Author's Note: So yeahhhhhhh. I realize I've been a bad author. In fact, I realize I've been a terrible author! I've had the prologue for this series down for wayyy too long. But rejoice! For I have actually come back to it! My creative spark has been metaphorically lit and now I've got a whole slew of terribly wonderful stuff planned for my characters. Stuffs been throughly planned out at least 15 chapters out. Let's just hope I can keep this roll I've been on up and you might get to see the next chapter by tomorrow, no by the end of the week. Whom I kidding I know myself better than that. Anyway onto the story and I'm sorry I'm such a terrible, prone to procrastinating, person.
----------------------------------------
Chapter 1 - Just a little light packing.
Staring to the sky outside the porch of an apartment building, a female somewhere in her early twenties held a compact umbrella in one hand and a small leather bag in the other. The strap of the umbrella hung loose on her wrist, being held there due to muscle memory and not actual recollection of it being there.
Everything about her appearance pointed towards shock. The tiny opening of her powder pink lips. Her eyebrows slightly curved and high up on her face. Even her widened doe-shaped eyes, took in the scene before her and colored her eyes forest green unlike its usual grassy tone.
Of course taking into context what just happened, she had every right to look like a deer in the headlights. It wasn’t every day that a higher entity came down from the skies announcing the end of the world as she knew it.
The only positive of the situation being that they actually had the possibility of living to see another day. Plus the whole situation looked like one you’d see in a visual novel or some fantasy book. Which looking at it in one way, that could make it two positives for certain individuals. Of course in the long run, no matter the positives, the scenario presented was, for lack of a better word, shit.
A few words slipped out from her mouth, “What the fuck? Seriously?”
The coarse language she used clearly opposed the delicate appearance of her face. Her complexion pale as though the sun never touched her and limbs thin enough to break. Chestnut colored hair fell in thick waves down her face stopping only once it reached the middle of her back.
Now that she awoke from her stupor, her eyes twitched in annoyance. A blood vessel could almost be seen popping out from the irritation, especially when a jingle containing various techno beats and the repeating of words “Fly away now. Fly away now, fly away.” came out from her pants pocket.
“Oh god. What is it this time?”
After maneuvering her hand into her pocket, she barely had the time to comprehend that the ID said ‘Work’ before she pressed accept.
“What do you want?”, her words laced with as much of the irritation she could put in. Each one sharpened into knives.
“Elena Striker! Is that anyway to speak to your boss!?! Due to the whole apocalyptic situation we have going on because of that stupid guy in the sky, we need you to come into work. Even with all the staff we have right now, we have people to the door. Brianna already came in to help and it’s still not enough.”
“Seriously? It’s my day off. Can’t you call in someone else?”
The woman’s growing exhaustion became evident in her next words. “We already tried everyone else. Mary happens to still be in the hospital. Daryl’s at his kids’ daycare trying to pick them up. Trish’s wife had to go into labor right now. Plus, Brianna already came in saying something about coming to work even if the world collapsed. You’re the last person we can ask. Can you come in?”
“Dude, not happening. It’s a fucking apocalypse. I ain’t gonna spend one of my last days being a freaking bank clerk. Screw that! Take this as me quitting, see yah space cowboy.”
With that the woman, Elena, disconnected the call and turned off her phone. She then turned on the heel of her foot and made her way back into the apartment building. It hadn’t even been twenty minutes since she first stepped out but her life seemed to be completely different. The rundown hallways to her home didn’t give off the same feeling anymore. Nonetheless she made her way, stopping only once she reached the second to last door on the topmost floor.
Elena opened the door to reveal a well decorated, if not somewhat small cosy feeling, apartment. The majority of the space being taken up by the bookshelves that took up any bare wall and a queen sized bed near the windows. The only other furniture being a large leather chair in the corner and the table in the kitchen.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Shit! I just realized. This whole moving to a different world thing means I’m going to have to choose what to take with me. How the hell am I supposed to choose from all my shit? Does that God asshole even realize how hard that is gonna be? I’ve got to have well over a thousand fucking books to choose from. Fuuuuccccckk.”
The irritation that left her face came back in full throttle as she got hit straight in the face with what she clearly thought was the most ‘troubling’ part of the whole apocalypse. It took a while but eventually she got herself under control.
“Okaayy. Breath. Whew.” Once more, a little firmer, she said, “Okay. Now let’s get this whole packing up thing started. These books aren’t going to be organized by themselves.”
It took the better part of two hours, but she went through every book she owned and put them in various categories. Ranging from ‘Would rather die than leave this’ to ‘This could be useful’ to the more obscure ones labeled simply as ‘Sweet enough to give cavities’ or ‘Turtles ;p’. Her labeling sense seemed to have both logic and lunatic tendencies. The organization having meaning to only her it seemed.
“Wheeeeeeww. Now time to see how much it’s down to. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5………………...213? 214?........Got it. So give or take a few, 217 books in total. Yeah that seems good enough. Time to put this all back on one of these bookshelves though. No way I’ll keep everything organized if not.”
Elena then took all the books she decided were of importance and put them back on the shelves in alphabetical order after further categorizing it by nonfiction to fiction or whether or not it was a manga or visual novel. After another hour she finally had two entire bookshelves filled to the brim with books ranging from the most recent almanacs and dictionary to books about plants and how to live like a medieval person. She even seemed to have a few shelves only there for entertainment with books from series like the G****throne series or the B****maeus Trilogy.
“Oh and how could I forget, you~”
She walked over to the edge of her bed and scavenged around under its frame until eventually she came out with five well loved children manga. The pictures were simplistic and the plot wasn’t very good, but that’s what appealed to Elena.
“I can’t believe I almost forgot K*lala ****cess. The last volume was especially hard to find too.”
After making the final arrangements of putting the manga on the shelf she fumbled around to find her laptop and type out all the books that she planned to take with her. It didn’t even take her ten minutes before she had a thin stack of papers with all the titles of the books and a blunt description of their contents.
The next part of her packing happened a lot faster. It didn’t even take her an hour to fill a camping backpack with 2 changes of clothing(not including the ones she was already wearing), several knives, a solar charging battery that doubled as a flashlight, various threads and needles, a compass, a sleeping bag, a one person tent, and various other miscellaneous survival tools. She even put all the nonperishable foods in boxes labeled by their contents. With a box worth of kitchen supplies she could use anywhere she had a fire like her cast iron pan and a couple pots to make soup. All in all it was a very eventful hour resulting in a lot of work getting done. She felt like she deserved a pat on the back, which she promptly gave herself.
Just to reassure herself, Elena looked at the clock, to prove that it really didn’t take too long to do.
“Crap. I might have actually taken a little bit longer than I wanted. It’s waayyyyyyyyy past my normal lunch time. Oh well, not like it matters. Apocalypse and all that. Who cares that I’m eating lunch just before 4. Or should I say Dunch? Linner? Whatever.”
She then tore through her fridge and freezer to find out what she had. Coming out with a simple spread of vegetables and precooked chicken. All in all, the meal would serve it’s purpose so she didn’t bother making anything fancy.
It was when she finished and began cleaning up after her meal that a knock reached her ears.