The clock blared a deafening ring causing Niko to jump out of bed in fright and onto the carpet below. Mornings like these were usually non-existent as he would wake up way before his alarm rang to turn off the accursed thing. However, he had spent all night getting some extra studying in for semester exams today; thus, the rude awakening.

“Urgh….” groaned Niko as he picked himself off the floor, rubbing his forehead in pain.

”Alarm clocks should all die, but at the same time I guess they’re a blessing to have.” He said as he slammed his hands on the top button.

Niko stretched a little, loosening his stiff muscles as he lazily made his way towards his bathroom. He took some time to clean up, taking a shower then brushing his teeth before coming back out to pick out an outfit for the day.

Looking through his clothes, he decided to go all black today, taking black jeans along with a black shirt and black hoodie with golden gears etched on the front. As for the shoes, he chooses regular black tennis shoes with white soles and stripes. He could care less about the brand, shoes were just shoes, he would take care of them but he didn’t understand the hype people had with them; especially with the more expensive brands.

Once fully dressed, Niko took his backpack and went down to the dining room where both his parents were waiting for him. His mom sat at one end of the dining table tapping away ruthlessly on her computer as she drank her coffee, while his dad was busy making his world-famous breakfast menu, adding way too much food on the table for him. Being a cook, his father always emphasized the importance of a good breakfast to start the day nice and fresh.

“Morning Mom, morning Dad.” Said Niko taking a seat on the other end of the table opposing his mother.

“Morning, sweetie, how did you sleep?” asked his mom, finally taking her hands off her keyboard to drink her coffee while looking at him.

“Great, still a little sleepy though.” Said Niko with a yawn.

She nodded at her son before going back to what she was doing. Niko on the other hand looked at today’s breakfast, wondering what on earth his father had cooked up this time.

“Morning Niko! Wondering what all that is?” Asked his dad as he turned off the stove having finished with the soup.

“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in. Why so many?”

“Trying some new things today. We got Ham, Egg, and Cheese Oatmeal salad; Zucchini "Hash Browns", and Cheddar; along with Ham and Egg Casserole. As for desserts, we have Green Apple Sourdough Pancakes and Cinnamon Bread Twists.” said his father pointing at each dish. ”Oh and before I forget,” he said walking to the fridge to take 3 large cups of smoothies out. He set one next to his wife before handing another to Niko while taking the last for himself, ”Here's a good old healthy smoothie to get on with the day! Enjoy!” he said walking away to the living room as he sipped on his smoothie happily.

Niko’s mother eyed the drink suspiciously, although she enjoyed her husband’s cooking, she did not like his smoothies. Mostly due to the fact he occasionally added something weird to hers as a prank on her.

“Niko let’s switch drinks.” She said looking his way.

“Nope, you want me to die? Your own son?” responded Niko as he took a spoonful of salad.

“He’s right, you know!” screamed his father from the living room couch, ”Can’t have him dying on us.”

“Eh! Are you confessing that there’s poison in here!” yelled back his mom, turning herself and the chair slightly towards the living room.

There was silence for a while before Niko’s father replied with,” Maybe… either way, you know the rules, hon! No wasting food in this house!”

“I get that but not at the expense of my life! Why does it look different than both of yours! It’s pink, what did you put in it!”

Niko’s father didn’t reply after that as they saw the TV turn on to the news channel. Niko’s mom continued to confront his father but he just ignored her, ever so often commenting on what he found interesting on the news.

“Seriously, Jered, what’s in it? I want to live to see my grandchildren!” Screamed Niko’s mother

“Look at that another bastard tried to rob a bank in broad daylight, with a water gun I might add, is it just me or do idiots keep multiplying faster and faster these days?” Commented Niko’s father.

“Another one? Last week it was a guy with a paintball gun….WAIT that’s not the issue here tell me what’s in this!”

“Jesus, get this too, he was hiding his face with a… perfectly…..clear… SEE-THROUGH BAG.” wheezed Niko’s father as he exploded with euphoria, ”that’s got to be the bummest crap I’ll hear today.”

“That’s great but my life is on the line, and it’s not funny!” Complained Niko’s mom

All of this unfolded as Niko was busy taste testing each dish. Soon his mom gave up on asking her husband, before finally slowly taking a sip of her smoothy.

“...”

