33 minutes before the Dead End, in the Capital's center
In the city's center, home to mansions, villas and multinationals' HQs, stood The Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the Capital, as well as Alpite's headquarters - one of the biggest companies in the world. Inside hundreds of thousands of tons of glass and steel, a young lady, wrapped up in an elegant suit, sat at her sleek desk. Inside that same towering, sharp, office building, a man sat next to her; same desk, same clothes. And another one next to him. And so on.
The lady, "Lara" read her name tag, was very tired. The sound of keyboard clicks filling the air, her dark green eyes struggled to stay open. She shifted, resting her head on one hand, fiddling with her dark hair with the other: she'd been working on that same document for the whole day, but it really seemed to be a never ending task.
"How's it coming along?"
"Bennet - Floor 66 Manager" - read the nametag of the person speaking.
"Oh, hi, um.. Yeah, I'm- I'm getting there!"
His tall, slender figure always made Lara slightly uncomfortable.
"Nice, very nice. Keep it up!"
Bennet's 32-teeth-wide smile didn't help with the discomfort, but she nodded and, fixing her posture, tried to get back to work.
Despite the Girl really trying her best, the long workday was really taking a toll on her, and after a few minutes, her head was once again resting on her hand.
'I really need a coffee'
Lara, moving the office chair aside, stood up.
"Lara, where exactly are you going?"
"Bennet - Floor 66 Manager" - read, once again, the nametag of the person speaking.
"Ah, um.. I just need a coffee, sir"
Lara smiled politely, but Bennet didn't seem very happy. He stood there, small dark pupils gazing in her direction, with that creepy, condescending smile of his.
"You willfinish your work. Then, when - "
He couldn't finish that sentence.
Suddenly, Bennet, her desk, her computer, her work, it all disappeared in a flash of blinding white light.
And the Girl fainted.
She woke up a few minutes later, filled with confusion. After blinking a couple of times, her eyes readjusted, and this was the scene that was presented in front of her: each and every one of her colleagues was standing close to the massive windows surrounding the office, as if something had happened on the outside of the Tower.
Bennet, on his part, was running around, shaking and trembling, shouting everyone to go back and get seated again, and that the workday wasn't over yet.
But nobody was listening, and Bennet's cries, together with his footsteps, were the only sound filling the air.
Slowly, Lara got up, and stepped towards the windows.
"Oh Lara, beautiful, you're awake. Now, if you'd please go back to your desk - Lara?"
The Girl didn't even hear him. She was looking up, away from Bennet, over the tower, even above Alpite.
There, up in that beautiful blue sky that she so much loved as a kid, a giant cut was now painted. And there, between the jagged borders of that scar, splitting the clear sky, lied a dark, black mass. It wasn't a shadow, or a painting, or anything else she could comprehend.
No, there was just pure, untouched darkness. Looking at it, a weird pressure hit her stomach.
Slowly, a light murmur rose:
"What even is that..."
"What happened..."
"Aliens..? Could it be..?"
Lara couldn't even open her mouth, her eyes glued on the black scar, and her breathing unsteady.
Then, in a silence so thick you could taste it, under the eyes of the whole Capital, above Lara, above Arch, above them all, something moved.
Something, a small disturbance, rippled the dark mass that split the sky, like the vibrations a falling leaf causes in a still lake. Not everybody saw it, but Lara's eyes caught it.
Blood pressure skyrocketing, she almost fell, reaching for something to support her weight.
Then, the stillness finally broke.
It was clear now, everyone could see it.
Something, another enormous black mass, started emerging from the Scar.
Millions of eyes, crowds and crowds of people, watched in silence as that thing emerged.
Slowly, you could finally see it.
'A fingertip...'
It was now well visible and, shaped like a bumpy cylinder, that dark thing that rose from the shadows couldn't be mistaken.
The other employees had caught on as well.
"Is that a... Is that a f-finger..?"
"It can't be..."
"God..."
Lara, struggled to keep herself standing. That was a fingertip. A giant, obscure, terrifying fingertip, emerging from the sky's necrotic injury.
Then, suddenly, an explosion broke that slow stillness. A military jet, which had just broken the sound barrier, was heading straight towards the Scar one clear objective, its missiles ready to strike the enormous target at any given moment.
Then, it fired. The weapons, cutting through the air so quick that eyes could barely follow them, blazing in the clear sky. However, as they got closer, a strange phenomenon occurred: meter after meter, the missiles, initially sailing at extreme speeds, started to slow down.
Slowly, but inevitably, they came to a stop. And in the blink of an eye, only dust was left.