The Crown of Ashes and Blood
Part III Back to Normal
As I headed back to my apartment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still wrong. The world seemed to be moving on, but it felt like we were just pretending that everything was normal. It didn’t make sense. How had Xena Apoc, the looming threat of annihilation, just… disappeared? The fact that none of us really knew how it ended was unsettling; and the way everyone was acting as if nothing had happened.
I got to my door and unlocked it, stepping into the dimly lit hallway. It felt colder than usual, even though the heating system was working fine. A strange, uneasy tension filled the air. The weight of all the unanswered questions pressed heavily on my chest, like the threat of another disaster waiting just out of sight.
I sank onto my couch, my head spinning with the strange conversation at The Reck. Hudson and Mack’s flirtations was the only thing keeping them grounded, and yet it all felt hollow. Were they just that disconnected from the world around them, or was I the one who couldn’t let go of the fear of the unknown?
The news broadcasts had barely even covered the meteor collision that supposedly destroyed Xena Apoc. No official explanation had been offered, just a series of vague government statements. None of it made sense. It was almost as if they wanted us to forget what had happened, as if erasing the crisis was their priority rather than telling the world how it had been stopped.
I grabbed my holo tab, scrolled through the news archives, and found the same conflicting reports. No one had definitive answers. As I delved deeper into the conspiracy threads, whispers and rumors emerged about something that wasn’t part of the natural impact event. Something suggested it was an artificial object, launched by the government itself, but there was no evidence to support that idea that anything had been launched from Earth.
The screen flickered, and my heart raced, as I noticed something in the corner of the thread. A small smudge. I zoomed in and saw a series of numbers and letters, but they made no sense. Was it a URL? I quickly searched my apartment for a scrap of paper and a pencil—not the easiest items to find these days, since manual writing tools had become archaic. Yet, many still refused to switch to holo, which kept a small factory in Tokyo in business for making the finest writing implements.
I found a pencil in the drawer next to my bed, buried under trinkets. Among them was an old lenticular photo of Mack and me from junior high. I grimaced at the photo before grabbing the pencil and writing down the code.
"Call Rise," I said aloud, and my ear hummed with the connection.
"Hey, Blue, miss us already?"
"Hey, can you come over to my apartment? I need your coding expertise."
"Need me to bypass the holo paywall for you again?"
"No, I found something, and I need you to look at it."
"Okay, I’ll be there in an hour."
I paced around my apartment, my thoughts racing, until Rise finally showed up. I explained where I found the code, and he laughed.
"It’s probably a hoax, Blue, but I’ll see if it leads anywhere."
I watched him work while he bit down on my Blackwing pencil, leaving tiny marks in the wood. I wanted to scold him but refrained. His black, shaggy hair hung down the side of his face, with a single streak of red that he’d dyed into it to look cool. It looked hypnotic as he moved his head from side to side, trying to unscramble the code. He began drumming his fingers on my desk and fidgeting, tapping the pencil’s lead onto the surface. I watched as the nib became blunt.
"Have you got anything yet?" I asked, glancing at my abused pencil.
"Yeah, actually. It’s an Elliptic Curve code. The algebraic curves are defined by equations of a specific form. I had to find the curve and multiply the original point by a secret scalar to get the final answer."
"A math equation?"
"In layman's terms, yeah. But look, I got you a URL. Want to do the honors?"
I opened the link, and only a fuzzy photo appeared.
"What is this?" I asked, squinting at the image.
"I don’t know. It just looks like two round objects against a black background."
"Let me try to clear up the image." I adjusted the settings, but it remained pretty much the same. "Why would this be encrypted? It’s nothing." I said annoyed.
Like I said earlier, hindsight is twenty-twenty. There was a significance to these two blurry blobs, but I wouldn’t piece that together until much later.
Life slowly started to get back to normal. Or at least, it seemed like it. The city was still recovering, the remnants of the disaster all around us. People were cleaning up debris, trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. It wasn’t the end of the world anymore, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like the world I knew.
The clocks had started working again, this time ticking into the future, as if time was the one thing that wouldn’t let go. The holo news channels had resumed their usual programming, pushing the memory of the impact event to the back of everyone’s mind. They were too focused on restoring order to care about anything that didn’t fit neatly into their narrative. It was back to the usual, another day, another headline, another distraction.
I tried to go back to my old routine, but nothing felt the same. Mack and I started meeting up again, though it was a bit awkward after the whole Hudson situation. He had a way of making everything feel complicated. There were too many unspoken words hanging between us. I’d always known Mack could be a bit insensitive, but he had traditional standards. Then seeing him so casually involved with Hudson. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t just that he’d done something I’d never expect, it’s that it felt like he wasn’t being the person I thought I knew.
