It was an exceptionally dreary day. Dark grey, borderline black clouds loomed as far as the horizon, arcs of strange red lighting snaking through their indistinct masses every few minutes. Rain thundered down in a torrential downpour, drenching anything and anyone foolish enough to be out in the middle of the intense thunderstorm.

A young man kneeled in the middle of a wide field marred by no obstructions other than two pristine slabs of immaculate granite sticking up out of the turf. Any onlooker would have surely thought the man a fool. There he was, in the middle of a thunderstorm, crouching down in the middle of a puddle, without a rain jacket or umbrella, getting himself and his rather fine clothing utterly and totally drenched. Yet any onlooker who knew anything about Arris Graham would’ve surely held some measure of sympathy for the man.

Arris was a young man, twenty years of age, in the prime of his college experience. He was on summer break, returning home to Boston from the California Institute of Applied Sciences, one of the leading engineering colleges in the United States. He’d returned home primarily for two reasons. The first of which was more mundane, and was to visit his foster family who were also his relatives. He’d spend a large portion of his life around them, and seeing them every once in awhile was a social obligation which he happily fulfilled.The other reason he’d returned home to Boston was to visit the graves of his parents, which he was currently kneeling in front of.

Arris, crouching in front of the two tombstones, was currently in the midst of placing two separate bouquets of flowers in front of each of the two tombstones. One tombstone was a dedicated to a certain Jayla Graham while the other to a Ranford Graham. These two were his parents, and they’d both been dead for several years now. However, Arris still came out on the anniversary of his mother’s death to put flowers on their graves. He’d never been able to quite get over his mother’s death.

After several moments of contemplation, mentally uttered prayers, well wishes to his parent’s souls, and general reverent silence, Arris pulled back, coming out his crouch. He stood up, and inspected the tombstones from a higher vantage point, resuming his respectful vigilance in another position, one not involving using a muddy puddle as a kiddy pool.

He’d been standing there for several seconds, feeling rather melancholy as the rain poured down around him, when he was shocked out of his silent and profound revelry by something deep within his pocket vibrating, alerting him that he had a new message. He reached a hand down into his pocket, fishing around until he felt his phone, which he promptly whipped out, checking the notification. It was a text from his cousin Zach, but whom everyone called Phaky. After a couple failed attempts to wipe the water off his phone so he could read it, he simply resorted to shielding it with one arm and holding it with the other.  

Arris frowned after reading the text. It was a weird text. It read, ‘Yo man have u seen the news it’s a big ass global storm I didn’t think that was possible’. Arris was sure he’d misread something, or that Phaky was using some hyperbole. A global storm implied it was covering the entire world and Arris’ extensive knowledge in field of science meant that he knew that such a thing was virtually impossible. It was far more likely that there were multiple large storms covering multiple continents at the same time.

Arris texted Phaky back. ‘Bro global storm as in covering entire world that’s not possible multiple storms maybe but one storm no any point to this you know what I’m doing rn right’. Arris was kind of annoyed. Phaky undoubtedly knew where he was and what he was doing: he’d left from his cousin’s house where he was staying and Phaky had been there, even seen him out the door.

Phaky soon replied with another message. ‘Yes man real global storm entire world one storm was gonna say you should probably head back storm warning weak category one hurricane maybe dangerous’. Arris glared at his phone. He was a little peeved that Phaky had the gall to call him back, when he knew that Arris was visiting his parent’s graves.

Though after a couple seconds of annoyance, Arris sighed and forgave Phaky for his insensitivity. Phaky knew how much importance Arris placed upon visiting his parent’s graves and wouldn’t tell him to come back unless he was really worried.

Arris turned around, looking back along the trail that led out of the graveyard. His parents had been rather wealthy and had their tombstones constructed in a more secluded spot, away from the majority of the headstones in the graveyard. Normally, Arris appreciated the lack of clutter around his parent’s graves. An extra half mile walk through the dark woods usually got him in just the right mood for some melancholy reflection and reaffirmation of life goals. Today, however, that extra half mile of getting himself soaked would suck.

Arris strode through the field, clomping through the wet muck and long grass. Walking out to his parent’s graves through the rain, he’d felt like something equivalent to the badass main character in a typical action drama who didn’t give a fuck about the weather or anyone else’s opinions on what he did. Now, he just felt like a retard for deciding he needed to go out and visit his parent’s graves right then.

Arris sighed, again. By the time he was halfway through the field, his shoes had already been stained brown and green by the grass and mud and soaked through to the soles. Every inch of him was wet. He slipped and almost fell on a particularly uneven piece of turf, but somehow managed to maintain his balance and not fall and get mud all over the rest of him.

After about a minute of slogging his way through the muddy field, Arris finally reached the footpath which led through the graveyard and back to its entrance. Unfortunately, it was a dirt footpath for most of the way back to the central graveyard. Arris looked down the muddy trail, and seriously regretted coming out. Luckily, it was summer and rather warm, so he didn’t have to worry about catching hypothermia or anything too dangerous. Still though, slogging his way back was going to suck. He seriously considered just running, and damn the consequences if he fell, he could just buy another jacket if he really needed to.

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Arris decided against it though. He’d only just purchased this jacket, and the rain likely wouldn’t damage it too badly. As long as he sent it to the dry cleaners it’d probably be fine. If he slipped and fell and it stained, however, that would be an entirely different story. His mother had always told him, “Hard work is the key to getting rich. Frugality is the key to staying there.” Arris wouldn’t risk ruining a perfectly good suit simply to make his life a little easier.

