Changing World

Part 3

Between 2060 and 2070, Lizbeth kept traveling, sometimes helping, sometimes running away, watching as the world twisted between collapse and reinvention. On several occasions, she had finally put some of her money to work to help those in need, even if it meant chartering planes to transport the wounded and sick. She had no idea her fortune was so vast, she didn't care much about money, but she was glad that at least it was being put to good use.

The problems hadn't vanished, but solutions had begun to emerge—though always at a price. The water wars in South America ended, but not through diplomacy, rather, the megacorporations that had sparked them were dismantled from within. Africa, scorched by extreme heat, became the epicenter of a new kind of society—one that no longer trusted governments or banks, but something more decentralized, more chaotic, and yet more resilient.

Technology marched forward. Artificial intelligence had become as commonplace as oxygen. And still, the Dark Events didn't stop.

By the 2060s, they were no longer rumors or urban legends circulating the net. Some of the secrecy of governments was revealed to the public.

Dark Events had become a globally, kinda, accepted reality. It didn't matter whether you believed in the paranormal or not—when the laws of physics broke down before your eyes, when reality behaved like a bad dream you couldn't wake up from, denial stopped being an option.

Lizbeth had witnessed these phenomena since World War II—had felt them on her own skin, in the terrified stares of soldiers who never returned from the other side of the veil sometimes. Other times with Shin around, and other times she had encountered the phenomena herself.

Now, the entire world saw them. Places where time froze and restarted like a broken old clock. Sudden mutations appearing in nature. Creatures never seen before, and others long extinct, returning as if pulled from the folds of forgotten time. Cities where gravity failed for minutes at a time, causing hundreds of casualties. People who vanished from rooms and reappeared days later—no memory, no shadow to where they went.

Just a few examples.

Paranormal events had become the new normal. It was as if reality itself was… tired.

Governments, corporations, and secret power groups all began to investigate what was happening.

It wasn't the result of technological progress, nor environmental collapse, nor human greed—despite what religious sects, messianic cults, or opportunists tried to claim. The Dark Events went back further. Much further. Perhaps even before humans etched their first language into stone.

Given certain discoveries and the archaeological—and genetic—research that was being carried out, much was being revealed. The earliest civilizations were much older than previously thought. They were so old that didn't even was know what to call them.

But there were certain ideograms and paintings in ruins that told a different story. Strange creatures living alongside humans and certain murals engraved in stone spoke of strange phenomena in the past too.

That is why many wondered how old the Dark Events were.

But the real question wasn't only what was causing them, but what was waiting on the other side? What did they mean, if they meant anything at all? Some had even suggested that the awakening of the aeons so many decades ago had been a paranormal event in itself.

Lizbeth knew she couldn't ignore it forever. She had spent decades running, watching, surviving. But something deep inside her warned that her time as a mere observer was nearing its end. And this time, when chaos knocked on her door, there would be nowhere left to hide.

The disturbances in the fabric of the world were no longer isolated anomalies—they were an epidemic. Events once dismissed as myths or hallucinations were now almost measurable, documentable.

Particle research centers detected fluctuations in the angular momentum of matter itself—fluctuations that shouldn't exist.

Things that should have been impossible.

Like cracks in an ancient mirror—deeper, more frequent—distorting what once had been a coherent reflection of reality. These weren't just scattered phenomena: the entire world was trembling under the weight of something trying to break into the everyday.

Lizbeth wasn't a physicist or a scientist, but she knew how to recognize a threat due her own experiences.

The Dark Events had always been dangerous. But now, something had changed in their nature.

They felt… deliberate.

During those years, Shin remained a ghost in her life. Was the world itself falling victim to what had happened to him? As the number of Dark Events grew, some feys and hidden research groups sought her out, drawn by her history with Shin. Her story was known in certain occult circles, even though she had tried, for decades, to stay out of the spotlight.

Unfortunately for those who came searching, she had exhausted every lead on Shin—every possible path to finding him.

Sometimes, in her dreams, she saw his face so clearly that she woke up crying.

