After the incident, Ayan carefully wheeled himself back to the bench where he had been sitting earlier. He positioned the wheelchair beside the bench and locked the wheels.
Slowly, he straightened his back, shifted to get comfortable, and rested his hands on the armrests. Though the fountain was right behind him, he glanced at it but couldn't bring himself to enjoy its beauty.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, then switched the Wi-Fi on.
Within seconds, ping, ping, ping—a flood of notifications exploded onto the screen.
News alerts. Videos. Social media. Endless chaos crammed into his eyes. The screen was so full, he couldn't even read a single one.
He unlocked the phone.
One headline caught his eye. It was tagged trending. Curious, he tapped it without thinking.
What he saw in the trending list made his blood run cold. His breath caught sharply. "What... in the world is this?"
His eyes locked onto the screen. The thumbnail alone was horrifying, bathed in red blood. People stood screaming in the foreground. Behind them, bodies lay scattered across mangled streets, fires burning in the distance.
He clicked on it.
It didn't play like a recording.
It was live.
He saw the list:
[Multiple Cities Destroyed: Paris, Manchester, Beijing, Lhasa, Shanghai, Calcutta, Jaipur, Chennai, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hamburg, Cairo, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Samara, Jerusalem, Phoenix, Rome, Seoul, Rio de Janeiro]
Under the thumbnail, he saw another suggestion:
[Moon destroyed in pieces.]
Ayan's eyes stayed wide, locked on the screen. His chest tightened. His heart skipped a beat.
His gaze shot upward. His eyes froze. He couldn't find the moon.
Instead, millions of pieces were scattered across the sky. He understood it was the moon, shattered into pieces—the same moon Yash had stared at less than an hour ago.
Shaken, he dropped his eyes to the phone. The screen's glow was the only thing lighting his face, his eyes wide and flickering with fear and helplessness.
"What the hell is going on…?" he whispered, eyes glued to the screen. His hands trembled, gripping the phone tightly.
He heard voices, sharp and unexpected.
It was the same people who had been enjoying New Year's Eve a moment ago. But now their voices were filled with terrifying fear.
He straightened his body and glanced in every direction. People were running haphazardly, like their lives were at stake. His heart pounded harder. There was no doubt—they were running for their lives.
His fingers shook so badly he missed the latch the first time. After a shaky moment, he tried again and unlocked the wheelchair's wheels. Fear clawed at his chest just like everyone else's. But unlike them, he couldn't stand. He couldn't run.
A soft sound escaped his mouth. "Am I going… to die?"
But the relentless chaos around him swallowed his words, tearing them apart before they could be heard.
He turned his gaze toward the crowd and spotted a family running some distance away.
Out of nowhere, a massive boulder, a chunk of the shattered moon fell from the sky and struck them, crushing most of the group.
Only a woman and a young boy remained.
The boy's leg was gone, severed clean below the knee. The woman's wrist hung limp, bone jutting through torn skin. Blood streamed from both of them.
"Please… help… help my son! Someone, please…!" she cried out, reaching toward the fleeing people.
He trembled. Goosebumps rose on his skin.
Another massive boulder crashed into the lamppost behind the fountain, metal screeching as it bent and shattered glass burst through the air.
One jagged shard sliced across his left hand.
A sharp breath tore from his throat as pain bloomed. "Aagh—!"
His grip loosened, and the phone slipped from his fingers, struck his knee, and hit the ground with a sharp clatter, its screen flickering erratically. Warm blood trickled down his palm, dripping onto the phone's metal frame.
He pressed his right hand over the wound, trying to slow the bleeding, but blood still seeped between his fingers, warm and steady.
Pressing his injured hand, he back toward the mother and child. But they were gone. In their place lay scattered chunks of stone and pieces of their broken bodies.
Ayan knew it was only a matter of time. Death lurked closer with every breath, silent and certain.
Whatever was behind this was not human. It was something far beyond, something supernatural. He was just flesh and bone, breakable, powerless. There was no chance of survival.
He looked up at the sky, and his breath faltered.
