I have spent every minute in this prison cell thinking about escape. I'm not even supposed to be here! So, why was I crossing out my fifth year behind bars while the woman who'd once claimed to be my one true love and the one supposed to be in here roamed free? The mantra of escape and revenge was now a five-year old earwig, and the only reason I woke up every morning.

None of my escape plans have ever panned out, but that doesn't surprise me. Prison breaks need a heavy dose of luck and, as demonstrated by every minute I've been alive, Lady Luck is allergic to me. So, imagine my surprise when luck finally came knocking one day as I was being transported to the hospital for a routine treatment because the prison clinic was too full thanks to a massive brawl.

After guiding me out of the van, the guard broke protocol by letting go of my arm and returning to the car's cabin to grab their charging phone.

I couldn't believe it.

This was it.

This was my chance!

I grabbed it tight and ran.

I only made it a few yards, not that I ever believed for a second that I'd get away with this. I was running on adrenaline, but I wasn't that fast. The guards caught up with me, screaming bloody murder at me for ruining their day!

A car suddenly swerved into the pedestrian walk and almost smeared me onto the pavement. That's when I noticed, traffic was becoming gnarly on every road I walked past. Suddenly, impatient drivers began shutting down their cars, grabbing whatever they could and just sprinting. Looking around didn't reveal any clear and present danger, but it wasn't long before I figured out the source of the panic. One of the drivers bumped into me while sprinting by and dropped their bag in the process, a phone sliding out of it. They didn't even turn to look back. Their phone's screen was on and flashing a government issued warning.

The world was ending.

They called it a coronal mass ejection.

It would all be over in thirty minutes.

As I watched the crowd of panicked people race past me, one of the guards tackled me. We hit the ground hard enough to hear a few crunches, but as they rolled me over and handcuffed me, all I could do was laugh.

Escaping on the day of the apocalypse.

So much for Lady Luck.

The day the world ended was the most beautiful day on Earth. The skies burst into the most gorgeous neon streaks humanity had ever laid its eyes on. Where it was day, a thousand rainbows graced the skies in never ending waves, while the time zones where night had fallen were draped in unceasing ripples of greens and purples.

Beauty to the beast of the world's end.

The solar flare triggered a massive electromagnetic pulse that destroyed every single one of Earth's unshielded electrical components. A lot of institutions and systems tried to fix what was broken to stay up and running, but recovering from this loss was an uphill battle for most. When the world is ending, not much thought is put into prisons. The panic was immediate and absolute. The guards left. The warden left. Everyone left. Everyone that could. The cells became tombs.

Or they would have, if the aliens didn't arrive.

When that gigantic mothership lowered its belly through the clouds, we were terrified. But it turned out that the aliens were here to save humanity. During the month that followed the solar flare that had plunged Earth into a new dark age, the aliens built gigantic towers all around the globe that turned out to be wireless electricity generators. The aliens disappeared a month later, just as suddenly as they had appeared. They had done better than just save the world. They had given everyone on Earth access to free electricity and completely flipped human history!

We were in a New Era!

Five years later, I was woken up for a prison transfer. It was the first time I would be outside these walls in all that time. Was this Lady luck calling in again to make up for the last decade? Behind bars, I had no idea just how much had changed in those five years. Conditions in the prisons had improved, but my day-to-day had stayed the same – with strict rules on how I spent my time orchestrating the most plain, boring existence known to man, despite having lived through an apocalypse and an alien invasion.

The moment we drove out of the prison gates, I knew that nothing was the same. The air smelt sweeter, the sky seemed brighter, and the streets were immaculate. And it wasn't just because I was experiencing a fleeting freedom. The planet had changed. The world I knew was gone. Escape was no longer an impulse. I wouldn't know how to survive this new world. The "justice system" had stolen that chance from me.

Maybe it was time to accept that this was my fate. I couldn't go back.

"Welcome, Miss Laine."

The boy couldn't be older than twenty. He smiled wide and offered a hand. I ignored it.

"What is this?" I asked, looking around.

I'd been told I was being transferred to a different prison, but this was no penal institution. For starters, this building was beyond high tech, and it reached for the clouds, tall enough to rival the alien power stations that spanned the globe. The landscaping around the building was gorgeously manicured, looking more like a national park than the usual bland corporate ornamental gardens. Looking closely, I noticed that every tree was an edible fruit tree in that park and more than a few were heavy laden with fruit. Fruits that were being harvested by robots.

