Around The Clock

Prologue

WARNING. I UPDATE SLOWLY AND THIS STORY IS YET TO BE COMPLETED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This is an original story and the only other copy of it is on my quotev account which is also called GlitchingDarkness. If there are any other copies of it out there, please contact me.

DESCRIPTION

Ryder Davis has so many questions. Why are there alternate dimensions? Why is the Earth dying? Why isn't he human? Who is the mystery royal of this new magical realm? Who is he really? Being part of a prophecy is a lot of work and he doesn't even know if what he's doing is right. But with a whole team behind him and several newfound enemies, he has to fulfil his destiny even if none of them believe in fate. There are two roads he can go down and no one seems to know which path is the right one, so he'll have to make the decision by himself. Time is ticking, so they'll all have to race the clock. After all, midnight might be the darkest hour, but it's the time when the stars shine brightest.

PROLOGUE

The world of 2490 is a wasteland. Not in the way a trashcan would look, but the way a deserted hospital would.

A place that is as dusty as the cover of a leather-bound book but has a fading memory of cleanliness and disinfectant. Like rugged concrete and gleaming white tiles.

Ryder hadn't ever seen natural green in his life, and doubted that he ever would.

His father hadn't, his mother hadn't, neither had their parents and their parents' parents. The atmosphere on Earth was so toxic now, that not even plants could survive outside without human technology.

By 2070, the Earth could no longer sustain humanity and the world fell into panic. By 2090, a new system of government had been set up and a solution was produced. The world was to stay at a population of ten billion or less for the rest of its days.

At any cost.

By 2100, the oxygen the Earth provided wasn't enough to sustain humanity any more, but by then trees were no longer needed. Humans could artificially and successfully produce the tiny atoms that they needed to survive.

In the three hundred or so years after that, Earth disintegrated into a dry, dead, shell. The air was toxic, the dirt and water was poison and humanity was dying.

But as all parasites do, humans adapted, evolved and overcame the problem.

Now relying on their own creations to survive, humans drifted through space on a withered, dead rock – descending into mindless repetition. Insanity is often described as doing something over and over again and expecting a different result to all the previous ones. And that was exactly what future humanity had laid out for itself.

Humans were parasites. Viruses even. Multiplying and feeding off their hosts until they themselves were left to die out. Every virus needs a healthy host and that was exactly what humans had until they had sucked their last victim dry.

Humanity was always destined to die like everything else in the world – it was only a question of when.

Ryder looked forward to the day that he finally passed from this world. He – just like them all – was dying, and although he wasn't quite dead yet, he couldn't help but think:

This is not a life worth living.