Nevin had just dropped a bomb. He told them that the birthday on his ID wasn't his real birthday, and even the name "Nevin" wasn't his real name. The room went quiet. Everyone stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
"So… who are you, really?" That was the question hanging in the air.
"I'm an orphan," Nevin said. His voice was calm, but the weight in the room got heavier. Seeing that, he started to share more. "The birthday on my ID, that's the day the orphanage found me. Since then, I've used that day as my birthday."
He paused before adding, "Nevin isn't my real name either. When they found me, I had a tag on my arm. It said Kevin."
"Kevin, Nevin… sounds close enough. But why Nevin?" Thomas asked, leaning forward.
Nevin gave a small laugh, trying to break the tension. "When I was a kid, the other children in the orphanage used to make fun of me. I was always doing things on my own out of curiosity. Eventually they got tired of me and started saying, 'Never mind Kevin.' After a while, it stuck. Never mind Kevin turned into Nevin."
He chuckled, though his eyes softened as he continued. "I don't really want to use the name my so-called parents gave me, so I went with Nevin. I even had it officially changed."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy anymore. It was more like everyone was processing the story.
Then Thomas suddenly clapped his hands. "Alright! Enough with the sad stories. This is supposed to be a happy day, right? Let's eat!"
"Oh, wait." Thomas suddenly perked up. He stood and rummaged through one of the boxes stacked by the wall. A moment later, he pulled out a bottle of wine with a grin.
They poured and raised a toast. Iris hesitated for a second, then lifted her glass. She hadn't touched alcohol since that night, the night everything went wrong for her. But this wasn't that. This was different. These people felt safe. She sipped, then another, until the warmth in her chest was stronger than the old fear.
Laughter carried through the room as stories spilled out one after another. Nevin's jokes, Bryan's sarcastic comments, Thomas's ridiculous tales from school days. Before they knew it, two bottles were empty, and the four of them were leaning back, faces red and smiles loose.
Sleep came easy after that.
Maybe too easy.
When morning light slipped through the blinds, Iris blinked awake and froze. She was in Thomas's bed, her head resting on his arm like a pillow, one arm wrapped around his chest. Heart pounding, she bolted upright. She didn't even remember how she ended up in Thomas's bed.
By the time Thomas stirred awake, Iris was already on the sofa, pretending to read. For the rest of the morning, she kept her eyes anywhere but on him. Even at lunch, she avoided his gaze. Only when she realized Thomas wasn't bringing it up did she finally feel relief. Maybe he didn't remember either. Maybe it was better that way.
After lunch, the three of them headed up to the seventeenth floor to clear debris. It had almost become part of their daily routine. Ever since seeing part of the building collapse, they knew they had to reduce the weight above them. If they ignored it, their own rooms on the sixteenth floor could be next.
Like they had done with the fifteenth floor, they searched for a gap and widened it enough to climb through. Piece by piece, they transferred debris down to lower floors. The larger walls and beams were impossible to clear, so they reinforced them with whatever they could find, making sure the weight would not give in further.
It was sweaty, exhausting work, but slowly the mess thinned.
"Wait, look at that!" Nevin suddenly stopped, pointing ahead.
Through the dust and twisted frames, the outline of something round came into view. With enough debris cleared, it finally revealed itself. The meteor, lodged into the floor, as large as a bus and strangely circular.
"Is that the meteor?" Nevin said, eyes wide with awe. "Guess we've cleared enough to see it up close."
The three of them moved closer out of curiosity. The meteor gave off a faint glow, and Thomas brushed away the dirt and dust until its white surface showed.
"Don't touch it!" Bryan warned, but it was already too late. Thomas's hand was pressed against the meteor.
"Aaahhh!!" Thomas shouted suddenly.
"Thomas!!" Nevin and Bryan yelled in chorus.
Then Thomas broke into a laugh. "Got you! Ahaha!" He grinned at his own joke.
Nothing happened. The meteor stayed the same, and Thomas was fine. It seemed safe to touch with bare hands.
"What are these?" Nevin crouched and picked up something near the meteor. It was a small fragment, glowing faintly, about the size of a child's pinky finger, and it was pink. He looked around and realized there were plenty of them scattered across the floor, enough to fill a small plastic bag.
