No… impossible!" Adrian shouted, running to stabilize a support.
But it was futile. The building—the dream he had given his life to—was crumbling around him.
Through the chaos, he saw a figure at a safe distance, silhouetted against the flashing lights. Marcus. Watching.
Their eyes met. And Marcus smiled.
Realization hit like the falling steel beams. The sabotage… the betrayal… Marcus had orchestrated everything.
"Marcus! You—"
The words were swallowed by thunder as the building collapsed. Concrete engulfed him. Pain exploded through his body, bones snapping, lungs crushed beneath tons of rubble.
As his vision blurred, his final thoughts were a bitter curse.
"I built a city for them, and they buried me under it…"
Silence.
Then—light.
Adrian's eyes snapped open, but the world was wrong. No skyscrapers. No rubble. No sirens. Instead, a meadow stretched endlessly, flowers swaying under twin suns that burned in the sky.
He sat up, dazed. His body felt whole. Alive.
"What… where the hell am I?" he whispered.
Wind carried the scent of earth, untainted by smog. In the distance, he saw wooden huts—crude, lopsided, barely standing. Smoke rose weakly from firepits.
People moved between them, dressed in rough-spun cloth, carrying buckets of water. Their tools were primitive. Their "homes" looked ready to collapse at the first storm.
Adrian stared in disbelief.
"No concrete. No steel. No infrastructure at all…" His voice trembled, caught between laughter and despair.
He clenched his fists, memories of betrayal still burning in his chest.
Marcus buried me once. But this world… this world hasn't even built its foundations.