Noticing the intense lines of serious expression on the Secretary's face, the president walked toward the lobby and Astharoth and aligos followed. The four entered the lobby, noticing the enormous crowd near the big windows in the lobby.

The crowd tore apart as the president walked in and moved toward the window. Aligos and Asthiroth followed him. The three moved closer to the windows and glanced outside, noticing the unexplainable with their shocked, wide-open eyes.

It was as Astharoth had assumed by the sound of the blast. The clouds and DeSadian skies were torn open, like a piece of paper, pierced in the middle with a big nail. It had torn open, revealing a different, alienated space above, which shined with a bright yellowish light.

Torn apart like an appearance of a massive hole in space.

This feeling. Astharoth said to himself.

"People," Astharoth said, with the deepest and loudest voice possible. "Get to the ground floor. Away from anything that could fall."

Very few people moved, while most still kept looking at the unbelievable phenomenon they had witnessed. Astharoth noticed the skies had torn roughly above the ancestral pyramid, an ancient monument whose creation date and the materials were still unknown to the people. The place which the DeSadians had considered sacred for many generations.

"Did you not hear the research head?" Vesemir said, in his strong, dominating voice. "Down. Now." His voice was deep, dense as always. Like the voice of a leader. People, without any more chaos, followed and started heading to the ground.

"Turn on the machines, Vesemir," Astharoth said. His eyes were still stuck on the torn skies.

"What is it?" The president said. "The sky. . ."

"I don't know," Astharoth replied, "But I can't assure either if it's nothing dangerous."

"The device is still in a prototype phase," Aligos added. "Not prepared for the field. And definitely not prepared to cover a larger area like the planet's surface."

"It's better than nothing." Said Astharoth and stood quiet. And Vesemir standing behind him could feel the intensity in the environment produced by Astharoth's mind. Astharoth's instincts, in the past, had never failed and Vesemir, now, could clearly read his face.

"Fine, I'll head to the core chamber," he replied. "But you three, get to the ground, now."

Following the President's orders, Many pods, ships and floating shuttles rose above the ground, holding many people from the facility in it. Astharoth had anticipated the possibility of calamity. Destruction, maybe, and the President didn't dare to doubt him.

The lights in the skies. The thought licked Astharoth's mind, while he moved toward the open parking area of the facility. What is it? This feeling I'm getting.

"The system had been linked," the voice came from Astharoth's earpiece, which he recognised as Vesemir's. "It's still a prototype. I'll just hope it doesn't hamper the natural flow of energies, "cause if it does. . ."

"The planet's energies will go berserk," continued Aligos' voice in the earpiece line. Aligos followed Astharoth to the open parking area, some distance behind.

"And energies going berserk will destabilise the planet's core," he continued. "So. . . better hope it doesn't malfunction and destroy the planet."

"It would be a calamity,"

"We are already facing a bloody calamity," Astharoth shouted, expressing the frustration building up inside him. "If the frequency and the linkage are achieved, get out of that place and get away from the surface, Vesemir."

Realising the pressure in Astharoth's voice, Aligos' feet ran faster, trying to catch up with him. They both met each other's glances as they arrived in the area. Both stood quiet for a moment before Astharoth said, "I'm returning to my family."

Aligos pointed toward the floating ships nearby. "The car won't be fast enough."

Astharoth nodded and rushed toward the ships. He quickly scanned his ID and entered the ship. The ship, soon, rose some fifteen feet above the ground as the engines boosted air below and the ship rapidly moved southeast, toward the hamlet settlement, where his family was. Astharoth noticed another ship, ascended, and followed him.

"You don't have to Join me, Aligos," Astharoth said on the ship-link line. "The eerie lights have appeared above the ancient monument, which is not far from the settlement."

"That makes me more important," Aligos replied. "If it's dangerous. A ship can hold 8 people, consider 12 if they had to stand. The settlement you live in must have roughly the same number of people. we might be able to evacuate the settlement."

A blasting sound

A sound of blast echoed in the DeSadian skies for the third time. A blinding light appeared in the skies, followed by a thick light beam, which appeared from the sky and struck the top of the pyramid. The skies were torn wider apart. The speed of the flying ship reduced as Astharoth's attention was shifted to the skies above.

"Are you seeing this, Astharoth?"

"Yeah, I am," Astharoth replied and Aligos, only hearing his voice, could feel the amount of fear and pressure in his voice. Astharoth's wide-open eyes stuck on the view above.

He noticed the horrifying view above his head. The sky didn't exist anymore. A totally different world, like a whole other planet, had appeared above the skies, upside down, which he could notice was getting closer to DeSadia's surface.

A planet similar to them, but still distinct in some ways. A planet, from the looks of it, that had harbored life, and the source of the light beam, which had struck on the DeSadian surface.

As if the light beam linked, connected the two worlds.

"Vesemir," Astharoth said on the wire. "Is the device activated?"

"It has," the reply came from the other side. "The waves cover most, if not the entire DeSadian surface. That shall also include the lower levels of the ancient monument."

The beam struck again, stronger this time, expanding the radius all over the monument, and Astharoth could notice the air glitching above the surface, preventing the strange light beam from touching the ground.

"Astharoth, don't stop," Aligos shouted on the wire. "The settlement is still far away. Evacuation will also take time."

Snapping himself back from the thoughts of his terrified mind, Astharoth accelerated the engines again and the ships took the pace. Aligos, by the time, caught up to Astharoth and both ships moved with pace toward the settlement.

