The Third Convergence Day

Neo-Tokyo

Neo-Tokyo

January 1st

2054 A.D.

Beep...beep...beep...beep...

Patrick's eyes opened weakly, suddenly aware of the rhythmic beeping noise coming from his right. He stared up at the white tiled ceiling for a moment, memory foggy. Where was he? Why did his head hurt? Where was-

Patrick sat straight up, looking around the hospital room frantically. Where was she, where was his daughter? It took him a moment to calm down, he thought everything over. The hospital staff must have separated them, she was probably in a different wing. That must have been it, but why were they taken... His mind trailed suddenly distracted.

Clarity of mind was quickly followed by clarity of body. Patrick sucked in through his teeth as he suddenly became aware of how much pain he was truly in. He reached up and put a hand on his chest, the source of the majority of the pain, and his fingers felt fabric. He hadn't realized he was shirtless until then, it took him another moment to realize that he chest was bandaged. As he felt his damaged body, he began to remember what had happened. He remembered the museum, the rushing crowd, the...

He turned his head towards the hospital room's window. He stared at what laid beyond the glass. The ruins of the sprawling city of Neo-Tokyo stretched as far as he could see, towers of concrete, steel, and glass turned into smoking piles of rumble. He could see emergency rescue teams helping in the distance. After looking for a moment, he didn't know how much help they could really be.

"You're awake." Patrick jumped a bit at the suddenness of the voice. He turned to see a woman sitting in the chair in the room's corner. He looked at her for a moment, she was pale, with piercingly dark eyes, and short choppy black hair that accented her sharp features. He glanced towards the door. Had he been so focused on the destruction outside that he hadn't heard her come in, or had she been here the whole time?

"Mr. Wittman," Patrick was shaken out of his confused daze, "I have been waiting for you, I had thought to wake you up through other means, but I believed it wiser to allow you to come to consciousness naturally." Her voice was flat. She seemed bored by the conversation she was having. Patrick blinked as he watched her stroll from one side of his bed towards the other, the nature of the woman beginning to sink into his mind. He looked on, mouth slightly agape as the woman reached up and closed the blinds, shrouding the room in shadow. Finally, Patrick found his voice.

"You're a doctor?" He asked, just now realizing how dry his throat was. Looking over he saw a glass of water sitting on the bedside table. He reached for it. Only for a sudden, burning, pain to explode from his elbow, causing his arm to recoil. He let out a pained grunt, just as the woman turned to face him once more.

"No, I am not." With a swift motion she crossed the distance between the windows and the bedside table. Gently, she reached down and lifted the cup. She looked down at it, her eyes focusing on the clear liquid within the cup, before she handed it over. Patrick took it from her, careful not to over extend his arm. He quickly downed the water. As he lowered the cup, he looked to find the woman staring down at him.

"If you're not a doctor then-" he was cut off.

"Who I am is not important at this moment Mr. Wittman. There are more pressing matters at hand." Her blunt words left Patrick a bit stunned. He opened his mouth to speak, taking a moment to find his words.

"The Ultra-Fauna?" He asked. The woman's expression didn't change as she lifted her hand up, revealing a metallic band wrapped around her wrist.

"The world's been busy since you were last awake, Mr. Wittman." As she spoke, a small robotic arm unfolded outward from the band's surface. The tip of the arm glowed a brilliant white, illuminating the far wall of the hospital room. Patrick bore witness to the day he had missed. He watched as over a dozen monsters, completely alien to him, rampaged across the world, across his world.

Shaky footage of a cloud of yellow gas spreading across a small town's main street. It only partially masked the outline of the massive, humanoid figure within. In another corner of the projection, a massive arthropod, like a gargantuan crab, was being filmed by a news channel's helicopter as it made its way across a highway. Its massive limbs cracking the concrete and asphalt below it like sugar glass. Above that, security footage of a gas station's parking lot, violently shaking as a massive, canine-like clawed foot fell into frame, causing the footage to cut.

More clips played, and after a solid minute, Patrick lifted his hand shakily, gesturing for her to stop. To his relief, the woman obliged, clicking an unseen button on the band, which retracted the metal arm. They sat for a moment in utter silence, until Patrick spoke.

"Have any convergences happened since they arrived?"

"Yes, 8 in fact," She responded bluntly, "Four within the North American continent, with the others happening in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and South America respectively."

"Fuck." Patrick lowered his head, which was throbbing painful now. "All in major population centers?"

"Yes, the smallest convergent point had a local population of 330,000 individuals." her words were so disconnected, like she was reading a bank note, it made the catastrophic nature of the event feel even more devastating. He tilted his head up, only to find her staring down at him, her expression still completely blank. He studied her for a moment, and a new feeling crossed his mind before he spoke again.

"What is this?" He said, a hint of annoyance in his words, "I could've found this out on my own, and I don't know if you know this lady, but I'm not my grandfather, I don't work for the UFDD." Her face remained unmoved, as if she wasn't even hearing what he was saying, which in turn, made the man more mad. "If you're not a doctor, then I'm going to ask you to leave, right now."

The woman stood motionless for a moment, before for the first time in this awkward exchange, her expression shifted. A sly smile stretched across her long, thin lips, revealing unnaturally straight, almost blindingly white teeth. Patrick felt a deep anxiety growing in his gut as the woman looked down at him, her dark eyes looking more hollow than they had before, or maybe they had always been like that, and he simply hadn't seen it till now.

"Mr. Wittman, I assure you, my associates and I are fully aware of your lack of authoritative control." Her lips barely moved as she spoke, had it been like that before too? "However, given your ancestry, we believed it would be fitting for you to be the one we informed."

Anxiety mixed with confusion as he looked up at her, what the hell was she talking about, who were her-

"My associates," She cut off... his thought, "and I, are known as the Founders, or at least that is what I will refer to them as for the sake of simplicity." In a blur of motion, her hand shot forward, gripping onto the man's wrist. Patrick grunted in sudden pain, her grip was incredible, Patrick could feel the bones of his forearm be forcefully pushed together.

"What is this, what are you doing-" He choked out, as an otherworld glow began to engulf the mysterious woman.

"I'm taking you to a safe place, so that I can explain."

The room illuminated suddenly, and when the light dissipated, both Patrick, and the Woman were gone.