[ Connection established… Reconfiguring: Planet Earth… upgrade in process… ]

The wind swept over Dexter, coiling around him like a small tornado. He had just stepped off a rickety bus that drove him over fifty miles to an old-fashioned village on the southern coast of Bali.

The air was surprisingly arid, causing him to look towards his right, where a dense collection of florae crowded the hill tops. No doubt they were the culprit.

In the distance, shimmering blue waves crashed against a beach where natives prodded tourists to part with their cash. Kids chased each other through the village streets, hiding under stalls and bumping into pedestrians in the market square. As remote as the village was, the amount of foot traffic had caught him off guard.

"I guess the birthplace of a famous chef has its own sort of prestige, huh?" Dexter said to the bus driver. He turned to wave goodbye, but the gas guzzler was already on the move, leaving behind a trail of smog that threatened the health of his lungs.

"Hey!—" he coughed out, calling to the bus, but eventually decided not to waste his breath. "So much for a round trip back to my hotel..."

Looking towards the fleeing bus, Dexter began to mutter under his breath. By the time he finished swearing, he was certain no god would accept his application to heaven. At least not without a caveat of some sort.

Turning, Dexter hefted his guitar, when a wave of déjà vu hit him. He frowned, but the sensation left as fast as it had come. Shrugging, Dexter headed towards the beach. He was stranded for the time being, so he might as well get comfortable, and that included some food to calm his belly. The damned drive had worked up his appetite.

Before he knew it, his nose had taken him to an odd stall where a blended mix of spices permeated the air. A large crowd formed around the station, salivating like a dog at the dinner table. But as he peered closer, his height of six feet giving him a reach over most, he suspected hunger wasn't what kept the crowd hypnotized.

An old woman, who tended to the grill like a pianist, bore more scars than wrinkles and wore a dark bandage that covered her eyes. Yet somehow her arms moved with stiff assuredness, and perfect coordination. A deftness that skewered fish in one go, and handed over an order to a boy no older than ten. The disheveled kid wore a yellow shirt and blue shorts, yet he served the customers with a bright smile.

The dynamic was unusual, but it failed to stop Dexter from noticing the game that was being played. The kid simply pocketed too much extra cash on the side to go unnoticed. Dexter supposed at least one customer knew something was wrong, but they were all tourists, nodding blankly at the foreign currency.

When Dexter chuckled, he managed to catch the boy's eye and a mutual understanding developed. "Perhaps this day isn't so bad after all. Who'd have guessed my first meal would be free?" The question finished as he revealed a set of pearly-white fangs.

Ordinarily, he'd have tipped the kid extra. Even still, he was about to tip regardless of their con game out of sheer respect. But there was something about knowingly being taken for a ride that never sat well with him. He quit his IT job for that exact reason.

The constant favoritism and failing up by his boss's son, while he practically kept the company afloat, was simply too much to bear. On Dexter's last day, the brat actually brought a stripper to the office, gave Dexter a wink and locked himself away with the woman, while his father had taken a vacation.

It was then all the built-up stress in Dexter's mind vanished. He simply stood up, waved goodbye to the new hire he was training, and never looked back. His first stop was for lunch to sate his stomach for the breakfast he had missed by foolishly rushing to work. The second stop was to steal his late grandfather's Hummingbird Original. The acoustic guitar had collected dust for far too long in his opinion. And then he was off to see the world.

At twenty-seven he had followed a rigid structure that drained his soul, and now it was finally no more. He'd find some other way to placate his parents. But in the meantime, he had to seize the day.

"Hello," Dexter smiled with a devilish grin at the pair. He had finally reached the front of the line, but before he could give his order, a palpable aura laced with grunts and the condescension of the old to the young, radiated towards him.

He looked back to the grill when the old woman thrust a random meal into the little kid's hands. She whispered something in her native tongue, prompting the boy to give his best smile. "Good, good. Special," the kid said with a surprisingly mature sales pitch. However, there was no chance Dexter was going to eat that. Nice try.

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"Gratitude," Dexter tilted his head, his smile growing wider. "But I'd rather have those sausages right there," he pointed at a pair with a crispy sear and unknown glaze.

