There was a moment, of several seconds, where nobody moved
Then, Lagos just exploded
Screams were heard from the streets as people ran away in every possible direction, pushing one another without anyone knowing where to go. Cars collided into one another at crossroads. One bus jumped the pavement, colliding with a concrete guardrail. In the distance, there was an explosion which tinged the evening with orange.
Adams barely took any notice
He was watching the sky.
The giant eye was gone.
The cracks still remained, but something else was approaching beyond that in the darkness
"Adams!"
Elena’s voice came through the phone.
"Adams, are you there still?"
"Yeah.
What was that?
"I don’t know.
His voice sounded strangely calm.
"Lock your doors, I’ll be there.
"Wait, no! Adams, I don’t want you to come here!"
"I’m coming.
"Adams, listen to me!"
Suddenly, the call became filled with static.
"Elena?
"Nothing.
"Elena?"
"Dead.
Adams immediately tried dialling again, but there was no answer.
He grabbed his coat and was just about to head towards his door when the building suddenly shook with an impact.
There was a deafening noise, and something crashed nearby.
Adams stumbled against the door as his whole world swayed.
Dust poured down the walls, and he staggered into his door again, where he was hit by a second impact.
This time, the glass windows cracked, and he looked outside.
The thing in the sky was falling.
The thing Adams thought he had only seen a fraction of, was falling
It fell impossibly fast, and as it did, it grew.
Not falling on Lagos, but on the entire planet.
Adams saw great chunks of it fall off as it got closer, burning up in the atmosphere.
Massive structures, as big as building fit to contain entire cities, streaked the firmament, until it became dozens, then hundreds of burning streaks, before the whole world was lit up by fire and screams.
Adams finally opened his apartment door, to be faced with a crowd of terrified Lagos people.
"Everyone downstairs!" someone shouted,
"Don’t use the elevators!"
"Where are we supposed to go?"
"Nigeria is under attack!"
"Call the police!"
"There is no network!"
The panic grew, spreading through the building at an astonishing rate.
Adams fought his way through the masses, and into the stairwell, running, his phone still in his hands.
The strange System UI was gone, but somehow, his phone still worked, and now had one message.
[WORLD SYSTEM INITIALISATION: 8%]
Another appeared.
[ATMOSPHERIC INTEGRATION: 17%]
Then
[MANA CONCENTRATION INCREASING.]
Adams halted, taking a deep breath.
"Mana?"
Suddenly, there seemed to be a weight in the air, a pressure.
It wasn’t immediate, but slowly Adam’s chest tightened as the hairs on the back of his neck seemed to rise.
Something was happening.
Something was entering the air.
He didn’t know how or where, but he could feel it.
The world was changing.
Adams suddenly saw a woman collapse next to him.
"Help her!"
Adams caught her before she smashed the side of the stairs, her body twitching.
"What is happening to her?"
Nobody seemed to know.
Then, her eyes flew open, a strange glow of blue radiating from them.
Adams let her go as she shrieked and blue light burst from her hands, lighting up the stairwell with heat.
Everyone scattered as a System message appeared in front of her.
[AUTHORIZATION SUCCESSFUL]
[CLASS SELECTION AVAILABLE.]
She looked stunned.
"What is this?"
Adams looked down at his phone.
Nothing.
No Authorization message.
All that appeared on his phone was this.
[WORLD SYSTEM INITIALISATION: 34%]
His stomach turned.
Why wasn’t his authorization working?
Suddenly, there came a deafening noise, something crashing into the road outside.
The building shook furiously, and everyone in the stairwell screamed.
Adams ran into the entrance hall.
The thing from before was gone.
But instead it, is something massive now.
A creature with four great legs and a scaled body, and a wolf-like head, but a jaw so wide when it roared that it sounded like it swallowed its mouth.
A car flew upwards and hit the side of a building, and Adams stopped, transfixed.
This wasn’t the creature he had seen earlier, or not in its current form.
This thing was far greater than anything Lagos had seen before.
A police officer shot at it, but the bullets bounced off.
The creature turned, and the officer stopped shooting.
They stood, looking at each other for a moment, until the creature moved.
Adams barely saw it.
The officer was sent flying, and everyone else panicked, running in different directions.
