Chapter 6 – Foundations

  A man in a tracksuit sat quietly on the green lawn, his back resting against the trunk of a tree. Eye-catching sunglasses hid his eyes. Beads of sweat clung to his face and soaked through the fabric of his clothes as he glanced down at his watch.

  “Nine kilometers in… this time,” he muttered, still trying to steady his labored breathing.

  It took him less time than one would expect for an ordinary college student—with his diet, his habits—to recover. His breathing gradually evened out, color returning to his face as the burning in his chest faded.

  Bell had been training for several days now.

  Push-ups. Planks. Running. Repetition without flair.

  It didn’t make him stronger. Not really. But his body responded faster, more cleanly. Movements felt deliberate again, no longer clumsy or sluggish.

  No amount of training could turn someone into a fighter or an athlete in a handful of days. At least, not in any normal way.

  “Apart from awakening, evolution, or mutation,” Bell murmured, barely audible, “strength is a long process.”

  He removed his sunglasses. Despite the fatigue, his eyes reflected something unsettled beneath the afternoon sunlight—caught somewhere between shadow and light.

  The past four days had rewritten his routine completely.

  He pieced together fragments of future memories, searching for advantages where he could find them. Looking for shadows of things that did not yet exist. Hunting ghosts, while doing his best to remain unseen by them.

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  He knew the foundations of the apocalypse were already laid.

  And for now—before everything collapsed—they were still fragile.

  You couldn’t carry a tree on your back.

  But you could still dig up the seed.

  Physical preparation was only one part of it. Overexertion would leave him weakened when it mattered most. Inaction would leave him helpless. Balance was necessary.

  And balance cost money.

  “Preparation really requires money,” Bell muttered.

  Most people had no emergency plans. No safe locations. No reserves. Not because they didn’t want to prepare—but because survival already consumed everything they had.

  Why burden the mind further with a catastrophe that hadn’t officially arrived?

  Bell checked the time again.

  The man he was waiting for—Sol Baye—should arrive soon.

  As if summoned by the thought, Bell’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

  I’ll be there in a few minutes.

  Short. Efficient.

  The sender: Sol Baye.

  Bell’s expression didn’t change.

  I’m waiting.

  This meeting mattered. Time couldn’t be wasted.

  While waiting, Bell opened his notebook.

  To an outsider, the pages would seem chaotic—despite the careful cursive. Names of places. Names of people. Dates. Events. Diagrams. Lists of supplies. Loose schedules. Hypotheses stacked on top of deductions.

  Nothing was certain. Nothing absolute.

  Just lines of thought meant to guide future actions.

  He flipped to a section marked with a discreet symbol.

  Strange Incidents.

  Most of it came from the internet.

  Videos. Posts. Archived threads.

  People describing dying in their dreams—only to die days later, following the same sequence.

  Others reporting hallucinations before losing their sanity overnight, or ending their own lives without warning.

  A corpse discovered fused inside a building wall.

  Children found buried vertically, their heads protruding from the ground.

  A village ritual recorded on camera—smiling participants killing one of their own, tearing limbs apart, eating flesh without hesitation.

  The world still looked normal.

  But beneath that surface lay censorship, erasure, and patterns some had already begun to notice.

  In dark forums and private threads, jokes circulated—mockery layered over fear—making the truth even harder to grasp.

  Was the world going mad?

  Or had it always been this way?

  “By now,” Bell murmured, closing the notebook slightly, “some of them must have already appeared.”

  His thoughts drifted to beings that looked human—but weren’t. Not entirely.

  He lifted his gaze just in time to see a figure approaching from a distance.

  Sol Baye had arrived.

  Foundations built through habit, pain, and preparation?

  Those stick.