For nearly a decade Marcus had felt as if his life had been stuck following a bland and repetitive loop. Between years of monotonous work, and his education, he'd spend nearly a decade doing the same thing. Many people would be thrilled to have stability in their lives, or at the very least be content with the routine. He had thought that he would be thankful for any change in the cycle, but life has a way of destroying one’s expectations.

The week had begun like many others, blending into the background of an otherwise successful business trip. Marcus had graduated from college several years ago and managed to land his ‘dream’ job as an engineer for a rather large corporation – but like most large organizations they just so love to crush naïve dreamers. He aspired to design the next revolutionary structure that would wow the nation, but in the end, Marcus had been relegated to being no more than a glorified errand boy. One snippet of a conversation still stood out in his mind, “Just wait a couple of years, we all had to do the grunt work when we started,” one of the managers had said, “Don’t try to fill shoes that you frankly aren’t qualified to fill.”

At the time he just shrugged his shoulders in agreement, but alas, one year turned into three, and now, even after five long years the largest project he’d been allowed to touch was a cookie-cutter public library. Marcus’s vision had been eroded, having finally been shattered when today, after all of his patience and dedication to the firm he was simply thrown out like garbage. The cherry on top of the proverbial pile was that his bosses hadn’t even had the balls to do it in person, but instead did it over the phone – right after he had arrived at the airport to head home.

“What do you mean I’m fired?!” Marcus shouted in exasperation. The crowd of people in the terminal looked towards him, but quickly dismissed it as none of their business.

“Honestly, Marcus it has nothing to do with your work ethic or quality, it’s just simple downsizing,” Mark his boss, or, rather ex-boss said dismissively. At first, he had thought it was just a poor joke, but on the contrary as the silence in the conversation stretched on the truth of the situation became quite clear. The call simply ended at that point; Mark had simply ended the call. Marcus just started at the phone for a moment before sagging into his chair; not knowing what to do. As an individual Marcus had tended to truly believe, for the most part, that calm and collected would be an apt descriptor but for himself. He wanted to lash out at those around him for the couple of glances they thrown, but instead opted to sob quietly until boarding began.

Enjoying a calm, relaxing flight at the end of a week of travel had been something he had become accustomed to - knowing that home would soon be on the horizon. Typically, on these business trips economy wouldn’t be even considered, and he’d minimally have a ticket in business class; on a rare occasion Marcus might even get bumped up to first class. Alas fate will sometimes ignore all pretense just to rub salt into wound. Regrettably, the flight had been overbooked, and the choice was to either wait for the next one, or to be bumped down to less than satisfactory seating for an extended flight cross country; compensation be damned, he wasn't happy but had little choice in the matter. At this point Marcus couldn’t have cared less if the seat was on fire, or in economy, if it led to Denver, his home.

Walking to his seat it was readily apparent that the plane was at capacity and he wasn’t looking forward to the 6-hour trip. Marcus had been banking on the chance of getting bumped up at the last minute; especially after seeing how many children were seated around him. Sitting down he said a brief prayer to any god listening that the kids would stay behaved or ideally quiet for the flight, because honestly at this point it would make an already shitty day at least somewhat better. Several stewardesses began going over the preflight checks and guidelines - Marcus just ignored them as he’d already been on innumerable flights in his lifetime. As the aircraft finally took off and reached its cruising altitude, refreshments started to be doled out, much to his relief. Alcohol was something Marcus didn’t often, or rather, ever, indulge in, and was honestly baffled at how effortlessly he was putting down drink after drink; shrugging, he just chalked it up to recent events. But wait, now you may be wondering, “Didn’t he just say he never drank?”, and you would be correct, but after those previously mentioned gremlins started screaming as if the world was ending, restraint was no longer on the menu. After an hour of moping in self misery, and no small number of ridiculing glances, it was finally time for the sweet release that is sleep to claim the consciousness that as Marcus Diamandis.