And Hudson… well, Hudson was Hudson. Always living in her own world, cracking jokes at the most inopportune times, never quite letting things get under her skin. I’d tried talking to her about what had happened, about the confusion surrounding the event, but she just shrugged it off. "Nothing to worry about," she said, lighting another ecigarette. "Life moves on, Blue. You should try it."
Rise, though, was different. He took things more seriously, but even he lost interest in Xena’s explosion. “All I know is we are still alive; I don’t need to know the reason.” he shrugged.
I didn’t know what to think anymore. Part of me wanted to let it go, to forget about the blurry photo, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were missing something important.
In the meantime, life outside the apartment carried on. People returned to work, some still shell-shocked, others pretending like everything was fine. The news stopped covering the aftermath of the impact event. The conspiracy threads faded, the online chatter dying down as quickly as it had flared up. Everyone seemed to want to move forward, to forget that we’d been so close to catastrophe.
But I couldn’t. I spent my nights sitting at my desk, staring at the fuzzy photo, trying to make sense of it. Something about it nagged at me. It wasn’t just an image—it was a clue, or maybe a warning. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I someone had sent it for a reason, and I wanted to know why.
After a few weeks, life had pretty much returned to normal. My friends were back at school. Rise and Hudson were developing a new nanotechnology that would surely get them recognized if it worked; a robotic plant cell that could withstand drought and floods, essentially giving Mother Nature a robotic shield. It was beyond me. Mack lost interest in Hudson when she shot him down publicly in the hub. The embarrassment of being labeled as "pity sex" in front of his peers made him back off. He got teased for a few days, and his ego was deflated. I still secretly harbored feelings for him, but nothing like before, my perception of him had changed. I was back at the office, working to pay off my university debt, in a dull, pointless job. I did get my ear ringer subscription for free through work, so it wasn’t all bad.
News reports began popping up about people going missing without a trace. Another sensational piece for ratings. A woman was being interviewed outside her home, looking distraught to sell the story. “I went to bed with my husband, and when I woke up, he was gone, like he vanished.” I watched the report and chuckled. “He probably just wanted a divorce and didn’t have the heart to tell you.” The news must have gotten good ratings with that woman’s sob story, because more reports kept coming in about unexplained disappearances. Once the media hits on a thread that sells, they milk it until it’s dry.
A couple of days later, I got a frantic call from Hudson.
“Have you seen Mack?”
“What? No, why?”
“Ugh, he came over last night and brought me a plant, saying he wanted to reconcile or something. I thought he got the message when I told him I only slept with him because the world was ending. He went on and on about how he couldn’t stop thinking about me and just wanted us to start over, like, date for real. Anyway, naturally, I told him to hit pavement, and Rise said he wasn’t in class.”
“Did you call him?”
“I didn’t, but Rise did and said his ringer was out of service. I think he totally flipped or something. You know him best—where would he go?”
“You’re awfully concerned for a guy you don’t like.”
“I am not! You know Mack, he never misses class. He’s a total dweeb.”
“Alright, did you check that gross bar you two... uh... you know, he might be there.”
“That’s a great idea. Will you come with me? I don’t want him to think I like him or anything. I just need to talk to him.”
“Yeah, alright, I’ll meet you outside.”
I saw Hudson waiting on the street for me. You could spot her from a mile away; she always wore metallics. I think if she could make herself into a robot, she would. She was totally sessed with them. I was jealous of her curly hair, mine just hung flat, even electrostatic spray did nothing for it. I waved her down. She was so pretty; I could see why Mack would lose his mind over her. I hoped that one day someone would feel that way about me.
“Thanks for coming so quickly. I bought you a latte.”
“Thanks, I need it. What exactly did he say to you about getting together?”
“If it wasn’t Mack, I guess it would’ve been sweet. He said that the Earth ending was the fate that brought two unlikely hearts together and we should give this gift from the universe a chance.”
“Wow, that’s quite poetic coming from him.”
“I know, and he got me a peacock begonia. Have you seen one? It has metallic blue leaves. It was so thoughtful.”
I said nothing, feeling jealousy choke any reply.
“I just need to talk to him, try and make him understand it was just circumstantial. I didn’t realize he was so sensitive.”
“Here’s the place.” I said, pointing out the closed bar, which now had a "leased" sign on its window. We walked down the stairs to find a family cleaning out the establishment.
“Oh, hello! We’re not open yet. Our grand opening will be in two weeks. Here, take a flyer.”
The kind lady handed me a flyer for a new club. I nodded and we left. No sign of Mack.
Great story!