Another boring day at school. There's really nothing interesting going on around here.'

Walking through the campus, Noah had no idea that these few days were the last in his life with some semblance of normalcy.

And the entire world is going to go through a massive upheaval in the upcoming days.