*tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak- Keyboard typing*
*KRRRRRRIIIIING--KRRRRRRIIIIING--KRRRRRRIIIIING--*
"Ahh is it 10 Pm already? feels like I just started encoding my report an hour ago... Well, I guess it's time to get out of here" Aeron muttered aloud, as usual. There was no one else around at this hour, and with the other cubicles empty, he began tidying up his desk. It was Friday, after all, and tomorrow was his day off well deserved after a whole week of overtime and finishing every backlog he accumulated over the week. Like any other day he likes to mumble about anything and everything while being alone in his work cubicle like someone will hear him.
'Name's Aeron Thorne. Just your run-of-the-mill 26-year-old white-collar worker nothing special, really. I live alone in a small apartment, go to work, come home, and repeat the cycle like everyone else. If you're wondering what I do for fun… well, I mostly read Science fiction, fantasy genre stories and anything that lets me escape the boredom of daily life and before I forget, food I Love food. Now, if someone asked me what else I'm into, I'd probably say "socializing" Sounds nice, right? But to be honest I'm terrible at small talk. I try, but most of the time it feels like I'm forcing it, so yeah… maybe not my strongest point.
What I do take seriously though is something I like to call "Lore Delving." Basically, whenever I stumble across anything about Old Humanity or the Ancient ones, I can't help but dig into it like some half-baked conspiracy theorist. I'm always chasing that one clue, that one fragment, that could explain why people back then the things did they did. Most would call it pointless, but for me? That's one of the purest forms of happiness there is. Because honestly, in this era where almost everything is automated and every Terran lives comfortably enough, life just feel so dull. Safe? yes. Secure? sure, but I feel something's missing. Something that I really crave the most, thrill, stimulation, or maybe just the unknown. That's what keeps me going through my peaceful yet boring little life in this era. Another thing to note is currently it's the year 520 of the United Earth Era-yeah, that's what we call it now. These days, we're not "humans" anymore. We're Terrans. Sounds fancy and futuristic, right? A nice name for a supposedly brand-new age but if you dig into history like I do, you'll know the truth behind these pretentious fancy name. Old Humanity pretty much destroyed itself with the likes of Corruption, greed, wars that dragged on for over fifty years—they tore the world apart. By the time it was over, eighty percent of the population was gone just Imagine that Eight out of ten people was killed throughout the whole 50 years of conflict and most of them are just collateral damages from weapons that does not identify friends or foe. Humans that had too much power and no guilt that leads nations into ruins was also one huge factor that made the old-world collapse into rubble.
It took about a century for the remaining "Humans" to get back on their feet and when they finally did, everything changed. No more nations, no borders, no countries fighting each other over scraps of land. Instead, we got the United Earth Government, one big system meant to keep things "fair" and "stable."
The United Earth Government might preach "peace", but if you look at what they actually pour our resources into, it really comes down to two things: military strength and research and development. The former, they say, is for "peacekeeping." Which, to be fair, makes sense. During the early days of rebuilding, there were plenty of power-hungry warmongers trying to grab a piece of the rising United Earth Government and crown themselves emperors. The new government got challenged so many times that it's no wonder they decided to grow their military into something no one could casually mess with.
Then there's research and development the backbone of our era and our cream of the crop. It's not just about making Technological gadgets to help someone cleanse the air and fertilize the lands after so many bombs and nuclear warheads was detonated in the past or Dome Cities that helped them in the earlier days of the collapsed world; it was about survival at first. After Old Humanity fell, we almost lost entire fields of knowledge—engineering, medicine, architecture, even aerospace. Think about it: thousands of years of progress nearly wiped away in less than a century, just because some nations back then decided that if they couldn't have an advantage, nobody should. They burned records, destroyed data, corrupted archives pretty much just petty sabotage that ended up setting all of humanity back, not just their enemies. According to what's left of the history books, their last recorded year was 2531. And before everything went to hell, people lived comfortably. Maybe even too comfortably. For all their so-called brilliance, the Old World managed to destroy themselves and drag everyone else down with them. It really makes you wonder if they had it so good, why did they throw it all away?
