The soft morning light spills through the curtains, wrapping the bedroom in a warm, quiet glow. Riven blinks awake to find a face just inches away from his mother's. Seren is lying beside him under the blanket, her eyes already open, filled with gentle affection like she's been waiting for this exact moment all night.
"Good morning, my sunshine," she whispers, her voice soft and cozy like freshly baked bread.
Riven groans, shifting slightly. "Mom… again?"
Seren smiles without shame. "Of course. This is how a mother should start her day. First sight of my darling makes my whole day better."
"You said that yesterday," he murmurs, turning his face to the pillow.
"And it was true yesterday too," she chirps.
Riven rolls out of bed with practiced annoyance and stumbles into the bathroom before she can pull him back under the covers again. The moment the door closes, he sighs in peace at least for five minutes. He is brushing his teeth slowly, staring at his reflection. Same black eyes, same stubborn white hair, the same faint frown lines his mom claims make him look "mysteriously handsome." He doesn't buy it.
By the time he returns to the room, his mother is already holding his uniform like a sacred relic. "Don't forget your socks," she says brightly.
"I'll wear sandals," Riven mutters.
She gasps. "Absolutely not, because you'll catch cold, and then your immune system will be compromised and I'll cry myself to sleep for a week."
He gives her a tired look but takes the socks. "Please don't cry on my socks again."
"No promises," she says with a wink.
Breakfast is loud, warm, and chaotic. His father Doran sits at the table, sipping tea and scrolling through half-functioning news updates on a scratched tablet, while Seren places dish after dish in front of Riven like she is feeding a soldier heading off to war.
"Eat baby, you're too thin." she says.
"I'm literally chewing." Riven says while eating.
"I can see your cheekbones." she says.
"They've always been there." Riven says instantly.
"Not like this. First finish your soup or I'll cry." she says with tears in her eyes.
"She cried last night," Doran says without looking up. "When you only ate half his rice."
Riven tries not to laugh as he finishes another spoonful. "You two are ridiculous."
"We're parents," Seren says proudly, wiping his mouth like he is five. "It's in the job description."
They are still laughing when it happens. A deafening alarm suddenly echoes through the city, shaking the windows and making the lightbulbs flicker. The laughter dies instantly. The three of them go to the balcony. Sirens wail from every direction now, blending with the rising panic of the streets then in the sky—they see it.
Thin trails of smoke, dozens of them, arch across the heavens like white cracks on blue glass. They are too far to hear but too close to escape. Riven's eyes widen. "Is that…?"
Doran's face turns pale. "Those are missiles."
Seren clutches Riven's arm tightly. "No no, no, no…"
A burning object pierces the clouds above, growing larger, louder. It isn't just one. There are more, raining down like stars gone mad.
Riven turns. "We need to run!"
But his parents stand still. Doran pulls Seren close and wraps his arms around her.
Seren looks back at Riven, smiling despite the tears. "My darling… if this is the end, I want you to know, for me loving you was everything."
"Mom, no—" Riven moves toward them.
Then the flash comes. A sun blooms and the whole world turns white and silence follows it.
After some time. Riven gasps awake, his body jerking as if pulled by invisible wires. The sky above is no longer blue but ashen grey, filled with drifting dust. There are no buildings, no streets, no noise — only ruin. He sits upright and looks around in horror. Everything is gone now. The very skeleton of the world has already collapsed.
He stands while trembling. "Was that… a dream?"
His voice echoes weakly. Then he looks down — and freezes.
His legs aren't legs. They are black and jointed. His arms are thin and hard-shelled and tiny antennae twitch on his forehead.
"What… what the hell am I?" he whispers. He rushes toward a puddle in the cracked concrete and stares into it.
Then he sees his reflection. It is unmistakable, he is a cockroach now.
He chokes on nothing but his breath catches in his throat — if he even has one. "I… I'm a cockroach now?"
He staggers back from the puddle, his tiny body twitching in disbelief. Memories begin flooding back about his parents, about the explosion and that last smile his mother gave him.
He wants to cry but tears don't come, not because he doesn't want to cry, but because cockroaches don't have tear ducts. Still, the ache in his heart is real. It claws inside his chest like a storm begging to get out.
"Mom… Dad…"
He scuttles through the rubble. Over melted streetlights and twisted rebar. Past husks of cars and collapsed apartment blocks. He passes the remains of the park where Mira once threw a tantrum about butterflies. Now nothing remains but ash.
He reaches the place where his house should have been. But now there is only a crater.
"Please… no…"
He starts digging with his tiny legs, clawing through the earth like it could bring them back. Then he finds fragments of walls, a broken plate and a shard of his father's favorite mug but there are no bodies, no warmth but only absence. His antennae drop. He lays there, still, letting the wind coat him in silence.
Then something glints far in the distance. A curved white shape sticking out from a mountain of debris, it is a fridge.
He stares at that fridge and something about it tickles in his memory. Slowly, he makes his way toward it, crawling over metal and bone as he approaches, he recognizes it.
"It's Aunt Vera's fridge?" he murmurs.
It is unmistakable — tacky flower magnets still cling to its battered surface. It lies on its side, door open, slightly charred but intact. Just in front of it is a strange piece of cloth, a bright pink, even in the dust it isn't soiled.
Riven stops and blinks. "A… panty?"
Then another memory hits. When he was twelve. He had gone next door to borrow sugar. Aunt Vera wasn't in the kitchen, but her voice was singing from the hallway. He peered through the crack in the door and saw her walk to the fridge with a grin. She took a pair of fresh panties, folded them neatly… and placed them inside the vegetable tray like they were strawberries.
He remembers thinking: "What the hell kind of freak does that?" but he never asked, also never forgot.
Back in the present, Riven approaches the fabric slowly. He nudges the cloth gently. It smells… oddly preserved. And, somehow, it is warm inside but actually it doesn't, it's his loneliness that makes him feel warmth and smell.
He presses his tiny body into the fold. It wraps around him like a sleeping bag.
"It's… warm," he murmurs.
He curls up in it like a bed. A ridiculous, embarrassing, strangely comforting bed.
"I guess I can live here now," he says.
Time passes in a blur, hours, maybe days. He stays hidden inside that pink cave, using it as a home and a shield. A shelter against the endless nothing outside. He doesn't have food or water or a reason but he has warmth and memory.
He sleeps, dreams, and sometimes murmurs to himself. Then, without warning, a voice shatters the silence inside his mind.
Rough, blunt, rude, like someone throwing rocks at his peace.
"Oye, piece of shit. Wake up."
To be continued…