Hear me now, mortals of this world! In thirty years from now, a warmongering species shall surround your planet and lay waste to your entire civilization!

 

When every human on Earth heard this ominous message resonating inside their minds, it was met with various reactions. Some passed it off as a bad joke played by their overactive imagination, others as a nightmare, and very few took it seriously. The latter would be the ones to make it clear that this message was quite real and not some elaborate hoax.

For me, this strange announcement took place when I was playing a game called Dragon Hunt. That weird message made me lose focus for just one second. I didn't dodge in time and thus ended up as a delicious snack for the final boss in the second hardest dungeon in the game. Just like that, nearly three hours of effort spent towards reaching that point went down the drain. It wouldn't have been that bad if I was in a party, but I was playing solo at that moment.

The shock was so great I was left gasping at the monitor for five minutes until the AFK (Away From Keyboard) warning popped up in the middle of my screen.

I sighed and closed it. After a few random clicks around my character, I let the system know that I was still there.

“Marius! Did you take out the trash like I asked you to?” shouted my mom from the kitchen.

Groaning, I got my lazy behind up from the chair. Almost immediately, my bones and muscles warned me through an aching pain that I sat there for way too long.

Ouch... I better do a bit of stretching before I go out. I thought as I rubbed my back.

As soon as I didn't feel like a bulldozer ran over my body, I walked out of my room and went into the kitchen. Looking at the trash bag under the sink, I realized I had forgotten to do as I was told. Then again, I couldn't remember when mom asked me to take it out in the first place.

Rubbing the back of my head, I replied “I forgot…”

Mother was next to the stove, lowering the flame beneath the cooking pot. After a long sigh, she threw a short glare at me.

“Sorry. I got distracted.” I shrugged.

“Go and take it out now.” she told me in a calm tone of voice, but deep down, I felt the overwhelming pressure and knew instinctively it wasn't a request but an order.

I walked back to my room, I clicked the screen a few more times to reset the AFK timer and then took out the trash.

My family lived in a three-room apartment in a four-story building in the middle of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. I saw myself as lucky for having an elevator in the building because climbing up five stories wasn't my idea of fun. Not to mention the fact that I would have stretched the timer of the AFK warning a bit too much for my own liking, maybe even fail to reset it altogether. Although, if that was so, I could have always employed the service of a simple auto-clicker program, but I was never a fan of those things. It made me feel like I was cheating.

The trash cans were located behind the apartment building. After getting rid of the garbage, I hurried back home, hoping the AFK timer didn't decide to kick me out of the dungeon. If I was in a party, I would need not worry about it.

Any other day, I would have went to this dungeon together with some of my online friends or willing guild mates. It wouldn't take more than half an hour or so to reach the end boss and defeat it, but this time I went for the challenge of completing it solo, so I had to be extra careful.

“I'm back!” I said as I opened the door.

“Marius, did you hear a strange voice a while ago? The news cast reporter says a lot of people did.” asked my mom as she looked towards me a bit worried.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Erm, what voice?” I asked and wondered if it was about the culprit who caused me to fail against the last boss.

“It said something like a warmongering species will attack the planet in thirty years.” she told me.

Now that I thought about it, I did hear something like that, but did it really say something as absurd as that?

I gave a small nod in reply, not caring too much about it, but it did make me wonder if it wasn't just some kind of elaborate prank? With all the tech we had in our house, it wouldn't have been surprising if someone simply hacked our network and sent the ominous message at the same time through all of our speakers.

Mother showed me a troubled expression after I answered. The TV news reporter wasn't making things easier either as confirmation of the same message came from all over the world. TV news channels and the Internet social media exploded in the blink of an eye.

“Maybe it's just a mass prank, mother.” I told her with a wry smile, hoping she would calm down.

“I don't think it's a prank…” she said in worried tone of voice as she took a seat in front of the TV.

I sighed and shook my head.

This has got to be the joke of the century! Alien species? Weird world-wide messages? I don't believe it. Just give it some time and the culprit will surely get caught and everyone will laugh back at this moment just as they did at 2012. or so I thought.

Then, something caught my eye.

“Mother! The cooking pot's boiling over!” I shouted as I rushed over and stirred the soup with the nearby wooden spoon.

“Thank you, Marius! I'll take it from here.” she told me.

I sighed in relief and returned to my room.

“Oh, crap! The timer!” I realized and jumped at my keyboard to press enter. “Sigh… Saved at the last nanosecond…” I said as I sat down.

I had to forget about this stupid prank and focus on something more important: the second round against the final boss!