“...Feeling dead yet?” asked Niko, stuffing himself with the zucchini thing his dad made.

“No… is that rosemary?” She asked her husband.

Looking over with a slight smirk on his face, Niko’s father said, ”Your favorite! You said you had an important conference at your company today so I wanted to make something nice… for now.” before looking back at the TV.

Niko ignored the lovey-dovey actions that followed, soon after focusing on finishing his deserts and smoothie. After finishing his breakfast, he cleaned up the table and set the dishes into the sink, before grabbing his bag to head out.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad, I’m off to school!” he told them before leaving.

“Have a good day!” said both his parents as he closed the door.

~~~~~~~~

The way to school was uneventful. It was another one of those awfully quiet days where you just have that foreboding feeling in your gut as if something bad is soon to happen. Niko lived in a relatively nice suburban area some ways from a major metropolis. It was a good neighborhood with kind neighbors, except for the occasional bullies that picked on kids from his school.

He rode hard with his bike towards his school. It was barely six in the morning, but Niko always came to school early to spend time in the library or with his buddies in the robotics clubroom.

Soon enough, he passed through the school gates and secured his bike to one of the empty spots. He wasn’t the only one here waiting for the school to open. Most of the people were the usual early arrivers, while the rest were those who wished to get some last-minute tutoring lessons with the teachers before the semester exams later today.

Looking around he spotted his group of friends huddled up near the entrance, surrounding Neo, an 18-year-old British guy with light brown hair and hazel eyes. He was quite the looker too and had many girls who chased after him but preferred to indulge himself in anime and engineering. Neo was Niko’s childhood friend. They were super close and had helped each other through every grade and with bullies. To his left was a girl Niko had met freshman year of high school, Ria. She had nearly blond hair with dark brown eyes and looked fairly nice. Behind Neo was the shy Heather. She was pretty petite to be a high schooler but very cute with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. She had an obvious crush on Neo, but the latter was too disinterested in relationships at the moment to care. Last but not least was Zane, he was as tall as Niko at around 5’11 with the same dark hair and eyes. Unlike Niko who’s never been to the gym in his life despite his natural muscle, Zane has been practicing three different martial arts when he met him in middle school and was ripped. That allowed him to become the president of the martial arts club freshman year and because of his righteous personality, he soon became the student council president and stuck with those positions to their current time in their senior year of high school.

Seeing him approaching they looked over and said their greeting, ”Sup man!” said Neo.

“Morning everyone,” responded Niko.

“You’re surprisingly late today, Niko, you’re usually one of the first to arrive,” said Ria jokingly.

“Yeah well, I spent some extra time last night studying for the semester exams. Woke up late after that.” He said while accepting a fist bump from Zane.

“Studying? Why? You practically compete with me for first place in the grade. It’s always one of us two being either first or second. Or is it because you’re worried I’ll get first place four times in a row setting a new record.” Asked Neo with a wide grin.

Everyone groaned at that, he’s been bragging about his three times streak since the last test, and it hasn’t stopped since.

“Niko, you better put him in his place, shatter that overconfident ego of his.” Said, Zane smacking Neo in the back of the head.

“Agreed.” said both Heather and Ria.

“Don’t worry, I’ll redeem myself, then smack it right into his face,” Niko replied cockily

“We’ll see about that, anyways, watch me get this victory royale right quick.” Said Neo.

“Please, you suck at this game, we’ve been watching you for a while now and you’ve already died forty-three times.” Said Zane while rolling his eyes.

“No worries, I’ll get it this time!” Neo said as Niko stood over him, next to Heather, watching him play.

Time flew by quickly as many students gathered in front of the school, waiting to get in for tutoring. At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, the doors were opened by the principal who began checking badges with other teachers and school security officers before allowing anyone in.

After entering the school, the group split up to go about their day. Heather was going to the library for some self-study, while Zane and Ria were heading to the student council room to take care of things as the president and secretary, respectively. Niko and Neo went off to the robotics clubroom to make their finishing touches on their robot for the upcoming robotics competition in two days. The competition was interesting this year, it would be held in a large maze big enough to fit a small vehicle. And that vehicle had to have a camera attached to explore through the maze to get the different items back for points. They were looking forward to it and their team had worked hard throughout the year to make a nice and polished small rover for the competition

