"That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone, just when you think it reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking."- Sarah Dessen, "The Truth about Forever".

2 am, 10th of March, Friday. 2541. NovLondon.

Professor Macarius Mascar didn't ask his robot to dim the lights for the night because he was still busy with some work. The 70-year-old man was unofficially one of the most exceptional scientists in the world at that point because he had spent more than 50 years of his life working to make the world better, inventing the tablets that replaced real food. He ended world hunger.Macarius Mascar was in his study. He had just returned from work, recorded an interesting message for a group of astronauts launching sometime in the future, and, of course, talked to Skylar, his pupil, and Cassitude, his pupil's beloved, before gracefully sitting down, despite quite a stocky figure, a cup of coffee in his right hand, a little box in the other.

Mascar was widely known and respected for his famous essay, "About the Conscious and the Subconscious Human Mind", as well as for many other works. Yet the newly invented pills to decrease sleepiness that the professor daily took had almost failed him that night; the weak but stout man was using all of his strength not to fall asleep and write one more line for his essay-in-progress.

The elderly man adjusted his thin round spectacles, scratched his forehead where a bald patch was forming and sighed in sadness. Although he spent much of his time trying to make everyone happy, especially Skylar, his closest student, it was under bright artificial light in the pitch-black night when he showed his real emotions. And those real emotions, now, were tiredness, sadness, and dread. What could become of everything if he didn't continue to work? The entire world, life, its nature, and people were all on his shoulders. Yet, sometimes, he was blinded by the fundamental needs of humans, such as sleep, food, and rest.

He opened the box, which was drenched in Stygian darkness, withdrew the pill from its insides and swallowed, his face retaining a deathly pallor as his gaze drooped, and lowered the latter to the papers at his table. He had much to do, but that day, the reason behind his doings seemed too bleak, hence he doubted his abilities and the stale seed of cynicism drew thorns in his stout but marginally aged body.

"When am I going to finish this?" he asked into the silence, looking all around his lab. It was the same as every day; a big long table in the middle, some lifeless robots lying in the left corner, and six chairs by the table. As always. Nothing disrupted the gentle silence of the night, not even the scraping of his pencil - he somehow managed to get these ancient writing supplies - against the paper which he'd abandoned long ago. The fatigue kept coming and coming like a cold gale. And he didn't sleep for a sheer amount of 9 weeks!

An unsettlement lingered in his mind as he looked over the study, a white cupboard slightly recognizable among its plain walls and the thick glass frame which, indented instead of the back wall, granted light through and out the laboratory. The worry lingered when the steam stopped wafting from his coffee, the lamp light flickered more than usual, the silence was prolonged indefinitely and the clock struck two o'clock. The lamp was the only source of light, leaving the rest of the room in the night. Such eloquence generated an atmosphere of a lighthouse in the middle of the night, akin to a snow igloo in the centre of an Arctic expedition. Thus, the Reader might understand what worry lingered in the scientist's gaze, what need was expressed in his wavering grip the first time he took a sip from the coffee; the way the light reflected in a miniscule point off of his balding scalp.

At once, the man sat up straighter, his eyes beacons amidst the brightest light, and made to pour over the little heap on his desk once more. Paper, undoubtedly, was an old fashion in Engel. But Mascar liked it.

His doors were open to everyone. Just no one knocked, no one demanded or requested to be let in, but nigh on everyone tried to analyse any leftover DNA in hopes of finding out his identity, of course unsuccessful. Only three people had the sovereignty of knowing his role and name: Skylar, Cassitude and a war veteran, with whom he had fought during the infamous War of the Five Minds... Regrettably, those days were long gone, never to come back.

However, a trickle of sweat on his forehead demanded he think otherwise.

Mascar raised a finger to his forehead, the liquid slowly dissolving in the warmth of his skin, and abruptly pushed his chair back from the table, eyes flashing with the madness of a sane imprisoned in an asylum, knuckles turning white due to the pressure with which he pressed his hands onto the edge of the table.

The floors resounded in marble against his step. The man took every step with caution, hitching his breath, the sounds of walking his only companion, the view of the madness in front of his eyes his only sanity. He crouched down, panting after he'd reached the walls of his study; his unlikely prison, his tomb he was so gloriously hemmed in. Straight against the door and glass-paned corridors.

His back straightened and his hands withdrew the curtains. He instantly closed them. Tears built up in his eyes. They were of rage. And hatred.

Suddenly, something in the silence brought his wandering mind to reality. The lights instantly went dark. Mascar froze, his tired eyes cautiously scanning his surroundings. A rustle there, a swish here. What was happening? Who could come at such a late hour? And why did they turn off the lights?

Another person would have thought that it was simply the cleaning lady or robot coming and thinking nobody was inside the lab. But Mascar didn't have a cleaning lady or robot. He loved his lab so much that he didn't let anyone clean it. Thus, no one would usually come at 2 in the morning. The sound of footsteps approached.

"Who's there?" Mascar whispered - almost breathed. His voice was weak and feeble. He was ten meters away from the door. A gun-like weapon stood near, very light and very long. He figured that if he could reach it on time, whoever was coming was no big threat. The footsteps were closer now, just around the corner. Mascar, having planned out everything on time, was about two meters before the door. He couldn't move faster due to age, but he still didn't forget his teenage years. He reached the door, slowly sliding it open without any noise.

But as a masked dystrophic stranger entered the room with big black robes swishing after him, Mascar grabbed the gun, aiming it right at him. Yet only the gun, surprisingly, was too heavy. And it didn't fire.

As the small stranger aimed his weapon, a large machine gun, at Mascar, light green flames erupting out of it, the last thought passed through Mascar's mind: the black robes were too old-fashioned for a murderer, really. He didn't struggle, for he knew that it would be in vain. His consciousness slowly fading, he dropped to the floor, the stranger helping and lowering him down to his doom. The green flames grew larger around Mascar's body, cold to the touch but deadly when fired.

Mascar drew his last breath. As he lay there dying, the hooded stranger loomed over him, never removing his hood which made him look taller. He eagerly grabbed a pocket knife and drew some blood from the Mascar's forearm. Then, he scribbled a few words on the wall."They will pay." The soundless whisper left his mouth as the murderer left the room, green flames unextinguished.

***

A vile mount of flames burst upwards and rose, high into the night, its green flashing tongues a vivid emerald mist engulfing the system and the mount akin to a beacon, protruding into the Heavens. The Dark had already risen from its Nirvana, accompanying the tempestuous omnipotent tsar. The Darkness was in full sway.

Yet the Night had just begun.