Chapter 2

“Hey!” I yelled. Zyke turned around, with a tabletoid in hand. How did he keep smuggling those into the education centers?

“Shut the hell up this is crazy as fuck.” But he said it really fast so it sounded more like, Shutthehelluptheiscrazyasfuck. He was a bit of a screen addict. He stood around 6 ft tall as well, the standard height variation. He had blond hair, and black eyes, and new more random facts than I could count. Whatever he had seen there had scared him. A lot.

“Seriously Rade, look.” I took a glance over at his screen and saw a video of a black hole that was really small above the sun. At least smaller than it should be. The event horizon was about the size of a small moon. But before I could debunk it the video cut back to the news station. Where an anchor commented on the anomaly.

“That folks, is unedited footage straight from The Pioneer. Apparently it’s been above the sun for around 2 minutes. Crime has already shot up 7% worldwide. The Pioneer’s crew have no idea what it is but say we are all probably doomed.” The man said obviously scared out of his damn mind. This of course freaked me out. I was sweating like hell, SpaceCorp didn’t just announce shit like ‘we’re doomed’ for no goddamn reason.

I’ll stop for a second because you have no idea what the hell I look like. I’m human, and around 6 ft. I’m also around 110 lbs, a skinny dude. My eyes are a neon blue green, thanks to Strain, a bioengineered virus from the Old US, that I have a weird immunity to, which means some symptoms affect me, but thankfully for me, it ended up being only the eyes, and some bad scarring that thankfully I adapted to and healed completely, with my insane genes from the thousands of years into the future my biology is thanks to Project Elevation. The rest of my family got it much worse off. I have dirty blonde hair, wear glasses, have wide shoulders, with a little muscle. I’m kinda tan, but not very. I glance over at my other friends. Robin and Roman, twins and both friends of mine. They were moddeds, which means they chose to edit themselves a bit, both going for a height modification, around 7ft tall and both sprinting over to us both.

“We know!” I said, “Got any ideas?!” I said. Just then the rest of our friends came in. Klith, practically a comedian and able to make any situation better, with blue hair, grey eyes, around 61/2 ft tall, and a hell of a mouth, got there first followed by Susan, a really good friend of mine that took modding a bit to far, around 8 ft tall, and blue eyes, and finally Lori, the only other real friend I had. She had blonde hair, and was 5 ft 8 in, deciding to be a bit shorter than the standard. She was pale, and definitely scared out of her damn mind.

“I told them about it, but they didn’t believe me, show them Zyke!” Lori yelled panicked. For the first time, Zyke always having a tabletoid at any time was helpful. When he rewinded and showed them, Everyone not already scared shitless definitely now was. Susan thought that meant no school though, so she just bolted off to tell her other friends. If I had known I wouldn’t have ever seen her again I would’ve stopped her but I didn’t. Everyone was freaking out, chaos was in the air, and someone had already set off an alarm. I was… wait an alarm is going off? Already? I think that’s the fire alarm, classic. Wait, how the hell did they already get there... Anyway I was petrified, but as a man of action, I saw someone already punching someone else, I ran in and tried to break up the fight, but it was already a full-scale war, with no sides, I may have seen blood fly in the air. I could practically smell the testosterone as I felt the primal urge to dive in there and beat someone up as well, but I decided breaking up the fight was better. At least until someone punched me. I slugged him as hard as I could, then before I could see the results I ran back to my friends.

“It’s chaos!!” I screamed to our cheery band.

“Party like the last day on Earth huh!” Klith screamed over the pandemonium.

“Well with that announcement from SpaceCorp…”

Suddenly, the full gravity of the situation hit me. I was going to die. I had things I wanted to do, wink wink nudge nudge, I didn’t even have a legacy to leave behind, and no one would be left to remember me. Babies would die. Babies. Orphan babies. Orphan babies that are hospitalized. Because of a freak thing that just is. Fuck black holes. At least I would get to see my family again. Well, my biological family. Your family is who you feel at home with, but blood is important as well. Fuck. Me.

Then it happened. The wave shot out, the sun was partly eclipsed as it became bigger and bigger. I don’t remember noise, I only remember people running and me turning and jumping into my friends, and following them behind a building with more people. Then it hit. I felt the gravity slam in me, and feel shot around. I felt a sharp pain in my side as I floated in the air. I would’ve puked out my guts if I’d had time. I saw Zyke float by impaled by a huge piece of metal shrapnel, and a New Rat with his face punched in. The pain in my side grew as I saw a wave of blue energy taller than I could see raze the Education Center, and absorb my world. Only later I found out that meant very literally. Then it hit me. The blue energy swallowed me up as I floated in terror and numb pain. Then it hurt. A lot. I felt every atom in my body fluxing through different states of matter. My cells were rapidly mutating, and my atoms were changing. The bile going from my stomach to my mouth, froze then evaporated. My skin peeled, then grew back. My eyes popped and regrew.

I lived though so yay for me I guess.