002 THE ARMAGEDDON
Damen woke before dawn, long before the rest of the house stirred. It was the only way to survive mornings here—get the chores done, cook breakfast, and be out the door before Ralph staggered in to stall him.
If he wasn't quick, he'd be late for school.
He set out the plates: rice and eggs for Ralph, aunt Melody, and Beck…his cousin, who enjoyed the luxury of a bus ride while Damen had to walk the long road himself.
Another small injustice he'd grown used to and reason that he needs to get out early.
As he slipped his shoes on, a thought stopped him at the door. "Wait… I didn't check."
He pulled out his phone. The DemCoin app pulsed to life the moment he thought of it.
18.46 … 18.49 … 18.51…
The counter ticked steadily upward. It had mined from Ralph through the night.
"Huh. Serves you right," Damen muttered with a crooked smile.
But as he stepped into the street, something changed. The digits froze. He slowed, frowning.
Damen exhaled, amused. "Just as I thought. It only works if I'm close to the target."
He pictured the distance in his head, pacing it out in the quiet street. He made a note. "Thirty meters. That's the limit of the app."
Pocketing the phone, Damen quickened his stride toward school, already turning over the possibilities in his mind.
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[Melrose Middle School No.9]
"Hey, Damen! Guess what?....my physicals went up by one point," Mikey Rolands said, grinning as he dropped into the seat beside him.
Damen stirred from his half-nap, rubbing his eyes. "Really? That's good news." His tone soured as he leaned back in his chair.
"Meanwhile, at this rate I'll never make it out of middle school," he thought.
The final exams loomed over him like a storm.
Without a decent score, high school was out of reach. Damen's grades were already scraping the bottom of the class, and everyone knew it.
Everyone except Mikey…his best friend, maybe his only friend. The others sneered at him, wrote him off as the poor kid destined for the Aur mines.
"Don't worry," Mikey said, catching the shift in his mood. "You've still got time to pull it together."
Damen forced a smile, just enough to acknowledge the encouragement. Then a thought hit him. He pulled out his phone.
"Hey, did you get a new app on your phone? Something called… DemCoin?"
Mikey frowned, digging out his own school-issued handset. "No way. These bricks don't install anything. You know that."
"Check anyway. Mine got one yesterday."
"Fine." Mikey swiped through his screen, then shook his head. "Nothing new. What's it called again?"
"DemCoin. Looks like a mining app. For coins, I think."
Mikey snorted. "Damen, don't tell me you're falling for that. Coin mining's been dead since the Armageddon."
"I know," Damen said quickly, tucking the phone away. But the weight of it in his pocket felt heavier than before.
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[The Armageddon]
A century ago, the world changed forever.
Meta-humans…ordinary people who suddenly awakened extraordinary powers, appeared without warning. Their arrival coincided with something else: Spatial Rifts.
The Rifts tore open passages to realms beyond our own, spilling horrors and hostile beings into the world. These creatures weren't content to remain confined; they pushed through, hungry to conquer.
Humanity might have fallen then, if not for the Meta-humans.
With powers that defied imagination, they fought back and closed most of the Space Rifts.
The world was eventually saved but its saviors were never truly trusted.
To governments, Meta-humans were less miracle than menace. Laws were written overnight. Some were imprisoned, others forced into registries and compliance programs.
Control seemed possible….at least for a while.
But resentment simmered. Eventually, the Meta-humans rose together under one banner: the Alliance of Evolution. At its head stood Quantum, a man whose mind operated with the precision and depth of a quantum supercomputer.
His war was not waged with bombs or bullets, but with code.
In a single catastrophic strike, Quantum shattered the digital foundation of civilization. Every password, every account, every cryptographic key was compromised. In one night, the Alliance seized the world's wealth.
Markets collapsed. Economies crumbled. Nations plunged into chaos.
For a time, society itself hovered on the brink of ruin. That dark chapter became known as the Armageddon.
Governments eventually clawed back power, but the scars never faded. Politics, economies, and daily life were reshaped forever.
Meta-human abilities, once feared, became unavoidable.
If humanity could not suppress them, it would harness them. Governments embraced meta-technology, binding it with strict laws and discipline.
The world had been broken and remade. And it would never be the same again.
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The room filled piece by piece, student by student until it buzzed with the usual morning chatter. No one spoke to Damen except the occasional thumbs up by Mikey.
No one ever did. He'd long since stopped expecting otherwise.
He watched instead, scanning faces for any mention of the DemCoin app. There was only Silence. There were no whispers, no traded rumors at all about DemCoin.
"Strange. Am I the only one with the damn app?" he wondered.
The school bell cut through the noise.
Miss Poney Black, a thin woman with a long ponytail was their homeroom teacher. She entered the room and took attendance.
"Final exams are coming," she told them. "If you don't take your studies seriously, you won't get into a good high school."
"Yes," the students chorused, perfunctorily.
Thames Jackson, smug as always, waved a hand. "Our scores are fine," he said, then jabbed a finger at Damen. "Can't say the same for him."
Laughter rippled around the room.
Damen felt the heat of it creep under his skin. It wasn't just talent that failed him.
He knew how to learn but he had no time. There just wasn't time to do so. Afternoons in the Aur mine left no hours for revision and meta training, and he was left exhausted after that.
Miss Poney's expression hardened. "Damen, your scores are dragging the class average down. At the rate you're going, you'll be the only one who fails to graduate."
A hundred eyes were on him. He mouthed, "I'm sorry," because the words were expected. The apology landed like a stone.
Miss Poney turned her back to the board, and began to scribble lesson notes. The classroom noise settled into the low hum of pens and chairs.
Damen's face burned…not with shame now but with a slow, cold anger. It wasn't his fault he was poor. It wasn't his fault he'd been forced into labor.
He slid his phone from his pocket and felt the app's presence like a pulse. Miss Poney turned slightly, writing a formula on the board. For a moment she looked completely ordinary….just a woman at work.
Then she became a target in his screen.
Damen raised the phone a fraction and, almost without thinking, tapped the button.
Begin Mining.
The small thrill that ran through him was ugly and private. The counter began to climb.
18.54 …. 18.57 …. 18.61
"Damn, she's mined much quicker than Ralph", Damen muttered and smiled before putting back his phone as the class continues.
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