But there was nothing left to do except keep moving forward.

Keep waiting.

Meanwhile, her relationship with Mimi had begun to slowly fall apart. Over ten years, they had only seen each other twice. They still loved one another, yes—but something had changed in Mimi.

Something in her eyes, in the way she moved, in how she spoke of her life without really saying anything at all.

She was the same woman Lizbeth had once shared whispered secrets and nights of passion with. But something had broken due to Mimi's secrecy and silence.

Mimi looked older, more mature—and it wasn't just those hips that still drove Lizbeth mad.

Not in the physical sense. It was something much deeper than before. A responsibility Mimi either couldn't—or wouldn't—speak of.

Lizbeth felt it. In every awkward silence. Every kiss Mimi had tried to whisper something else, only to be sealed behind her lips. And also in every farewell that came too quickly.

She didn't blame her. Everyone was changing, adapting, trying to survive in a world that grew more unpredictable by the year. But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was pulling Mimi away.

Something bigger than time.

Something that might have a shape.

Lizbeth harbored a suspicion, but never voiced it—afraid to touch a nerve that shouldn't be touched.

Between 2070 and 2090, Lizbeth became a wandering shadow crossing continents and deserts, never quite belonging anywhere.

The world was changing—and so was she.

Those years were not devoid of adventure, of inner battles, or of confrontations with the unimaginable.

But in 2071, Lizbeth received a piece of news that brought her a small spark of joy.

It was from Mari. The fey, magical, and esper community hiding in the Pyrenees had grown tremendously—and had expanded. They had formed an organization called Pyrene.

Its creation seemed to have certain links with another organization—Nevermore—formed by Gehirn and others. Lizbeth had only visited the Nevermore base to see the girls, but she never stayed long. It reminded her too much of her time on Runen Island and Onigashima. Although the new island was certainly beautiful and much larger.

Rein and Noki still hoped she would join.

But Lizbeth had no desire to be pulled into battles of that magnitude.

She was really angry with Gehirn for dragging them along and tried various ways to convince them to leave. What could she do?

They had learned from her and Shin. She had done humanitarian work trying to help in the conflicts of recent years—but she couldn't deny that Nevermore was doing what it could by investigating Dark Events and developing a plan to integrate the occult society into the world. She was proud of the girls for that, even though she couldn't help but worry too.

Between north and south, east and west, her travels continued.

And sometimes, in trying to avoid problems, she ended up finding them herself.

***

In 2072, during a trip through Southeast Asia, Lizbeth came across a small city where the waters rose inexplicably every time the moon reached its peak in the sky. A phenomenon that had begun with the new moon in March and had been reaching its peak as the full moon and the Equinox approached.

The villagers, fearful and reverent, spoke in whispers of "the lunar tide," a phenomenon never before recorded in the region, one that caused many to behave erratically.

Trying to help those affected who were behaving strangely, Lizbeth and the local police had identified a strange group of six people who appeared to be members of a cult. Thanks to rumors from some local children, they tracked them down, believing they might be connected. All that strange behavior in the people and the strange event in the sea had begun to escalate into violence when they arrived in town.

They found them living in a kind of caravan, but when they arrived, it was as if they were already waiting for them. They were on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea, looking up at the full moon. When they saw them arrive, they turned slightly and began to speak as if they were in a trance.

"A pure soul is here!"

"Blessed! Blessed! Blessed!"

"Blessed! Blessed! Blessed!"

"Pure soul! A pure soul is here! A pure soul has come! Blessed!"

The police and Lizbeth did not understand what was happening. The police ordered them to move away from the edge and kneel down.

But before they could get close enough to get them to safety, the whole group of six smiled in a cold way that gave Lizbeth goosebumps. They held hands and jumped into the sea. At that moment, a much more violent wave had made its way into the village.

Rumors spread that it was almost as if a tsunami had hit the city, while at the same time more strange behavior was reported. Parents trying to drown their children, others throwing themselves into the raging waters as if something were calling them. There was no way to prove it, but it had started at the very moment those six threw themselves into the sea.

