The truck rumbled beneath them, bouncing over broken pavement.
Adam sat quietly, eyes on the passing wasteland, when his voice broke the silence.
"If you had a choice... would you rather have never existed?"
Silence.
Kineki blinked, confused. "What? Why would you want to die...? I don't wanna die."
Yuri rolled her eyes and gestured at Adam. "Don't mind him. That's just his usual self-talk. He does that all the time... But its starting again"
But Kineki and Mino exchanged glances. There had to be a reason he thought that way.
Adam sighed, looking ahead. "Well... you wouldn't understand."
"Understand what?" Mino asked softly.
"I hate this misery. I hate this world."
Kineki leaned toward him. "But... how can you hate this world when you haven't experienced other worlds?"
Adam blinked. A short cough escaped him, and a tired smile followed.
'Well' he said. 'Maybe I have.' thinking to myself
Suddenly, the horizon split with light. Intense heat surged in the distance—kilometers away, yet terrifyingly near.
Adam's eyes widened.
[Adam... close your eyes. Your retina will melt.]
"CLOSE YOUR DAMN EYES!" Adam shouted.
A massive explosion lit the sky like a second sun. The core of the stratum shook beneath them. Adam had only one thought—his friends. Their safety.
Then it hit. Dust roared like an avalanche, consuming everything.
"Drive!!" someone shouted.
The truck jolted forward, tires screeching. They raced through winding hillways, dipping and rising like a serpent across a shattered landscape. Pavement crossed over buildings, then dropped off steep cliffs.
The truck collapsed with a groan of metal.
Adam screamed as he fell—
—but hands reached for him. Yuri and Yoku grabbed him from the side, yanking him into the kettenkrad just in time.
They ducked. The truck behind them collapsed, crushed under its own weight, buried in the wave of dust.
They kept driving, far and fast. The dust cloud chased them like a sandstorm. Everyone scrambled for their gas masks.
Minutes passed.
The dust thinned. Adam blinked through his cracked goggles and saw—someone. A silhouette, waving from a tower.
A man in a large hoodie and old boots. Red-tinted goggles. A long stick in his hand—maybe a flare.
They drove closer.
His face was strangely youthful, yet his forehead bore the wrinkles of age.
"Thank God," someone muttered. "We were miles away from that explosion."
A massive hole gaped in the stratum's ceiling above. Far overhead, a rocket's tail vanished into the sky. The man before them zip-lined down from the tower, landing hard and coughing as he pulled his parachute off.
"Cough—cough—" He stood upright with a blank expression and a faint smile.
"Forgive me," he said. "I didn't realize anyone was still here... in this sector of the stratum."
[Current location: Northern Center of the Stratum.]
He gave a short bow. "My wife didn't see anyone on scan. I didn't have time to signal her."
Adam frowned. The man wore a dusty coat, tagged with the inscription SOC-Aerospace. Artifacts and notes spilled from his satchel. His voice was dry, lost in thought.
"What a mess," he murmured.
If that explosion had happened any closer… Adam couldn't even finish the thought.
Yuri and Yoku shouted in unison. "You could've gotten us killed!"
Hands on his radio, the man replied, "Sorry, sorry! We were desperate. Dammit—I thought the X68-40 launch was successful…"
Adam raised an eyebrow. "What's X68-40? A missile?"
The man looked at him, surprised. "Oh—no. Just a rocket. '68' refers to the design generation. '40' is the number of attempts." He pulled out a thick book filled with diagrams. On the cover: Prototypes by Simon Mortem.
Hours later, they drove again—this time accompanied by the stranger on his motorcycle. Yoku glanced at the man's gear, eyes glinting. Maybe there was something here he could salvage for his prosthetic.
As they approached the rocket's base, Adam saw strange structures—floating holograms, transcriptions, and clusters of cubes. Some were the size of dice, others as large as buildings, all moving in patterns like a magician's illusion.
Then came another figure. A person in a uniform marked by a red and black cross. They wore a helmet, had long brown hair, and waved a pair of red light sticks in the air.
Adam approached, cautious. "Who are you? And why are you building rockets?"
The figure smiled. "I'm Rakete Erfolg. And that beautiful lady over there is my wife—Trösterin."
He smiled again, warmer this time. The woman crossed over and hugged him.
Adam looked away, hiding the ache in his chest.
Damn it... How long until I have someone like that?
Rakete clapped a hand on Adam's shoulder as the vehicles parked. "You're wondering about the rocket, right?"
Adam nodded.
"To escape," Rakete said. "The Ancients did it long ago. I plan to follow them."
He chuckled. "And maybe punch them in the face—for leaving us all behind with their problems."
Adam thinks, why wouldnt you just fix this crappy world as it is... then to just avoid this problem and escaping it
It was starting to rain, we headed inside the based...