The beam struck on the now-created S-R fields on the surface and the space above the ground glitched even more, resisting the beam from reaching the ground.

It struck again... and again... and again.

It struck for enough time that Astharoth could notice the tension the beam was giving on the S-R field, increasing with every hit.

Please don't break. Astharoth said in his mind. Just stay for some more time.

Driving with the most achievable speed the ship could reach, Astharoth was finally able to see the hamlet settlement on the horizon. He was reaching closer to his family. Astharoth slammed his palms on the deck, hoping it would increase the speed of the ships.

The blinding light appeared again, in the torn-open skies, a bright golden light, skies roared and the voices echoed all over the surface. Whispers of many eerie voices echoed in the words unknown to them. And the beam struck on the fields for the final time.

With the blast, a strong blast, the frequency and the bond between S-R particles destabilised and the fields broke apart like a thin shattered sheet of glass. The glitching stopped. . . and the destruction followed.

From the monument, the ancestral pyramid, a wuthering wave of unstable energies emerged, spreading through the surface to all directions, and the lands were torn apart, like weakly packed stones. The wave spread, gobbling everything in its way like a hungry cosmic monster.

The supplementary mortars, which were originally used to ascend the ships to the higher altitude, were fired and all the resources Astharoth could have used to increase the speed were used and ships moved at a speed like never before.

The whole time, Astharoth kept saying, "We can still make it."

The wave of annihilation refused to stop.

The annihilating, wuthering wave, at last, caressed its destructive arms over the group of houses standing on the horizon. Astharoth, shocked with wide-open eyes, saw the lands crackling, getting torn apart, breaking torn apart, things went blank and a feeling struck his mind.

~~

'Papa. . . don't leave. . . don't leave me.' Said the child figure in Astharoth's fantasy. A girl's voice, tiny and constantly fainting.

'Papa promise, papa will return with the speed of light.' Astharoth remembered saying to his daughter. 'It'll take no time.'

'Love you, your Majesty.'

'Love you too,' he heard his wife. 'Stay safe, my love. My love will never fade. It'll protect you.'

An intense spart struck his mind, snapping him back from his memories, from voices that would stay only memories. With his open eyes, Astharoth witnessed the loss, witnessed the destruction, witnessed the pain of losing someone.

The wave still refused to stop. A shock wave emerged, traveling much faster and reached the two flying ships. The lights of ships went off, engines stopped and both ships, who were flying cutting the air in between, crash-landed on the tall grass on the surface.

Caps of both ships opened and Astharoth, still, rushed toward the approaching destruction.

"Layla!" He'd shout. "Layla!"

Aligos walked out and rushed toward him. Caught up to Astharoth and hugged him from the back.

"Leave me," Astharoth shouted. "Layla is still waiting. She's still. . ."

"Calm yourself, Astharoth," Aligos said, hugging him tighter. "Calm down."

"But Layla. . ."

"I know, I know. Calm down. Don't say a word." Aligos, holding Astharoth in a hug, keeping his head on his chest, got down on his knees.

"Calm down, Astharoth," he quietly said.

Astharoth, frozen in shock, coldly said. "You won't understand it, Aligos. . . She had asked me to wait with her. Now. . . I lost her."

"I never had a family," Aligos said. "I know, even if I tried, I can't understand how it feels to lose someone you love."

"Layla, my sweet daughter. She was everything to me. My life."

"I know, I know," Aligos said, calming Astharoth. "But, you can't reverse time, no one can. And crying and grieving over things won't make things good again. You need to understand this. You need to get yourself together."

Astharoth tried to calm his burdened mind. But it constantly kept reminding him of the faces of his family. He remembered him getting married, promising to always stay together till the very end. Birth of Layla two years after. Spending time under the trees when it would rain and promising Layla to visit the mountains on the higher grounds.

He remembered everything.

"Why are you not running away, Aligos?"

"There's a whole other world above us," Aligos said. "Why on DeSadia do you think this destruction would stop? This is it, Astharoth. But people who are in the ships above the surface shall live,"

"I can't believe something like this happened out of nowhere."

"Close your eyes, Astharoth," Aligos said, still warmly hugging him. "Close your eyes. Let your mind process these emotions. Those memories, which you shall take with you and will be reunited with them soon. In the plain of space where pain and suffering don't exist."

"Are you describing the heavens?"

"Our world proved the existence of the creator, which people earlier had refused for many thousand years," Aligos said. "Who's to say if the space equivalent to the descriptions of heavens might as well exist? Where you shall meet your family again."

The wave moved ahead, reached closer and Aligos' hug around Astharoth tightened. Their eyes closed, expecting nothing but a painless end.

Their bodies felt strong winds current. In a moment, they felt a strong pulling force, like an intense gravitational field pull, horizontally and everything went black.

An intense spark traveled through Astharoth's head and a vision crossed his subconscious mind. A vision of him, standing high up in the skies with three more figures, one of which he recognised as Aligos and the other two were faded.

Ahead of them was the falling world of DeSadian, the singularity was indeed achieved for some time, but it made no difference. The destruction reached the capital, other settlements and cities, and other provinces. Buildings fell down, towers crushed, and machines destroyed including the ones who had managed to escape the surface. The world above from where the light had appeared was left unharmed with minimal damage. And the world Astharoth once knew, the world of DeSadia, was no more. Nothing was left behind.

And the vision faded with the words, "This destruction. . . What is the value in this act of living?"