By the time Lizbeth and the police arrived, the streets were already submerged beneath meters of water, but what truly disturbed her was the fact that several mermaids had been caught in the tide's grasp. For three days, she helped those feys who seemed hypnotized by the phenomenon in the region.

But the mystery lingered in her mind for several weeks, especially because of the way they had looked at her.

Pure soul? What did that mean?

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Beyond that, the bodies of those six were later recovered, but it was as if they had been dead for several years and without a single drop of blood.

***

And the world kept turning.

In 2074, the first human colonies on Mars began to settle, and humanity took one step further beyond its own limits. The permanent stations became a symbol of what the species could achieve when it dared to confront the unknown.

Lizbeth was there, at the celebrations in the new Times Square in December. New York continued to cause her a certain uneasiness and discomfort for no apparent reason due to the Attraction Hotel, but at least that day she did not feel it and was able to smile when she saw the joy around her and the celebrations in the snow. Watching among the crowd the screens—always a spectator, never quite able, or perhaps never willing, to be part of that forward march, even though in the excitement some embraced her and celebrated as if they were already living in that unknown land. Still, she couldn't help but be drawn to the idea of what that new horizon represented.

Mars, the red planet, with its dusty skies and endless deserts, seemed to offer humanity what their own Earth no longer could: a new beginning. But, as always, that progress came with its own demons.

Then, in 2075, while traveling through Africa, an even stranger event took place. In the arid plains of the Sahara Desert, the colors of the sunset intensified so drastically that the entire horizon turned red, as if the sun were dying in an explosion of hues. In that place, Lizbeth encountered a group of nomadic travelers who claimed to be guardians of an ancient "portal of the gods," a hidden entrance to a forgotten realm buried beneath the dunes. Though the nomads spoke in metaphors and legends, Lizbeth couldn't help but be drawn to the mystery.

She decided to join them on their journey to the portal, venturing into a desert that seemed to have a life of its own. Sandstorms changed direction at will, the shadows of the nomads stretched unnaturally long, and the sun, for some reason, no longer followed its usual cycle. Everything was altered. What should have been an expedition into ancient god-lore turned into a desperate race for survival. One by one, the nomads were claimed by the sands, as if the desert itself were reclaiming them. And she nearly became one of its victims. Weeks later, it was reported that a few hundred kilometers away, ruins had been found dating back over 500,000 years—traces of a civilization that had once inhabited a lush paradise in that very region and who were said to have guarded the gods' portal.

Almost unintentionally, Lizbeth had uncovered remnants of a civilization no one had ever known existed.

Two years later, humanity learned that its leap into space was not free of unexpected dangers. The first Dark Event on the Moon was recorded in 2076. In the Mare Imbrium region, where the lunar surface had remained unchanged for millennia, areas were found where rocks floated as if gravity no longer applied. It was such an inexplicable phenomenon that science was forced to recalculate everything it thought it knew about lunar gravity.

It wasn't the first Dark Event, but it was by far the most unsettling—because it was the first recorded beyond Earth. Or perhaps… the entire universe was like this? Scientists could barely comprehend what was happening, and governments—already overwhelmed by tensions over try to control them—watched in silence. Lizbeth, like so many others, simply observed from a distance—a distance that felt more and more real as Earth's phenomena grew increasingly disconcerting.

In 2077, the horrors reached Mars. An inexplicable mutation of a fungus in the Utopia Planitia region began spreading at an alarming rate. In less than a week, it had covered a 50-kilometer radius. The organism seemed to defy the laws of biology as humanity understood them. It kept growing, without pause, without a predictable pattern, without any clear control. The colonists, trapped in their dream of expansion, were faced with a threat they had never imagined even in their worst nightmares. It was as if the land itself had turned against them—a reminder of just how fragile they were in the face of the unknown.

But something else happened. As the fungus spread, it altered the atmospheric composition of the region. There was now a layer of oxygen. Perhaps, if it was left to grow, it could even aid the terraforming program. After two weeks, growth stopped due to the Martian climate, but it had generated an area of oxygen that, if controlled, could lay the foundations for steady progress.