These days, the only real groups left under the United Earth Government are the Alliances. Each one is a massive organization dedicated to a specific field—medicine, engineering, technology, agriculture, even space exploration. They're the driving force behind most of the advancements we have now. Whenever an Alliance makes a breakthrough, something revolutionary that could change the way Terrans live, they're required to submit it to the government. From there, the United Earth usually does one of two things: militarize it, if it has potential use in defense, or mass-produce it so that the entire population can benefit. In return, the Alliances don't exactly walk away empty-handed. They get access to more resources, funding, and of course the recognition that comes with being the one who "pushed humanity forward." Prestige in this era isn't about conquering land or winning wars—it's about whose name ends up tied to the next great leap in progress.
It sounds like a fair system on the surface, and in many ways it is. No single group can hoard power for themselves, and no discovery gets locked away. But at the same time, it creates this endless cycle of competition. Every Alliance is constantly pushing, racing to be the first to discover something new, because in this world, relevance is everything. Fall behind, and you risk being forgotten. That's the United Earth Era in a nutshell. Peaceful, structured, and efficient—but also driven by ambition in its own quiet way. The Alliances may not be fighting wars anymore, but they're still locked in battles. Only now, the weapons are innovation and ideas instead of guns and bombs.'
Deep sigh. "What am I even muttering all this for? I'm literally alone right now, with nobody around to listen. Maybe I'm just too tired… or maybe it's because I haven't talked to anyone in a while. Hah, yeah, that's probably it." After tidying up his desk and straightening out the scattered papers in his cubicle, Aeron leaned back in his chair for a moment, staring blankly at the ceiling lights that buzzed faintly above. The office was dead silent, the kind of silence that made you aware of your own breathing. With everyone else already gone hours ago, his voice had been the only sound bouncing around the empty department. He gave his monitor one last glance before shutting it down, the screen fading into black with a soft click. "Alright… done for today," he muttered, more to himself than anything. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he stretched until his back gave a satisfying pop. But just as he was about to head out, his body reminded him of something important. "…Tch. Great timing." He sighed again, then decided to make a quick detour. Jogging toward the bathroom, his footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, the sound oddly loud against the silence of the late-night office floor.
On the right-side wall of the office hung a battered old clock. Its frame was worn, its glass scratched, and its faded face looked as though it had survived decades longer than it should have. It ticked faintly, too faintly, as though its sound came from somewhere far away. Quiet enough to be ignored yet always noticeable, always there and at that moment the clock was not right. Its hands did not move as they should instead of marching forward, clockwise, they crawled backward, dragging themselves from twelve down to six before shuddering back up from six to twelve. Again, and again in an endless loop, a cycle with no purpose, a rhythm that mocked the natural order of time.
When Aeron had still been in the room, it behaved no differently from a normal clock, but it ticked quietly in reverse, hidden in plain sight, nothing more than a curiosity to anyone who might notice. But the moment he left, the ticking went horridly silent, and the clock began to move with intent. Its backward ticking grew louder, sharper, each click like the snap of brittle bone.
Then came the change.
The office around it shifted, the dead fluorescent glow dissolved into warm sunlight pouring through the windows. The empty rows of cubicles filled once more with workers hunched over desks, papers stacked high yet no one's looking or caring about it, voices blending together in an indistinct hum. Laughter echoed faintly from the pantry corner, where a small group stood chatting over steaming mugs of coffee.
The room was alive again. Alive with people who should not be there but their faces… their faces were wrong. Their movements were not movements, but repetitions like Looping. The man at the nearest desk tapping at his keyboard endlessly, yet the screen never changed. The woman by the window turned a page in her folder, then turned it back, then forward again trapped in a cycle as mechanical as the clock itself. Lastly, the voices those voices of laughter and conversation carried no words only sounds, hollow and empty imitations of life. The clock continued its backward sweep, and with every motion, the illusion deepened. The longer it ticked, the more the figures became real, their false faces twisting into half-formed smiles that never reached their eyes. The air turned suffocating, as though the room itself remembered too much and pulling fragments of the past into the present.
Aeron, now finished with his bathroom break, walked back into the hallway, stretching his arms as he made his way toward the elevator. Being stuck on the fifteenth floor meant the stairs were out of the question he was exhausted enough already. He muttered to himself, voice low in the silence:
"Ahh, that was a refreshing leak after hours of overtime… now it's finally time to go—what the…"