The acknowledgement was met with a grunt by the blind woman.

"Thanks again. By the way, you have a remarkable gift. It's like you're Superman." He finished the joke by shielding his nipples, but apparently no one else thought it was funny.

Feeling the gaze of the crowd turn their focus on him, Dexter tipped the kid and jogged off. Curious, he turned around and noticed the first plate they offered him sat abandoned rather than passed off to the nearest customer.

A thick aroma saturated his nostrils as he peered over his food, inspecting it for any foul play. But once he neared the beach, there was simply no holding back. Without hesitation, he took his first bite. The glizzy popped open in his mouth, bouncing with an abundance of flavors.

"Damn that's good. Hell, the extra fees were probably worth it."

Dipping the sausage into a side of fish sauce, Dexter wished for a piece of bread, when he paused, realizing that the flavor wasn't as unique as he first thought. The flavor was a near match to his friend Dari's recipe. She owned a diner that he frequented in the past two years, where he played music and received meals in return. It was her who had persuaded him to visit the island coast where she was raised.

"Perhaps the recipe is a village secret?"

After finishing up his snack, he continued in search of a fishing charter run by Dari's family. As he reached the beach he asked for directions from the nearest vendor who for some odd reason was only able to give information after Dexter bought a pound of tropical fruit.

"Ahh, did you mean Indahri?"

"Yup, that's the one," Dexter said.

"You're in luck, her brother's boat has returned. It appears they've come back earlier than usual. Do you plan to take a trip?"

Dexter followed the vendor's gaze to a small boat filled with roughly ten people. "Yeah… at least I think so. But I'm not quite sure anymore." From a distance, the boat seemed ready to capsize at any moment.

"Why don't you bring these rare salaks?" the vendor offered. "They make for a good snack out at sea. Here, I'll give you a discount."

Dexter watched the vendor bag the fruits, eager to make another sale. "On second thought, hold those for me, I'll be right back."

Before the other vendors could approach him, Dexter ran to intercept the boat. He reached the far ends of the beach, nearing its docking area, when the weather took a drastic turn.

Dazzling rays of sunlight washed over him, and from the looks of it the damn thing was expanding. But that couldn't have been right, right?

In a matter of minutes, the sun tanned his skin a light gold. It was a shade removed from his Italian heritage, mirroring his Native American ancestry. The problem was his curls, however. Due to the howling winds, they simply refused to stay away from his face, causing him a considerable amount of trouble.

As he swept his hair back, fine grains of sand and what looked like blue particles, danced across his vision. Along with the wind, they interfered with his ability to maintain balance, making him stumble backwards. It was then he noticed a shadow that fell over the world, but he didn't think much of it until the screams started.

When he looked around, wiping away the sand, he didn't expect the two phenomena to be related. He expected to see the fin of a shark and perhaps a lone cloud. However, there was a moon that blocked the sun. Two moons, in fact, and they were about to crash into one another.

In the face of inevitable destruction and chaos, Dexter discovered that he was more confused than terrified. There was a chance he could die, but the scene was simply perplexing—taken out of a sci-fi movie or video game. Was there something in the food after all?

His mind dismissed that thought a moment later due to the terrified voices around him. Am I in shock?

Aliens had, of course, entered his mind, but it was such an unnecessary way to announce their arrival, that he dismissed that thought as well. His next theory was a sort of rogue wormhole, but as the two satellites were about to collide, the scene stopped and a whisper echoed over the world.

[ Stabilizing infused energy… ]

[ Realigning host parameters… ]

[ Disintegration reinstated. Assimilation to the Nexus has begun. Initiating instance: 1-002. ]

"D-disintegration..." Dexter uttered as a chill ran down his spine. He wasn't frozen for too long when the meteors falling to earth announced the clash of titans in the sky. Seconds later, earthquakes followed, shattering the bones of old earth.

At that moment, Dexter would swear the planet was being ripped apart, but somehow he was unaffected. It wasn't until the ground shattered beneath him, swallowing pits of gravel and sand into an endless cavern, that he realized he was protected by a translucent barrier. It was a shield of some kind that expanded for five meters in all directions.

[ Please stand by while your attributes are determined. ]