Inside the building, robots milled about, making sure to walk around holograms projecting from certain tiles on the floor, while glass doors and windows doubled as digital screens advertising all sorts of information, most of which were for items I had never heard of or couldn't even decipher what they were.

Nothing like this had existed five years ago.

Nothing could have.

"I know that this seems a little different from what you must have known," the boy explained as I was led deeper into the building. "But this is the future and you're about to get us even further."

I stayed silent.

"You have a choice, Miss Laine." The boy said. "You can choose to finish your sentence at the Pen, or you can join us here, where we're at the forefront of prisoner rehabilitation. It's up to you."

"What happens when I choose to join you?"

The boy clapped with glee. "We're running a virtual reality platform to help reprogram your... bad habits. It changes your behaviour enough to allow for a reduced sentence, almost immediately. Are you in?"

Well, that was a waste of time, seeing I had done nothing wrong. But they wouldn't listen to me, and I wasn't exactly opposed to leaving behind my three walls and bars. So, I said yes, genuinely curious to see what this virtual reality platform would do when faced with an innocent person to "reprogram".

It was seven weeks in and countless experiments and tests later. They'd prepped everything for me to try out a new modification of this newfangled system. I enjoyed a hearty English breakfast. It was more akin to a last meal than anything else, but I'd been eating like these for the last five weeks. After breakfast, I was led to the machine room then guided into a pod with the insides moulded to perfectly fit my body. The boy gently placed the virtual reality helmet onto my head, before locking the pod.

I immediately knew something was wrong when the machine whirred to life. I'd done this dozens of times, but the way my mind plunged into the darkness this time wasn't normal. I also didn't end up in a "Skills Program" like always. In the last few days, I'd been learning how to knit. A skill that would have taken months to learn took only a week or so because the boy had found a way to speed up "neuron synthesis", whatever that meant. But what I was feeling today now was new.

Odd.

"This technology isn't yours to wield tainted, as it is, by your arrogant human modifications." A voice said in the inky black space.

A spotlight came on, illuminating my avatar.

"Is this a new program?" I asked, trying to peer through the darkness whose edges boiled where it touched the spotlight.

"You have kept us waiting, humans. Five of your years is a long time." the voice went on. "This wasted time will be the last of what belongs to us that we will allow you to take! Human representative, state your planet's ransom terms, let us pay, and return what is not yours!"

"I don't like this." I whispered, backing away in fear. Then I raised my voice. "Boy! Boy! Stop the simulation. I don't like this!"

"You dare insult us, Humans?!" the voice bellowed, liquifying my insides. "This is your first and final warning. We are coming for you. Return what you have stolen, and humanity's destruction will be swift and painless. Ignore this message and humanity's demise will be a protracted and bitter affair."

That's when it hit me.

These were the aliens. The ones who had saved Earth five years ago. The ones whose tech had changed the world. For some reason, they didn't seem pleased by that. Did they just say they considered their tech "stolen"? And did they think I was some sort of diplomatic convoy sent to discuss this issue with them?

"I think you're mistaking me for someone else." I tried.

"Human representative, your insolence makes clear the human stance. Prepare your people for destruction!"

My mind was forced out of the virtual space! It felt like I'd plunged into the depths of a frozen lake, unable to breathe or even remember what warmth was. The feeling lasted for what felt like hours but was only a few minutes. I woke up to the boy desperately rousing me.

"Stop... stop... shaking me," I quivered. "I'm awake."

"I'm so sorry," he said, on the verge of tears. "Something went wrong. We can't figure out what. Your mind... the readings... I thought I'd lost you, Miss Laine."

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.

Humanity's end was coming, and I was the messenger given this prophecy.

Shaky legs held me up and I kept shivering as I looked at all the tubes and piping and wiring and alien-human tech connected to me in a bid to reprogram my "criminal mind" thanks to a sentence I'd been serving for the actions of another. I turned to the boy and the team of his assistants surrounding us.

They were all going to die. Them, me and everyone else.

And I had the power to sound the warning. To get everyone to prepare. Maybe even save them all, even though the world had done nothing but break me down every single time I tried to get up.

I closed my eyes again and sighed, falling to my knees.

Lady luck, you bitch.