Their school was very nice, it was relatively new, built by a well-known STEM university right behind it. It was huge and spacious with four large floors. The first floor is usually left for clubrooms, meeting rooms, the cafeteria, the pool, and a few classrooms for engineering and construction. While the remaining floors held the bulk of the different classrooms. There were also other buildings outside of it like the auditorium to its east side connected to the school through a large hallway with lounges along it. The west side held three gyms, the girl’s gym connected to the top west corner of the school by a large hallway filled with lockers and lounges, the boy’s gym connected with a similar hallway but to the bottom west of the school. Both of these gyms were connected to the Gymnasium, the largest of the three, that could be folded to create 3 different sections. A group of girls and boys would mix in this gym now and then for big games against each other.

Going back to the boys in robotics, Neo and Niko were working hard with the team, putting the finishing touches and programs onto their small rover. With around twenty minutes left till class, they pack up all their tools and equipment to be ready to go on Sunday when they meet back here in two days for the competition.

“RIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!!!!”

With the sound of the bell, they closed up the room and headed off to their homeroom.

Niko’s homeroom was AP Chemistry which was an awful way to start with the exam but he had to pull through. He was in this class with Zane and Ria who met up with him on the way up to it on the second floor.

Entering their chemistry class, they were greeted by Mr. Valen in his lab coat with a stack of papers in his hands. He was a tall, thirty-year-old man, with wild mad scientist-like hair that was dyed blue and sharp light brown eyes with his signature goggles on.

“Morning, kids. Take these, they each got a number for the lab tables you’ll be working in.” He said in his casual monotone voice while handing out the test papers.

“So Mr. Val on a scale of one to ten, how hard will this test be?” asked Zane.

“Forty.” he said instantly, ”But that’s only for those of you who’ve stopped listening and participating in my lessons two weeks into school. If you’ve done all the labs, notes, assignments, and read the articles, then the test would be a solid four in my opinion.”

“That's reassuring,” said Ria, sighing in relief.

“Not for most of the people in this class, almost twenty out of the twenty-eight students are failing this class, hard. I’ve already prepared my speech for their parents asking me why they have a negative ten as a grade.” He said sarcastically.

“Heh, that sucks for them.” smiled Ria.

“Anyways, to your seat! And, Niko, I’ll be coming Sunday, everything ready?” He asked.

“All packed, just need to get it in the truck Sunday morning.” Replied Niko.

With a nod, Mr. Valen went back to passing out papers to the students gathered by the door while they all scurried to their new seats for the day. Niko sat in the front row in the corner with Ria right behind him at her table. Zane was way back on the second to last row near the middle. Each table was filled with the different chemicals and tools they would need for this test, just looking at all of them would confuse anyone who had no idea what they were doing.

Many people walked in after them and soon, everyone was here to begin the test. Mr. Val closed the door then went to stand at the front of the classroom.

“Ok everyone, this test is going to hurt a lot more than half the class, plummeting grades to or near zero. I shouldn’t have to baby all of you into working your grades high since you're all seniors, so that’s on you. Work hard and good luck.” He signaled everyone to start, a few people grumbled at his comment and would have said something but stopped due to the next series of events.

As he headed for his desk, Mr. Val sneezed a little right as the sound of breaking glass reverberated through the classroom. Looking over to him everyone had the same shocked expression as their eyes fell upon the large spiderwebs of cracks floating in the air in front of him.

“Sir, did you just break the space-time continuum with a sneeze!?” commented a boy all too well known for being the school’s class clown, surprisingly, not being one of the many failing the class.

“...I don’t think that was me…” he said, turning toward the opened window. His eyes grew wide as he saw multiple huge cracks outside.

“The F*CK is happening?” said a girl far back as the sound of breaking glass rang again, this time continuing with the cracks overtaking everyone. Multiple screams followed soon after, not just from their class but the surrounding ones and outside. These cracks were everywhere, distorting everything with reflections and broken versions of themselves. Their bodies were sliced apart with their insides showing; miraculously, however, it didn’t hurt. Chaos soon broke out as many people started wildly panicking, but their cries were covered by the deafening sound of breaking glass, with the cracks getting smaller and smaller.

Then all of a sudden a quake of unimaginable magnitude shook the whole planet, knocking them to the ground, and soon, they knew no more.