Each second follows the next, but who can say this will always be the case?

The deep night sky uncovered a marvellous legion of stars. Free of light pollution, these celestial bodies offered a glimpse of the Milky Way. They stretched across the sky as if the black background was mere support to make them stand out. But after adapting to the dark, the finest eyes could discern within it the dark filaments of large interstellar nebulae. Even further faint distinguishable dark fogs spread in the galactic horizon. And yet the brightest thing was a few light steps away. It was the Gibbous moon and the numerous bright spots shining from its unlit part.

A million voices roared in unison, shattering the still night.

"Five!"

They followed with an even more deafening, yet clear sound.

"Four!"

With around a second in between, just like before.

"Three!"

They carried such a resounding din that it would shatter the eardrums of those unfortunate enough not to wear hearing protection.

"Two!"

At this point, it sounded more like an acoustic weapon of mass destruction than a countdown.

"One!"

Just at the moment one would expect to hear zero, a swarm of fireworks detonated simultaneously, bathing the night sky in a sparkling glow.

"Happy New Year!" The crowd yelled as if celebrating the dawn of a new era.

The first bursts of light formed the number '2500' into the sky. It shone so strongly that it seemed as if it would never disappear, illuminating the landscape for hundreds of kilometres and revealing the futuristic city beneath it. The megalopolis and its suburbs extended for tens of kilometres, its centre overflowed with ever bigger skyscrapers. The city's core housed the tallest of them, whose upper end approached seven kilometres in height.

Amidst the celebration and well-wishing, another kind of ceremony went on.

On the roof of a dome-shaped villa in the suburbs of Brussels, the Belgian capital stood three teenagers: two boys and a girl.

With a tiny cake hovering over his hand and the glittering number 15 floating on its top, the first of the group was a 188 centimetre tall Caucasian.

He had a smooth, clean-shaven face whose light complexion gave depth to chocolate eyes that matched with his brown hair. Beneath a neat undercut, he wore a comfy outfit composed of ultra-comfortable black sneakers, light wash jeans, and a grey t-shirt under an open tan overcoat that showed off his balanced figure.

He stood tall and wore a cheerful expression, overflowing with self-confidence. As a result, he could naturally be nice looking, especially to the opposite sex. Extending his arm, the Caucasian boy lifted the cake and looked up to the sky, as if to show it to the world, awaiting its reaction.

With a B-shaped earring hanging from his right ear, the second fellow snapped his fingers, displaying in the air a holographic video of a younger version of the three teenagers playing with flying bumper cars.

At 195 centimetres, he was taller than the first. He opted for the latest trendy clothes with fabulous sleek fashion styles fitting his dark-brown skin. Fully Dressed in black and wearing groundbreaking athletic shoes, he had short, curly black hair, if not for the overgrown white dreadlocks passing between his faint eyebrows and obsidian eyes to reach his flattened nose.

The black teen made a few leaps and bounds, performing some mid-air dance moves before landing beautifully on the roof.

His morphology was quite unusual; his upper body was lean and muscular, and his legs were long and barely thicker. Looking from the side, they curved inwards below the knees and outward above, almost like a kangaroo. He had thin wrists and ankles. In fact, his ankles were so disproportionate they looked like they might break at the slightest misstep.

The girl of the group pressed the ring on her index finger. Three small round objects flew away. High in the sky, they shone with a golden radiance and formed the word 'love' with their disintegrating honey trail.

One word was enough to describe her: stunning. At 178 centimetres, she was short compared to the boys; the difference would only become increasingly obvious in future because of her earlier ending growth spurt.

Her voluminous, curly caramel hair and tanned skin gave her a Hispanic appearance. She had a heart-shaped face, a small Nubian nose and plump lips.

What made her truly stand out were her gorgeous, golden, eagle-like eyes that glowed in the lowest light. Aside from being much larger and rounder than average, her pupils erratically varied in size under the firework's dazzling light.

Before the start of the light show, an onlooker would have seen her black pupils filling her irises.

All three teens were in good health and had blemish-free skin.

The first boy was still holding his cake when the number 15 shimmered and dimmed, losing its consistency. About to disappear, it shone with a new light. As if life had taken hold of it, the light remodelled to form '16'.