Meanwhile, Lizbeth wandered among the remains of a world that was no longer the same. Her journey across continents continued to carry her from one place to another, never quite finding a true place to call home. Or perhaps it was better to think that by that point, the entire planet had become her home—and that every place she visited, every adventure she lived, was like discovering a new room or compartment in a vast house she hadn't seen before.

In a way, there was always something more. Always a new adventure to keep her moving.

Home was wherever her heart led her—and that phrase she'd once said to Van had now become literal.

Those years were a kind of chaos made of small victories and losses. Lizbeth faced all manner of situations—some terrifyingly close to the horror of the Dark Events, others mere tests of survival.

In 2080, she witnessed a series of animal mutations in the Arctic, where once-familiar species began to show strange behaviors, as if evolution itself were playing with the rules. She also witnessed cities still caught in chaos, struggling with resource scarcity and the forced migration of thousands of people. But other parts of the planet were slowly recovering. After years of war, South America finally entered a period of growth unlike anything seen in the last hundred years.

During those times, Lizbeth found herself surrounded, more than ever, by people searching for answers. People who, like her, had lost something along the way—a cause, a loved one, or even their own peace of mind. Lizbeth helped where she could, always keeping a slight distance, always avoiding bonds that could grow too deep.

But not everything in those years was utter chaos. In 2081, found a brief respite in southern Europe, in a city nestled in the hills of Italy, where the remnants of ancient civilizations intertwined with the present.

There, amid the mountains of Tuscany, she discovered a small community of the occult world. Architects, artisans, and former scholars who, between reconstruction and reflection, sought ways to undo the damage wrought by the collapse of ecosystems. A green city with a futuristic flair—it was the perfect place for a breath of peace. The community had been formed about twenty years earlier, and it was rumored that a kind of bard had been its founder.

In that hidden city, far from the rest of the world, she found a fleeting serenity that, as always, never lasted long. The people seemed to understand the uncertainty of the future, and had taken refuge in creation and knowledge, striving to preserve what they could.

In the city, Lizbeth felt as if she had found a forgotten corner in a worn canvas, one that, for a moment, had paused in its process of decay. The hills of Tuscany were her stronghold, the refuge where the lines of the modern world became blurred and the passage of time seemed slow, deliberate. The buildings, though imposing, bore the marks of decay, as if the walls themselves twisted in search of one last breath of life. There was something unfinished in the air, as if every corner of the city was waiting for its end, but at the same time, refused to give in with the new buildings. It was a place full of beautiful things half-made, with green gardens trying to cling to the earth before crumbling and alleyways where shadows seemed to dance with the remnants of what once was.

Lizbeth immersed herself in the streets, as a spectator in a gallery where every corner was a brushstroke of what could have been. At times, she found herself gazing at the horizon from a small terrace, where the sun faded behind the mountains, painting everything with an unreal warm hue, like a forgotten dream. In those moments of stillness, the world around her seemed like an incomplete painting, a landscape suspended between ruin and hope, as if the fate of humanity was pending the hand of a painter who never arrived to finish their work. Yet, despite the fragility of everything around her, began to feel the most sincere lie of all: the illusion that time could still be stopped.

She spent a few years there, away from the shadows of the Dark Events, learning how to paint properly, to write poetry, to live as if the world still made sense. But in the end, as it always did, the darkness returned.

During that time of peace, something happened that she did not expect. It was in 2085 that the news took the world by surprise. The existence of the Dark Events had already been acknowledged years before, but the public announcement of espers—beings with supernatural abilities—caught her off guard.

It has became public.

She contacted her friends to understand what had happened. Apparently the year before a global, but still secret, Council had been formed to address the issue, composed of humans, aeons, and feys.

That was probably the group that Gehirn had mentioned so long ago. It only took a few calls to the girls to confirm it. And that was how it was.

Announcing the existence of espers was just the first step toward something bigger.