Marcus awoke to the worst turbulence of his life, and that’s saying a lot. He tried to check the time, but his watch appeared to be broken – surprise surprise, what else could go wrong? As the fuzziness of recent sleep and alcohol began to clear it was apparent it wasn’t only the watch that wasn’t working. The plane was pitch black, no running lights whatsoever lit the cabin, which was worrying as even in catastrophic scenarios he’d never heard of not emergency running lights not switching on. Fortunately, a small amount of illumination was being provided by the full moon that dominated the night sky – other passengers were quick to also notice the disturbance and it didn’t take long for the relative silence to be broken. As the seconds ticked by, chatter from other passenger’s started to increase, steadily turning into a moderately loud conversation after a couple of seconds. Marcus wasn’t shy in joining in on the cacophony of sound that was even now still gaining volume. Everyone was trying to talk over each other, so he’d had to nearly yell to get the attention of the middle-aged woman who was in the seat next to him.

“Ma’am, how long have the lights been like this?”

The woman’s eyes snapped over to Marcus when she heard his question, eyes narrowing, betraying the obvious disgust they held, “Honestly, I was just about to ask someone the same question, but when looking around everyone is talking about the same exact thing. What I’ve picked up so far is that the lights suddenly shut off after that rough stretch turbulence which I’m sure you must have at least felt, even after your,” she glances at the numerous empty bottles with contempt, quickly bringing her focus back to Marcus, “indulgences.”

Now, at this point, Marcus was done speaking with this woman, her quick judgement was callous, even if he had been drinking. Before he could argue, or even make that decision, a lump in his stomach appeared, eerily similar to how it felt going down a roller coaster. From the beginning to the end, these events occurred over less than a minute. Marcus was beginning to worry that no announcement had been made over the intercom after all this time had passed. Even the flight attendants, who typically knew what do in most situations were also looking around, pale as sheets, waiting for pilots to say anything. Now, Marcus wouldn’t claim to know a lot about planes, but he did know that the model he was on was called an Airbus-380. For the uninformed these vehicles of the skies have more than one deck, meaning that from his current location it wasn’t possible to see the cockpit door, or even anything near it.

If any silver lining could be found in this tragedy, it would be that planes don’t immediately fall from the air after losing all thrust. With that said, they were still going to crash if power wasn’t restored, but, at the very least, everyone had another 15 or so minutes before that happened. Many of those around him were making their own peace, or, clearly with how some passengers reacted, cower in dread. At first the sinking feeling had been something most people could write off as change in altitude, but as feeling continued, people started to panic. Marcus was dazedly sitting in the center of pandemonium; fear induced cries for help echoed through the air, desperation clearly marked their voices. All around him passengers were each taking their descent in markedly different ways, some cried, others prayed to their respective gods, but all he could do was look down forlornly at the empty bottles around his seat.

The thoughts going through his mind were surprisingly tranquil given the situation. Thinking back, he had always read that some people, in the moment leading up to their ultimate demise would find a sense of peace. Marcus knew that if he was going to die, he would at least do so with some small measure of dignity. Gravity is a cruel mistress when riding in what boils down to a tube of steel flying through the skies. Various objects tumbled about freely, acted on by the forces being mercilessly applied to them. Of course, that also included the people who were either unlucky enough to still be standing when the plane had lost its orientation, and those who strangely stood in that moment for some unknowable reason.

Looking out of the window to his left he could spy the tops of various mountains peaks as they poked through a layer of thick clouds. Frankly, over the years, views such as this had become monotonous, but something about this one unique. Tearing through those very same clouds a moment later he knew - it was finally time. With one last sigh, and though he would deny it, several tears; Marcus closed his eyes, leaned back, and waited for his last moments to end.

He had always wanted to be more in life, more loving, more caring, or at the very least learn to become a better version of himself. Living through a life in a moment was something countless would claim happens a nanosecond before dying. Instead of seeing memories of his past all he could instead see, with no small amount of shock, or perhaps disbelief was a single, simple, blue screen.

Welcome to the Grand Hegemony