The clouds had fractured. Boulders, jagged chunks of the shattered moon, tore through the sky. They didn't fall straight. They spun, curved, shifted midair like they were searching. They weren't just dropping. They were aiming.
One veered toward the park. The wind shrieked in its wake. He couldn't move. Couldn't blink. The sky was falling, and it wasn't done yet.
Multiple boulders slammed into the buildings, tearing through concrete, glass, and steel like paper. The skyline, once glowing with lights and celebration, crumbled in a breath. Floors collapsed. Beams twisted.
Inside, tenants and celebrating office workers froze in place. Wine glasses slipped from trembling fingers. Laughter halted mid-breath.
"Is this... an earthquake?!"
"No, no — it's worse!"
Screams tore through the chaos. People shoved past one another, slipping on shattered tile, clawing at doors that barely clung to their frames.
The countdown to the New Year had turned into a frantic sprint for survival.
A scream snapped him back to reality. "Ayan...!"
It was Yash, sprinting toward him. The food bag in his hand had been torn apart. Only a cola bottle remained, leaking steadily onto the ground.
His voice cracked, trembling with panic. "Ayan, we have to run... we have to run!"
As he glanced at Yash, he noticed people rushing past, limping and crying out, their faces twisted in fear.
Just a few meters ahead, a small, wolf pup with white and greyish fur lay motionless on the ground. It wasn't bleeding, but something was clearly wrong. It didn't move at all.
"Where did that wolf cub even come from...? A zoo?" he muttered, eyes scanning the chaos. Air snagged in his throat.
Yash was getting closer. Without hesitation, Ayan rolled over and pulled the wolf into his lap.
Its fur turned red where his bloody palm pressed against it. He laid his hand gently on its chest, searching for a heartbeat.
Nothing. The wolf was already gone.
He looked at Yash, the dead wolf still in his lap. Yash was just about to reach him when the ground suddenly shuddered beneath his wheelchair.
A massive chunk of the shattered moon, the size of a bus, dropped from the sky. It tore through the air with a roar and slammed into the grassy field. Dirt, blood, and grass burst in all directions as the impact shook the entire park.
Ayan's chest tightened. His eyes froze on Yash, crushed beneath the boulder before he could take another step.
Blood seeped out from under the rock, spreading through the torn grass like ink in water. All around, others lay broken in the dirt, bodies soaked in red.
Ayan couldn't speak. He couldn't move. The image burned into his mind, freezing him where he sat.
The shockwave rolled him backward. His wheelchair bounced over loose stones and flipped into the fountain behind him. The dead wolf pup slipped from his grasp and hit the ground as he lost his balance.
Icy water swallowed his body as chaos echoed through the air.
He continued sinking into the water. The fountain wasn't deep, but with a body that wouldn't move, it felt like an ocean. There was no point in struggling. Somewhere deep inside, he had already accepted that this was the end.
Only one thought crossed his mind:
Ruby… I'm sorry. I guess I failed as your brother. I couldn't protect you. I didn't have enough time to find you before this apocalypse hit us. Please… forgive me.
His eyelids sagged. Everything was getting heavier—his limbs, his thoughts, his will to fight.
Through the blur of pain, he saw fragments of shattered moon rock sinking into the freezing water. Someone was swimming toward him. A shadow cut through the chaos, arms outstretched, reaching for him.
This isn't a normal disaster. No one survives something like this.
The figure came closer, hand extended.
Ayan gritted his teeth, forcing his eyes to stay open with every bit of willpower he had.
If I close them now… I won't be able to open them again.
His eyes strained to see through the water, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
A cold dread slid through his chest, heavier than the water around him. He couldn't breathe—not just from being underwater, but from the horror building inside.
The entity resembled a human… almost. But something was fundamentally wrong. A man… or an animal. He couldn't understand the difference.
No—somehow, it was both.
A human-animal mutation.
Something that shouldn't exist.
As the entity drew closer and its hand touched Ayan's forehead, he finally saw it—a person… almost.
From their hair, a pair of fox-like ears peeked through.