Chapter 01 - Chapter 01

I woke up feeling a sharp headache. The throbbing pain made me let out a groan as my consciousness was being reintroduced to the real world. What happened, where am I? I asked myself. My surroundings were completely dark. Not the slightest light was visible around me, and the atmosphere felt cold and damp.

Frowning, confused by the strange situation, I tried to remember the last thing that had happened.

Until a while ago, I had been in class.

The 2nd year teacher had been teaching her classes, when the school bell rang, marking lunchtime. Like all my classmates, I left class with my lunch box. I moved quickly through the corridors of the school, looking for a quiet place to eat, but unfortunately most of the places that used to be empty were now occupied by other students.

Reluctantly, I went out onto the campus, but the hustle and bustle there was worse than inside the school. A group of year 4s were returning from training on campus accompanied by the gym teacher. I backed up and returned to the school. I walked down the hallway to cross the building and out the back of the school.

I advanced through a small garden in disrepair, while holding my step on the moss-covered ground, and finally reached my destination. There, amidst the undergrowth and some trees, stood an old metal structure covered by large rectangular glass panels that caught and reflected the sunlight with a nostalgic glow of oblivion and antiquity.

This was the old greenhouse, which was no longer in use.

Before entering, I stopped to check if anyone was there. I approached the glass walls, and with my hands I wiped away the dust and moss that had grown to see inside. I smiled when I saw that there was no one inside.

The front door of the greenhouse was locked, but several of the glass panels that made up the greenhouse wall were broken, so I simply ducked down a bit and entered through the usual opening.

This was not the first time I had taken refuge in the old greenhouse during my lunch hour. Inside there was nothing but a couple of forgotten flower pots, a few pieces of furniture with a canting where the janitor used to keep tools and a couple of old tables and chairs. The ground was covered with weeds that had grown up, and the division of the land for planting had already been forgotten.

I crossed the pasture and placed my lunch on the old table, while I dusted off one of the seats to sit down and start eating. Opening my lunch box, I was delighted with my lunch of hocdoff with ham and cheese freshly heated in the school's microwave.

I pulled out my phone and began browsing the internet while I ate.

I flicked my thumb, swiping the touch screen of my phone as I took a bite of the hofdoff, tasting the rich flavor of the mayonnaise and fries. At that moment, I felt a flicker. The greenhouse light hanging above me flickered and swayed slightly. I thought it was just the gentle breeze coming in through the broken windows, but then... the ground began to shake.

Huh? A tremor now?

I stood still in my place, as I swallowed the mouthful of hofdoof in my mouth. This wasn't the first time I had experienced a tremor. In this city tremors used to be almost a routine, an occasional thing that every month at least you felt one or two tremors.

Usually it would shake for a few seconds, before stopping.

But this time... it was different.

The shaking didn't stop, on the contrary, it intensified.

Wao!