"Happy birthday, Loris!" the black and Hispanic teens said in turn. "We wish you a year brimming with luck," added the tanned girl. The Caucasian teenager named Loris sought eye contact before smiling. "Thank you, Fabrice, Anastasia. Happy new year."

Loris looked up brightly, admiring the fireworks as he went, but his real interest lay beyond that. A nearby flock of birds took to the skies all at once in the moon's direction as he opened his mouth, "Diligence is the mother of good luck; thank you, mother, for allowing me to live one more year."

Fabrice and Anastasia looked at him with a smile; they were used to his odd behaviour. They did not wish him good luck randomly; it was, in their view, the best gift they could have given him.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"The fittest try their utmost to survive, but the luckiest always pull through,"

It was the favourite and, paradoxically, the quote Loris Gregorios most despised. He gave ludicrous importance to his life, and if he had an aversion to risk on top of that, he would not leave his house for fear of a meteorite falling on his head. To his friends' great relief, he acted sensibly; he didn't hesitate to take risks as long as necessary and could lead to long-term benefits.

Around thirty minutes past midnight, the firework display reached its end. The climactic final round formed the shape of a magnificent, futuristic spaceship. It flew towards the moon instead of fading away, unlike the previous round of fireworks.

It was the ultimate parade of the drones that had led this light show. They would end up disintegrating, trying to reach their destination. 'Meet your purpose or die trying' was a popular idiom symbolising the ideology of Merigen—the nation to which most of Europe and Africa belonged.

But above all, The Nation that had chosen the path of genetics in the millennial journey towards Earth unification. A struggle that had seen entire nations perish, absorbed and imprisoned. A promise that only the big five shared. Yet, in the end, only one will remain.

Eyes twinkling with excitement, Anastasia admired the showpiece that faded under the bright moon. "It's a replica of the Mars Colonisation Spaceship."

Fabrice nodded. "Yes, it will be launched tonight."

Anastasia ran her hand through her hair and turned towards Loris. The latter was still looking at the sky, particularly in the moon's direction. "Lolo, it's your birthday. What do you want to do today?"

He lowered his head. "Since high-class citizens have already booked all public sources of entertainment for the new year, we can't do much. After a small jog, I'll do an inner-thought session." He said. "Oh, and I also need to do my daily quests in Warsuit Supremacy. Afterwards, I'll probably spend the rest of the day reading. A new sci-fi novel was just released, and I'm so eager to read the next chapter of 'My supreme dual demonic vampire system in the apocalypse'."

Fabrice shook his head in astonishment. "That's what you do every day. Come on, you're an adult now."

Loris glanced at him and smiled.

"That's what he likes. Besides, we can do it together today!" Anastasia added with enthusiasm.

The teenagers chatted while they walked towards the city's edge, as the Belgian capital and its outskirts were shining again.

Most public light sources had been turned off for the celebration. Buildings and other kinds of infrastructure didn't emit light. One-way windows were the norm in affluent areas where everything was monitored. Yet the silvery pavement glinted at the tiniest illumination.

As they approached their destination, the crowd intensified. Most individuals had peculiar body shapes. Some had disproportionately large skulls that presumably housed big brains. Others were as tall, muscular, and large as Hulk. In comparison, the three teenagers were rather small since the average height of the crowd far exceeded two metres.

Anastasia pointed straight ahead towards the most off-centre skyscrapers, about two kilometres away, and grinned. "Look, we can see the giant hologram and the spaceship."

After a moment's effort to look at it, she added. "The spaceship is sooo big. The settlers look tense. I hope everything will be alright."

Fabrice mirrored her enthusiasm. "Yeah, it's beautiful."

Loris raised an angry eyebrow.

"Not to us, Fabrice. Once, not twice," he snapped.

Fabrice's face dulled; an instant later, he smiled a sorry smile and nodded awkwardly.

The friends struggled through the dense crowd that surrounded a large-scale splashing city fountain.

Further up, before an enormous gateway floated screen-like holograms. With a brief delay, they broadcasted the events from the lunar launch base and inside of the spaceship.

