After what seemed like hours, it was finally Anna's turn to follow the arrow hologram that had been leading awake people one by one somewhere across the large white double doors.

She got up after a robot removed her I.V and padded bare feet after the holographic arrow on the cold tiles. She exited through the imposing double doors to follow the arrows through many lobbies and corridors. She passed a few people following their own arrows but they looked just as confused and clueless as herself.

She wanted to talk, ask, but no one stopped for her so she kept moving too.

Finally, the arrows pointed at a brown door. She took a deep breath, hoping for answers behind that door and not death. Having no apparent choice, she turned the door handle and entered a tiny room with just enough space to be able to touch the opposite walls if she stood arms wide open. There was a duffle bag on the floor and a screen on one of the walls. She went for the bag but the screen turned itself on.

There was the same robotic sound she had heard earlier and the subtitles were showing on the screen. Every word sent a shiver down her spine and not the pleasant kind.

"Welcome survivor. You are among the few individuals saved from your dying planet. Your primitive planet has ceased to exist and you have witnessed the final explosion. Now, you are at the intergalactic terminal for threatened and extinct species or ITTES. Your species has gone through an apocalypse among many others from your planet, like many planets before yours and many more to come. You are here to prove if your species deserves to survive in this universe or let perish as fate."

Anna choked on her saliva, it was a lot of information to be digested at once. That being the option if any of it was true or not. She didn't want to believe but she couldn't ask questions to a screen, or could she? Before she could test that theory the screen resumed.

"Your mother and daughter were saved alongside you and are safe for now. How you handle the future will determine their fate. The bag contains some of your belongings. Get dressed for further instructions."

For a hot minute, she just stood there, questioning her sanity. Maybe everything that had recently happened to her had finally taken a toll on her and she had started hallucinating? Plus, she knew she was being watched, so maybe undressing wasn't such a good idea. What if she was getting tapped? The screen didn't give her much choice as it showed her mother sleeping in a similar bed in a similar outfit as herself and then her toddler as well, with the warning, 'their fate is in your hands.'

She quickly opened the bag and saw a set of jeans and a shirt, which she quickly got dressed in. After which she noticed her laptop, mobile phone, and some other of her stuff in the bag. She also noticed a strange black-colored cube in the bag that did not belong to her. She picked it up and it scanned her fingerprints making her drop it in the bag due to surprise.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The screen lit up again.

"From here you shall be directed to your space shuttle that is pre-programmed to take you to a planet most suited to your biology and has the atmosphere and features most alike your native planet. The cube provided to you holds the answer to your questions. It is a TSRS, which is a two-step riddle-system. Unlocking the first layer via solving the first riddle will give you access to a hint about your mission to prove if you and your family deserve to survive or let perish. The second layer unlocks the details of your mission."

Anna stood there blinking while her mind tried to make sense of what she had just heard. Frustration started growing in her. She wasn't some genius who could solve alien riddles. She was a storyteller by profession, not a rocket scientist. But she was a mother, and her three-year-old was lying somewhere waiting for her mommy to come to get her.

She wanted to pace around but the room was tiny. She wanted to scream her questions and frustrations and get someone to answer her but the screen had already turned off. This was not how she wanted to begin her post-divorce life. She was supposed to get her life back on track and make sure her daughter never wanted for anything. She had a therapist appointment next weekend. And now apparently nothing was left of the world she knew. Somehow her brain didn't want to believe it all just yet.

As soon as the holographic arrow appeared, she picked up her bag and walked outside resolute to find answers and her daughter and mother. Anna was a lot of things but coward wasn't one of them. She always dealt with problems head-on, the reason why she was currently divorced.

She followed the arrow because she had to. Every time she tried to deviate, get to a door she wasn't supposed to, a read alarm would blare in the hallway, calling her out, 'Miss Anna Richards, refrain from doing anything but following your directions.' The one time she reached the doorknob, it shot an electric current to prevent her from turning it.

She nearly screamed at the ceiling twice, 'Give me back my daughter and mother!' And, 'I will find my baby, you can't keep her away from me!' The only reaction she got was scared people who passed her by following their own arrows. Some crying, some terrified, some walking senselessly. It was a creepy atmosphere and she was desperate to get out with her family.

After about fifteen minutes of walking and climbing stairs up-and-down, and taking a couple of pre-programmed elevators, finally, the doors opened to a humongous take-off area. It had thousands upon thousands of single-person space-shuttles lined grid-wise. Holographic arrows were leading people with duffle bags like herself towards their respective space shuttles. She could see hundreds of shuttles igniting and then taking off through some sort of space latch that was the only thing separating them in the transparent hangar and the vast void of space.

Anna could see the facility she was in through the transparent walls of the hangar on her left, (and it was unimaginably ginormous) and cold, dark space to her right, where leaving space shuttles could be seen. She had to stop in her tracks to take in the whole atmosphere. So maybe she really was in space, maybe Earth really did explode. Maybe that dizzy visual she had while strapped to those bunk beds was real. So maybe, she really was one of the only humans left of the whole species of billions of homo Sapiens.

Those were unsettling thoughts.