[POV Orión]

  The knock on the door was so unexpected that I nearly fell off the couch. My apartment had become a sanctuary of my despair, invioble by anyone other than me or my roommates, who now moved around the pce like ghosts. Who could it be? Weeks had passed since anyone, apart from Leo leaving a passive-aggressive note about the dishes, had interacted with me.

  I got up slowly, feeling my joints crack. My body felt heavy, as if every cell screamed in protest at the slightest effort. I opened the door just a crack, the afternoon sun searing my eyes, unaccustomed to the light.

  A girl with long, curly blonde hair and lively eyes looked at me with a mixture of surprise and concern. It was Mina, a friend from Sora's circle, someone I had shared a few ughs with in the past, but I never considered her a close friend. She was one of those radiant people who always saw the bright side of everything, the type of person who exhausted me with her forced optimism.

  "Orion! Thank God, you're alive," she excimed, pushing the door open wider. Her eyes scanned the apartment, the mess, my appearance. She couldn't hide a look of distaste, but her smile remained. "Sora and the guys were worried. You're not answering texts or calls. I came to see what was going on."

  I felt a pang. Sora worried? After her words, it seemed like cruel irony. "I'm fine," I mumbled, trying to close the door, but Mina put her foot in the way.

  "No, you're not," she said firmly, her voice unusually serious. "You look... terrible. And this pce... what happened to you?" She entered uninvited, leaving the door open behind her. She walked to the window and drew back the curtains, flooding the room with light. I groaned.

  "I'm just... going through a rough patch," I said, my voice sounding like a cheap excuse.

  Mina turned, leaning against the windowsill. Her optimism, which had previously tired me, now seemed like an uncomfortable beacon. "Yeah, we all know that. But what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let it consume you? Life is hard, Orion. Sometimes it hurts. And yes, people can let you down." She paused, and her gaze softened. "I know the thing with Sora affected you. And you didn't deserve that."

  I sat on the couch, my gaze fixed on an undefined spot on the floor. "What do you know? You don't understand anything. I have nothing. My parents... they're gone. The money is just a prison. My friends... everyone has left. Sora told me I'm useless." I said the st sentence almost in a whisper, shame burning my throat.

  Mina came closer and sat next to me. The couch creaked under her weight. "Yes, I know about your parents. And I know Sora can be very direct, sometimes too much. But I also know one thing, Orion Winst." Her bright eyes looked at me with an intensity I had never seen from her. "You've always been the one to give up before trying. The one who hides behind the excuse of 'I have nothing.' You have a chance. You have a mind, you have your health, you have an inheritance that others would kill for."

  She leaned in, her voice soft but firm. "Look, what happened with Sora sucks. And yes, it's likely you weren't her type. But that doesn't define you. What you do after you're broken, that defines you. Are you going to keep staring at that ceiling until you consume yourself? Or are you going to get up and look for that reason you say you don't have?"

  Her words hit me. Not with Sora's brutality, but with the undeniable truth that only a friend, or a friend who cared enough to take a risk, could say. It wasn't the optimism that irritated me; it was the ck of effort in myself.

  "I don't know," I admitted, my voice barely audible. "I don't know where to start."

  Mina gave me a small smile, a genuinely encouraging smile. "Start by going to css. In the morning. One css. Prove Sora wrong, prove to Jake and Leo that you're more than a ghost. Prove it to yourself. It's just one css, Orion. One step."

  That day, the talk with Mina stretched for hours. She didn't try to fix me; she just listened and, at times, challenged me. It was exhausting, but for the first time in weeks, I felt a small spark. A tiny, fragile, but undeniable spark.

  The next day, after Mina left with a promise to return, I showered. The hot water on my skin, the soap, the comb through my hair, felt like a ritual of rebirth. I put on clean clothes, the ones that had been waiting to be put away for days. I left the apartment, breathing in the fresh morning air, which felt strangely sweet.

  My heart beat with a mixture of fear and a tiny excitement. One step. Just one. The university. Applied Economics.

  I walked through the campus, the usual hustle and bustle didn't seem so overwhelming today. It was noise, yes, but it was no longer a distant murmur. It was life. My life, waiting for me to join it.

  I arrived at the cssroom just before the professor entered. I took my usual seat at the back, but this time, I opened my notebook with real intent. I was going to try. I was going to listen. I was going to look for that reason.

  The cssroom door opened and the professor entered, his monotonous voice filling the room. I was ready. I was prepared to start.

  It was then that I saw her.

  Sora entered right behind the professor, a few minutes te. Her brown hair was tied back, her eyes shining with her usual ambition. She saw me. Her gaze met mine for an instant, and I noticed a small startle in her expression. Surprise? Relief? I didn't know.

  She smiled. A cautious, but sincere smile. She started walking towards me, intending to say hello.

  "Orion, I'm gd to see you..." her voice was a whisper in the middle of the cssroom.

  But right at that instant, a noise.

  It wasn't a murmur. It wasn't a shout. It was a roar, a vibration that shook the very foundations of the building. The windows rattled, the lights flickered. The professor cut off his sentence, his face pale.

  The entire cssroom fell silent. We all looked at each other, an unspoken question on every face. What the hell was that?

  The roar repeated, louder this time, and the building shook violently. People started to stand up, confusion turning into fear. Someone in the front row screamed: "Look at the sky!"

  We rushed to the windows, a wave of students pushing past each other. My heart hammered in my chest, a mixture of terror and a strange adrenaline.

  What we saw made no sense.

  The sky, which moments before had been blue and promising, was now a mass of ink-bck color, as if someone had erased the sun with a gigantic stroke. And in the middle of that unnatural darkness, there was something. An Object. It was huge, opaque, with a silhouette that defied all logic, and it seemed to distort the very light around it. It was descending, getting closer and closer to the Earth's atmosphere. Too fast. Too big.

  Emergency sirens began to sound in the distance, a mournful chorus adding to the growing panic.

  The Object, once a distant speck, now filled a rge part of the sky, casting an ominous shadow over the city. People on the street stopped, pointing, screaming.

  The world was ending.