Epilogue

5,000km underground it digs. The E18, a drill shaped like a rocket and the size of an eighteen storey skyscraper tunnels through the layers of earth getting deeper and deeper until it stops. It hits the centre of the earth, the core. The heavy explosives embedded in the E18 ignite and the drill explodes.

Above the drill on the earth’s surface, it’s day time in the city of Century. Children are playing in the streets, people walking their dogs, eating lunch, all unaware of what has just occurred below them. The ground beneath them begins to tremble. Within seconds the tremor turns into an earth shake. Glasses shatter, trees fall and trains derail. The ground begins to heat up as the floor erodes. Then it happens… In one sudden blast the earth explodes. What was once the chaos that is life is replaced by darkness and silence.

That is when he wakes up…

***

He screams as he wakes from his dream in a hot sweat. He sits up from his bed trying to move but can only manage to shake as his arms are restrained; the straight jacket is on tight. He falls off the bed and to the floor onto his stomach.
“We’re all going to die,” he screams, “we’re all going to die.” His yell echoes in the enclosed, white, sterile room. Trey Waters had had the same dream every night for the past five months, each time it seemed more real. It was all he could think about, it consumed him.
The one door in the room opens as two human shaped androids walk in. They speak to one another.
“He needs to be sedated.” One android kneels down and from its wrist a needle is extended. The needle is stabbed into Trey’s neck as he screams in pain. The android rolls Trey onto his back as he whispers.
“We’re all going to die… we’re all going to die.” His whispers slowly fade as he closes his eyes and falls back to sleep.