A massive three-dimensional spacecraft slowly spun in a circular centrifuge just above the fountain. The hologram stood at roughly twenty-six metres in length, five metres high and four in width.

Anastasia peered at it with her large shining eyes. "Wow! How big is the real one?"

"You could fit eight thousand of these into it. It carries eleven thousand two hundred and forty-seven settlers, including staff." Fabrice answered.

Loris connected his smartwatch to the local network and displayed a modest but detailed hologram of the spaceship and its statistical details. He noted that Fabrice's information was perfectly accurate and smirked. "Way too meticulous, as always."

The teens bickered good-naturedly as the timer, positioned above the massive holographic replica, counted down the minutes and seconds until the spaceship's launch.

"Quit it, guys. There's only a minute left." Anastasia said.

As the countdown closed in on zero, Anastasia's facial expression became more and more exaggerated, eventually settling on total disbelief.

Loris quickly caught on. "Stasia?"

Anastasia was sweating profusely. She pointed a quivering hand at the launch's countdown and gibbered, "The numbers, your voice, everything is getting slower and slower."

Having great respect for Anastasia's incredible perception, the guys immediately focused on the countdown, then on the surrounding people. Indeed, everything was slowing down. "Let's get out of here. Something is wrong." The black teenager said.

They bolted out of the crowd, which soon counted down the last ten seconds as the real spaceship and its holographic replica accumulated speed in The Electromagnetic Spacecraft Launch System. Most people realised something was wrong within two seconds. The ship, which was speeding up, seemed to slow down.

While intelligence quotient is a relative measure, a genius of the twenty-first century would be below average in the twenty-sixth, yet human nature remains the same.

As more and more people began to stir and move away from the sheer mass of humans, a veritable mob phenomenon occurred and within moments the crowd went crazy.

Those bulky and tall tramped and jostled the rest of the crowd. The resulting cacophony would have been reminiscent of the new year's countdown if it wasn't for its distinguishable screams and shrieks.

Amidst the terror and panic, the smallest, youngest and weakest were squeezed and crushed mercilessly. Yet a handful of the bulkiest, who did not lead this carnage, sacrificed their integrity to protect their dear ones at the cost of their own bodies. Some less scrupulous people didn't hesitate to use them as trampolines to escape the crowd or getting away from its congestion point.

When there were only six seconds left on the countdown to the launch of the spaceship, a second was almost worth five. And it was getting exponentially slower.

The three adolescents were relatively safe, running away from this dreadful crowd trampling.

With eyes that almost popped out of their sockets and increasingly tense expressions and movements, Loris couldn't look more panicked, yet he still found the energy to cry out. "We should stop running, or we will trip over our own feet. Our perception of time is messed up."

"It is time, that is…." Fabrice said. The end of his sentence was so slow and incomprehensible as if he was speaking underwater.

A bit after the three stopped, most still running people stumbled one after the other like macabre dominoes. However, they were falling in slow motion, wondering if the fall would really be hurtful or if they would have time to choke to death.

Four seconds left.

As time slowed to a crawl, small shadowy dots popped into existence, filling up space just as stars fill the sky. They were everywhere, about a metre apart, glooming over the distances.

Three seconds left.

Incongruous shadowy fragments appeared, and little by little they shaped translucent filaments that interlinked the dots with each other. Both the shadowy dots and filaments grew clearer as the flow of time ground to a halt, finally forming an enormous network that stretched far into space.

When the black dots lost all their transparency, they began to shine darkly. It wasn't light, though, but something different.

As it glowed brighter and brighter, growing darkness took over everything.

A gloomy fog established itself between the inky network's gaps for the few who could still make something out.

The world turned utterly black as if the light were blocked, driven away, or perhaps consumed.

Just over two seconds were left on the countdown.

Tiny black diamonds formed in front of every human being, feeding on the black network. They became clearer and darkly brighter, following the same pattern as the dots. Yet after becoming opaque, they shrank back, almost fading away entirely. For an instant, the world regained a bit of its colour.

Nearly invisible, the keenest sight couldn't see them.

The diamonds plunged towards their assigned humans and lodged into their solar plexuses.

When the countdown showed precisely two seconds, it stopped.

Time was frozen.