All around the world, some people were shocked—others, not so much. Rumors of humans with strange abilities had circulated for a long time. Of course, the public had no idea that such things had already been happening in the hidden world for decades—and naturally, the feys were involved in that as well.

***

In 2087, she witnessed an aerial assault on a small town in North Africa.

The wars over resources had long ended, but this time, something different hung in the air.

A mysterious artifact had been unearthed—one that triggered the appearance of strange entities with unimaginable powers. Beings that seemed to absorb everything around them, as if assimilating matter itself.

She had gone there out of curiosity, accompanying a research team from the Pyrene Organization. They had discovered a scroll describing an ancient temple buried in the desert. She thought it would be a small adventure, something to tell Rein about later.

She was wrong.

The moment they removed the artifact and loaded it onto the plane, disaster began. They hadn't reached altitude when the aircraft was violently pulled down. Somehow, those things had made their way aboard. The crash left them near the outskirts of the town—only to find themselves surrounded, along with the villagers, by more of the same creatures emerging from the sands.

In a twisted way, they reminded her of Mimi, with her ability to assimilate. But unlike Mimi, these beings couldn't imitate their victims. They simply consumed them—absorbing flesh, energy, and matter, expanding their biomass without limit.

Biomass growing. She remembered how Shin told her he once faced something similar during that Antarctic incident, more than one century ago.

Lizbeth joined a local resistance group, and what followed wasn't a war, but a struggle against the formless. The entities were made of living flesh, but conventional weapons were useless. Fire, nitrogen—and even her own voice—became weapons of last resort.

The night they planned their escape, waiting for reinforcements, a group arrived—but not the one they expected. Mysterious, silent, efficient—they helped them flee.

When the real reinforcements finally arrived, there was nothing left. No trace of the creatures. No sign of the mysterious group. Only the devastation remained, as if someone had erased the event itself.

Lizbeth found herself torn between the duty to save others and the instinct to survive. And when the creatures vanished as abruptly as they had appeared, they left behind something worse than fear—a deep, unshakable uncertainty.

How could one fight something that didn't follow the rules of the known world?

If this continued… how long before the Dark Events shattered reality completely?

And yet, amid the madness, Lizbeth kept traveling.

With each step, she delved deeper into the enigma of the world—a world where certainty no longer existed. As the years passed, the Dark Events multiplied, but so did the stories of survivors. Lizbeth became one of those stories—a name whispered in the rumors of those who still refused to give up.

When she realized she was drawing too much attention, she disappeared.

Over the decades, she had come to understand Shin's life better, traveling here and there. Beyond his fey nature and capacity for violence, she understood why Shin preferred calm to noise. But those moments of calm for him had been spent with her, with Mimi, with Rein, Noki, and all their friends.

The fights and investigations might have brought them together, but it was the moments of calm that had kept them all united. It was the difference why they were known among others, and the world in which they wanted to live in. There was nothing material to be gained by being kind, but at least it was the world they wanted.

Yes, one could be a fool, sacrificing happiness for the sake of others. What did it matter?

During those years, while the world crumbled, Lizbeth found small reasons to keep going. A memory. A kind word from a stranger. A place that seemed unchanged by time.

But of course, that was never enough against the Dark Events.

And then, in November of 2094, the horror came.

The world was not prepared for what followed. Just when it seemed like things were slowly improving, it happened.

The Doomsday Clock seemed to have struck midnight. A Black Swan among Dark Events.

The collapse of ecosystems, the rising tide of wars, the losses, the unpredictable growth of the Dark Events—all of it had merely been the prelude.

No one could have foreseen what took place that fateful month, when reality—as humanity and the hidden world knew it—began to fall apart beyond repair.

The planet began to scream when they came.

And this time, there was no way to silence it.

The skies. The lands. The oceans.

Everything began to collapse all at once.

And the world and Lizbeth, who had been doing the best she could, found herself in part of the epicenter of a global cataclysm that not even she could have predicted.

And though she had endured many tragedies, this one was different.

This one had no clear answer from where it came from.

No shelter. No cure.

The horror had arrived—and nothing the world had known till then mattered anymore.

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