Eidolon Earth: Candidate Author

The lecture hall was big, very big. The walls were decorated with traditional drawings. The rows of seats were ascending in height from the front of the class to the back.

A big screen covered the entirety of the front wall. A curved table for the faculty use at the front corner. Student of every track was present there.

I sat in somewhere middle, on my left were a group of girls gossiping, on my right sat a guy with rotten mood. His hair and eyes were black.

He was so handsome, that if he would have been on normal Earth in my days, he would definitely have gotten a lead role in a super hit movie.

“Ca- can I sit beside you?” A soft voice came from right that made me turn my head. There stood a cute girl with long yellow hair and green eyes, looking at the guy in my right.

The guy in my right didn’t even bother to look at her and ignored her with passion.

You’ve got to be kidding me I silently thought.

She stood there for quiet sometime, my patience finally reached its limit and I thought of helping her out of goodwill.

“That seat is empty so you can take it even without asking” I said.

But at that her smile disappeared replaced by a disgusted expression and with a fluent English she said “I wasn’t talking to you!”

My jaw dropped and the guy’s lips twitched.

He was about to laugh wasn’t he? I looked like a clown but then the lights dimmed

“Bonjour” a feminine voice boomed in the full room.

I looked forward to see a woman with brown hair and simple black suit adjusting the mic around her mouth.

“We have seats for sitting, of course nothing can be done if you have already decided otherwise” the woman calmly continued

“I am Serin Illias your Instructor for the subject ‘Foundations ofEidolon Theory’ and the lead researcher in Fog Phenomenology” she introduced herself.

“And you, will be the people who will go in that fog and pull the humanity stuck there from the jaws of extinction”

She then turned around and pressed a button on a small remote.

The screen came alive, with big letters in the centre ‘FOUR PATHS’

Professor started

“Before we go over what fog is since you all have already learnt a bit about that in your previous educational institutions we will go through the changes which happened in the world due to it” she kept going

“When first phenomenas regarding the fog started, with that humans started showing peculiar things. Some could shatter boulders with fists saying they could feel a great flow flowing through the universe. We called them ‘Elites’

Some were able to lift vehicles without touching them, see events taking place in next cities while drinking tea at their house. We called them ‘Mentalists’

There were also some who could turn into whole other beings and utilize their abilities. Like turning the skin into the scale of dragons, spitting fire etc. We called them ‘Bloodbounds’.

And there were also some who could do more than one thing at the same time, We called them Hybrids.” She let that settle.

“These four were the paths that laid the foundation for present human society to become capable of preserving itself against what was beyond that fog”. Everyone gulped at that.

She again changed the slide

“Now the fog, As the history suggests, it first appeared ninety years ago, it is also true if you said that it was as if the weather had become cloudy and humid but the only difference was that the clouds were falling to ground instead of flying through the air”

She pressed the button again and a video opened, it was an old video clip.

“We are now flying over copenhagen” a male voice began.

“This is an unprecedent event, Whole Copenhagen is swallowed in a mysterious mist” the camera went live.

A very big chunk of cloud could be seen sitting on land covering the whole city.

Dr. Seris paused the video

“That is where all of this started, at that time no one knew a thing and then what happened?” She asked turning.

“The Denmark Disaster” a girl on the front bench muttered under her breath but the silence was so dense that anyone could hear it.

[Isn’t this when-] Archive appeared like a ghost in the corner of my vision

“Yes, It disappeared. forever”

[That’s why you couldn’t find it on international map] Archive seemed to understand something.

“We lost Copenhagen, Forever” Dr. Seris continued. “When the fog receded, it was gone, land stitched to such perfection that made it seem it never existed”.

She sighed

“But it was just the starting, because after that, these events started happening with terrifying consistency.”

She then changed the slides again, this time it was a mathematical equation and some terminologies which I remembered from basic fog phenomenology section.

“We tried every possible set of equipment, recorded and tested every measure of human and superhuman intelligence”. She recalled as if reminiscing about some nostalgic times.

“Then we discovered that, these outbreak happen not randomly but in a pattern” She turned around.

“This is the equation which could predict the outbreak, if the required variables attain value up to a certain point, then we can predict the probability of outbreak happening. This is called ‘the Serilian Pattern’ which was discovered by me 30 years ago”

She didn’t turn towards student this time. But I could still sense a smile on her face.

My eyes widened. Now that’s new

[Classification of the individual ‘Seris illias’ updated from ‘unknown’ to ‘extremely important’] Archive noted.

“How do we calculate variables professor?” a boy with blue striped uniform asked.

At that she turned around.

“There are some signs which could be easily felt even without equipment, these are called ‘Symptoms’ and are also the variables in this scenario. But the problem comes when these symptoms appear in multiple places. She continued “ That’s when we use Serilian equation to find the epicenter of the event.”

“But we aren’t helpless” She changed the slides again.

“Out of 27 Fog events, we have lost 14 and made it out 13 times. ”

She played another video. This time it was an interview between a woman and a man.

“So what happened inside the fog?” the male anchor asked.

“At first, I didn’t knew where I was” she said. “The first thing I saw was that the sky was red and that there was a countdown projected on the sky” She paused then again.

“It was all chaos, blood and…” she stopped.

“Anything after that?” the male anchor asked trying to ease her.

“A-at last there…was a scoreboard” she stammered.

“Scoreboard?” the male anchor frowned.

“It was as if, we were a performance for someone” She continued “We were on 3rd place out of 5 on that list” the woman said.

“Did you also see what other names were written on the list?” the male anchor asked

“I couldn’t, they were blurred and after that I only remember opening my eyes here under the blue sky” she admitted.

Professor Serin paused the video once again and turned around.

“We took many such interviews but every group of people said something different.” She took a deep breath, “However, there were two details which were same in every case. The countdown and the scoreboard.”

“That was a lot to digest in one day” I casually pointed out while my legs kept moving towards my dorm.

Apparently Professor Seris dismissed our classes saying that we looked awful to attend any more classes and that she cannot see such a nasty expression on her cute student’s faces so she dismissed us for the day.

[What will you do now?] Archive asked me.

“I am gonna orchestrate a revenge plot against my cells”I said.

[……..]

The night was young, stars covered the sky like it owed them something.

I slid inside the martial dome 7 sneakily with my cheap tracksuit.

[Ambient Energy levels: High]

[Total Cell Transformation Completed: 0.9%].

“Let’s get to work”