Thomas bent down, grabbed one, brushed it clean, sniffed it, and suddenly put it in his mouth.
"Crunch!"
"Thomas!!" Nevin and Bryan shouted again.
There were many short scenes and flashes in his 'end of the world' bangungot. In one of those scenes, he was happily eating pink food. Pink rice, pink meat, pink fruits. At the time it felt too unrealistic, so he never thought much about it. When they later reduced their meals, snacks were the first to go. Thomas did not argue, but he missed those snacks, and that was when he remembered the dream of eating pink food. Since then, he had been looking for it, though without success until now.
These fragments did not look like the food in his dream, but the color was strikingly similar. Maybe his mind could not invent something he had never seen before, which was why the dream showed them as different kinds of food instead. Seeing them now, he believed this could be it. So he ate it.
"Why did you eat it?!" Bryan asked, his voice tight.
Thomas chewed thoughtfully. "Hmm… tastes like bacon. Maybe a little burnt, but still bacon." He swallowed with a loud gulp.
"How do you feel? Anything different?" Bryan pressed, still worried.
"I'm not really sure," Thomas said, already reaching for another fragment. He brushed it off and ate it again without hesitation.
"Thomas Aike!!" Bryan tried to stop him but was too late.
They didn't know that this scene was being observed by an entity.
"Alert! Alert! Abnormal power intake detected!" a robotic voice echoed from a large monitor.
"Put it on the screen," a man seated in front of it ordered.
The display shifted, showing Thomas as he popped another pink fragment into his mouth.
"Haha. It seems we have unique minds this round," the man said, watching with amusement.
"He has found a loophole in our design. What should I do?" the robotic voice asked.
"Allow it, but only for him. Block anyone else who tries the same thing," the man replied.
"Understood. Patching the loophole… adding special grant… done."
"Oh, and put him on our watchlist," the man added with a grin. "He might bring us more surprises."
"Understood," the robotic voice answered before falling silent.
Thomas was already on his third pink fragment. Bryan's face was tense, while Nevin stared curiously.
"I'm fine. It's really good. Tastes like bacon!" Thomas said, trying to ease Bryan's worry.
"Really?" Nevin asked, picking up a fragment for himself. He bit into it and immediately spat it out. "Bleahh!"
Bryan gave it a try too, but his stomach twisted and forced it back up. He hunched over, coughing.
"You two must be allergic," Thomas said casually, watching them struggle. He scooped up the rest with a grin that stretched ear to ear. "Guess these are all mine."
After their work upstairs, they returned to their room, one of them much happier than the others.
"I have something for you," Thomas said suddenly to Iris.
He raised his hand, thumb and finger crossed into a small heart. Iris froze, her cheeks turning red. She had already been embarrassed about ending up in his bed last night, and now this? Her mind went blank. She glanced at Bryan and Nevin for help, but instead of encouragement their faces clearly said, "Don't do it."
Confused, she looked back at Thomas's hand. His fingers were crossed, yes, but not for a proposal. Between them was a small glowing fragment.
"Oh…" Iris exhaled in relief.
"What is that?" she asked quickly.
"My new favorite snack," Thomas said proudly.
Iris glanced at Bryan and Nevin again. They shook their heads like madmen, but she convinced herself it could not be that bad. At worst, she would just spit it out. She took a small bite.
"Urghh!" Iris gagged, spitting it out at once. She doubled over, her stomach lurching. "What is that?!"
"I told you, it's my new snack," Thomas said, completely unbothered. He popped another into his mouth and chewed happily. "This one tastes like grilled pork."
The others stared in disbelief. Instead of being angry, Iris found herself amazed. He could actually eat those things, and not just eat them, he seemed to enjoy them.
Another month passed since the looters came. That made it two months since the meteors fell, and the pink fog spread. The four made further adjustments to their routines to conserve supplies. Baths were reduced to twice a week, with wet wipes on other days. Meals were cut to twice a day. Thomas hardly complained because he had his newfound snacks. Many days had passed, yet the bag still looked almost untouched, since he could only eat a few fragments at a time before already feeling full.
Each day, the three men climbed to the seventeenth floor to clear debris. It had become routine.
But this day would not be the same. Someone was already waiting for them on the seventeenth floor.