The Way of the Future: Age of Machines(Completed)

A Smidge of His Past

He started running again, this time he followed the wreck of cars through the freeway and again he only saw destruction. He also ran by a destroyed tank, it was a prewar M-200 Tank used by the human military back then.

"Wait a second," He thought as he ran.

"Where the fuck is this?"

"Why does everything make absolutely no sense but familiar?"

"Wasn't I sitting back at the Hub?"

"Wait,"

As he was lost in thought, he was slapped by a piece of metal. He fell to the ground and felt the pain all throughout. He wanted to scream but doing so would likely attract further unwanted attention from whatever was haunting this nightmarish hellscape.

"This..."

He finally realized.

"This was Earth,"

He finally remembered a small smudge of his past but he would soon regret what he'd remember.

The dust storm began to settle until the area around him became mostly visible, contrary to his initial assumption, he wasn't inside a city, no, he was on the outskirts of one!

There he was, running across a literal graveyard of what was human civilization back on Earth. He stopped for a second to contemplate what was happening, this was too much for him to handle. After a decade of emotionless and cold thinking, a decade of lacking a good portion of his humanity, he was finally experiencing what he was missing.

He panted and scanned the landscape, it was utter death and chaos, he did not really pay attention to the wreckage and cars but when he leaned forward to one, he saw them. Burned bodies of humans, the car he leaned on to was the worse he could've found.

An entire family was inside, what he could assume to be the parents were sitting on the front seat, their skin burned and eyes still visible, looking into the distance. The burnt bodies of three young children were piled up among the back seats, they must have hugged each other before their eventual demise.

"No,"

He pushed himself away and tried to forget what he saw but how can he forget his own memories that were slowly coming back to haunt him? He continued his journey down the freeway before finally collapsing due to exhaustion.

His body was again numb but... he was no longer. He felt sadness, a depression slowly crept in his heart before he finally began to shed a single tear. The tear fell down his cheeks before meeting the hard pavement beneath.

He stayed motionless against the pavement as the dust began to cover him. The wind has died down and the clouds finally came into view. The sun shined with its searing heat that day, but he was unprepared of what he was about to witness.

There was a small cube just to his left, it was a small black cube; mainly used by civilians whenever disaster would strike, it was a portable device designed to receive government messages through encrypted channels. It suddenly sprang back to life, displaying half of a hologram.

It was damaged too severely to show the full content of the message displayed. Since it was activating, it meant that there was still a government. Artemis moved his head to try and make out the message from the hologram.

EVACA- HAS BE- SUS-DED

LAUNCH O- NUC-

MAY GOD BLE- ALL

"What?" The words escaped his mouth, suddenly...

A bright flash of light appeared in the distance, luckily the leftover dust in-front of him negated the negative effects it would have given him if he stared directly at the light. It was no ordinary light, with brightness more powerful than the sun to the Earth, there was only one thing.

A nuclear explosion.

Prewar humanity still had nuclear weaponry but coupled with a millennium of advancement and technological prowess, these weapons were now more powerful than ever.

In that minute, in that hour, in that day, in that month and in that year, humanity lost the war.

15,000 nuclear weapons were launched and subsequently activated in what could only be described as a last-ditch effort to wipe out their enemy who has so far destroyed the entire might of their civilization.

In the years that would soon follow, the world would be sent into darkness, where the surface will no longer taste the yellow light of the sun. The world is hereby plunged into an extinction, where life would cease to exist and humanity wiped from the face of the Earth.

"So, this is how it happened,"

"But how did I wake inside a building?"

He had more questions that answers but at least he now had a wider idea of what transpired, though it was short and downright confusing, witnessing the destruction yet again was an eye-opener to him.

But before the nuclear explosion reached him, he heard a growl.

It was the same black alien-like abomination from before.

It slowly crept towards Artemis, its tentacles were both its legs and its arms. It pierced through the ground and shoved the rubble away from its path before it finally reached Artemis within the reach of its tentacles.

"Gah! Come at me you bastard! I will find you and your kind and I will slaughter every single one of you!"

The creature screeched before Artemie finally awoke from his nightmare.

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"Huh?" He opened his eyes. He was back inside his room, within the hub. He scanned his room to see if it was a dream or not, he then found his two Elite Androids beside him, tilting their heads.

Artemis sighed. He no longer felt much emotion and his humanity once again removed from his person. But there was a new addition. He felt the urge for vengeance.

"If you still exist, if you still creep in this universe, I will find you, I will find your kind, I will slaughter you, I will kill you all, even if your out of this universe"

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Hey readers, I change something on Prologue. I change the year 2365 to 3165.

And the humans in there are over 3.4 trillion. The reason will be answered in the future chapters, so just be patient and wait.