Trudging his way back through the graveyard along the muddy trail was an arduous task. He tried to not get his feet any more wet or muddy, leaping over large puddles, avoiding muddy patches, and sticking to firmer ground where he could find it. It was wet, miserable going, and took far longer than normally traversing the path would’ve. On the way out, it had only been raining for two or three minutes, so he hadn’t thought it was that bad, but now, there was a massive amount of water in and on the ground. Arris was actually rather surprised so much had fallen in such a short time, under regular circumstances this much water shouldn’t be possible: it had been barely fifteen minutes since it had started raining and there were already large pools of water on the ground.

About three-quarters of the way back, Arris’ pocket buzzed again. Arris reach into his pocket and pulled out his phone, once again shielding it from the rain with what meager protection his arm could provide.

The message was another one from Phaky. It was more urgent, reading, ‘Hey man something weird going on too many lightning strikes confirmed thirty-four lethal hits in Boston alone neighbors house hit just a couple minutes ago you good right’.

Arris frowned as he read the text. Thirty-four lighting strikes in Boston alone? A mega storm spanning the entire globe? What the hell was going on? Was Phaky trolling him? There was no way these things could be happening. Thirty-four lightning strikes on people in Boston alone already sounded pretty far fetched. Occurring concurrently with a global superstorm? It was impossible.

Arris had to call him out. He tapped away at his phone for a few seconds, then hit the send button. ‘No way thirty-four lightning strikes never happened global storm too you trolling me bro’.

The reply text was fast coming. ‘No trolls man this shit is legit come back now not safe’.

Arris just frowned. Phaky seemed to actually be worried. Phaky also really wasn’t the type to troll Arris in this sort of situation. Whereas Phaky was a heavy user of sarcasm and wit, he was typically rather emotionally sensitive. He almost certainly wouldn’t troll Arris while he was out visiting his parent’s graves.

Another text soon came. ‘Real man come back now really nasty out there’.

Arris just frowned and punched in a quick response, ‘Ok’, before stowing his phone back in his pocket and continuing the trudge back through the graveyard to his car. Another two minutes, and he was back in the central portion of the graveyard, where the heaviest concentration of headstone was. His pocket vibrated again, and Arris sighed, taking his phone out and seeing another text from Phaky.

It read so, ‘Yo bro you’re headed back right another four strikes confirmed dunno what is happening you need to get back tho man now’.

Arris frowned, then quickly punched out a return message of his own. ‘Yes man headed back can see car in the lot less than 500 feet almost out’. Feeling that wasn’t enough, he followed it up with another text to ensure Phaky would stop bothering him. ‘Wait till I get in car and text you back don’t like getting rained on don’t text again till I do won’t respond’.

With that, Arris irritatedly shoved the phone back into his pocket and continued his trudge back towards his car. Peals of thunder constantly boomed over the ambient sound of the rain pouring down. Arris looked up at the sky, slightly nervous, as arcs of lightning surged through the clouds, over, and over, and over again. It would be just his luck to be hit by lightning now, some three or four hundred feet from the safety of his car.

Arris could vaguely remember reading something about how lightning strikes were typically non-lethal but with his luck, he'd somehow draw the short end of the stick and bite the dust. He really hoped that he wouldn’t get hit by a strike. That would really suck. He still had a lot of things to do with his life. Namely, live it. He sped up his walking a little bit, caring a little less when he splashed through a puddle or muddy spot.

He was roughly two hundred feet away from his car when all of a sudden, a rather large, blue screen popped up a couple feet away from his face.

Initializing World Server Startup…

15

With a surprised squawk, Arris stumbled backward, flailing his arms out in front of him, before falling straight into a puddle, and ruining all of his clothing. Arris was now more than a little annoyed. He purposely hadn’t run back through the storm just so that he wouldn’t risk slipping and falling and ruining all of his expensive clothing, but now he’d fallen over anyways.

With a glint of anger in his eyes, Arris stared back up defiantly at the—wait a fucking minute. There was a blue screen hovering about three feet from his face. And it had followed him after he fell, staying at the same distance. What in the actual fuck was going on?

Enthralled by this newfound discovery, Arris totally forgot about the rain and all his problems, swiping at the screen, and finding his hand only went through it. That was odd. Arris read it again.

Initializing World Server Startup…

6

As Arris was staring at it, the counter below the words, Initializing World Server Startup… ticked down again, to 5. In a sudden hurry, Arris got to his feet. He didn’t really know exactly what was about to happen, but the countdown and the phrase Initializing World Server Startup… sounded pretty damn ominous, or at least important. Arris figured he should at least be ready for whatever was about to happen.

4, the timer read. Arris’ heart pounded in his chest, feeling something important was about to happen. 3, and his pocket went off again, someone seemed to be texting him. He hardly noticed, fixated on the words in the box, not sparing a scrap of his attention for such an irrelevance. 2, and he once again jabbed at the floating screen, trying to see if he could affect it in some way. No such luck. 1, and all of a sudden, a brilliant flash of light came down from the sky, striking him, sending power coursing through him, stimulating all his nerves, melting his flesh, and inducing more pain than a human should ever reasonably be able to handle.

0, and the world changed forever.