Adams ran as well, partly because he didn’t know which way else to go, partly because he hated himself for running away.
He wanted to help, but what could he do.
He was twenty, and this was happening, and he was twenty, and had no weapon.
No powers.
Nothing, but this strange phone.
A falling fragment crashed nearby, and sent Adams flying across the pavement.
His shoulder screamed in pain, and he found himself lying on top of a car, spinning around for a few seconds.
His ears rung, and he found himself barely able to move.
Then, something changed.
The world seemed to quieten,
and suddenly the motions of the creature seemed to slow.
Not really, but Adams could see the individual muscles flex in its front leg.
He could see the direction its body rotated in.
Adams moved.
The creature’s claw came down where his head had been moments ago, and the concrete exploded.
Adams grabbed a bit of metal from the ground.
The creature turned and its red eyes looked straight at him.
Adams swallowed.
"Come on.
His hands shook.
"Come on, then."
The creature ran at him.
Adams waited.
And at the last minute, he moved to the side.
Adams used his full strength to swing the bit of metal around, hitting the creature right in the eye.
The thing screamed, and Adams stumbled back, watching it thrash around wildly.
He saw its exposed eye, and without thinking, he drove the metal bar into it.
The creature fell, and silence blanketed the area.
Then, a System notification appeared.
[HOSTILE ENTITY DEFEATED.]
[EXPERIENCE ACQUIRED.]
[LEVEL REQUIREMENT MET.]
Adams looked at the world around him.
His hands were soaked in blood.
Another notification appeared.
[LEVEL UP.]
His whole body warmed, and the pain in his shoulder subsided, his breathing growing more even.
Then, more notifications.
[HOST: ADAMS ALBERT]
[LEVEL: 2]
[CLASS: NONE]
[STRENGTH: 11]
[AGILITY: 12]
[VITALITY: 11]
[INTELLIGENCE: 14]
[SPIRIT: 10]
[SOUl: ERROR]
[ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 5]
Adams looked at the last line.
"Soul?
The System flickered.
[ERROR.]
He frowned.
"What, then?"
No answers.
Another message appeared.
[CLASS SELECTION AVAILABLE.]
Adams almost chose Warrior right away.
Then, he remembered Elena.
He needed to find her.
Adams closed the System and looked at his phone.
It suddenly buzzed in his hand, and he felt a sudden sense of hope.
It wasn’t Elena, though.
It was a general emergency alert.
[HEAVENFALL COMPLETE.]
[PLANETARY SYSTEM INTEGRATION: 100%.]
[DUNGEON FORMATION: BEGINNING.]
[MONSTER EVOLUTION: BEGINNING.]
[HUMAN AWAKENING: 12%.]
[ESTIMATED PLANETARY SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 31%.]
Adams looked at the final number.
Thirty one percent.
Then it changed to 30%.
Something huge screamed in the distance,
and Adams looked up.
The sky was turning.
More monstrous creatures were coming up from inside the city.
Some came from the street, others from the buildings themselves.
And above Lagos, the clouds seemed to swirl into an enormous spiraling mass
The rain began again.
Except this time, it was tiny glowing specks that rained down upon the city.
Buildings, roads, and people glowed with a soft light.
Adams looked around at the destruction, then at his phone.
He opened the contact list, finding Elena’s name and sending a call.
There was no answer.
He tried again, but nothing happened.
A third time, nothing.
Adams clenched his jaw.
"Just stay alive.
he muttered, and started walking, without really knowing where.
He didn’t know what Heavenfall, really, was.
He didn’t know why his soul wasn’t registering with his System.
And he certainly didn’t know why the System had called him unauthorized.
But, at this moment, all that mattered was finding Elena.
And somewhere, above the city and hidden within the falling ruins of Heavenfall, an ancient mechanism sensed something it hadn’t seen in thousands of years.
[IRREGULARITY DETECTED.]
[SEARCHING...]
[SEARCH FAILED.]
[SEARCHING AGAIN...]
[IDENTITY: ADAMS ALBERT]
[CLASSIFICATION: ERROR.]
It fell silent, and for the first time in thousands of years transmitted a signal outside the Earth.
[THE ANOMALY HAS AWAKEN.]