---
title: "Chapter 1: The Last Day"
slug: "ch-1"
novel: "the-beginning-after-the-end"
number: 1
views: 2100000
likes: 156000
wordCount: 3400
createdAt: "2017-03-30"
---

The sky turned crimson as the first meteor pierced the atmosphere. Arthur Leywin watched from his high school rooftop as civilization crumbled beneath him. Humanity's golden age had lasted mere seconds before the catastrophe began.

He didn't know how he knew what was coming. The knowledge simply existed in his mind—ancient, foreign, yet somehow intimately familiar. This was the end. Tomorrow would never come for most people.

"Arthur!" A voice called from below. His best friend Elias was running toward the school, his face streaked with tears and ash. "We have to get to the shelters!"

But Arthur knew the shelters wouldn't matter. The meteor shower was just the beginning. Something far worse lurked in the aftermath—a convergence of worlds, a shattering of boundaries between realities. In three days, the barriers would fail completely.

He descended from the roof with inhuman grace, movements that belied his seventeen-year-old frame. When had he learned to move like this? The knowledge seemed to seep from some deeper part of his consciousness, a part that remembered centuries he'd never lived.

"Arthur, come on!" Elias grabbed his arm, but Arthur was staring at his own hands. They had changed somehow—not visibly, but fundamentally. As if ancient power was stirring beneath his skin, testing the boundaries of his mortal frame.

The artifact in his pocket—a small gem he'd found in his grandmother's attic that morning—pulsed with energy. Its blue light reflected in his eyes, and for just a moment, Elias saw something ancient and knowing looking back at him.

"I have to go," Arthur said quietly. "There's something I need to do."

"What are you talking about? We need to—"

Arthur didn't give him a chance to finish. He climbed back onto the school building, standing at its highest point as meteors rained down around him. The artifact in his hand was burning now, its light spreading across his entire body.

He understood now. The artifact wasn't just an object—it was a bridge. A connection between this world and another, far more ancient place. And the power within it recognized something in Arthur, something that had been waiting across dimensions for this exact moment.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the falling sky. "But I'm the only one who can stop this."

The artifact exploded with light, and Arthur felt himself being torn apart at the molecular level. It should have been agony. Instead, it felt like finally coming home.

When the light faded, Arthur Leywin was still standing on that rooftop. But the city around him had changed. The architecture was different, older, with spires of crystal and stone reaching toward an unfamiliar sky. The people walking below wore clothing he'd never seen before, and the language they spoke was ancient and musical.

He looked at his hands. They were the same, yet different. Stronger. More real, somehow, for all that this place seemed less real than the world he'd come from.

Arthur understood, with the certainty of lived experience, that he would never see his home again. The barriers between worlds had closed, sealing him in this new realm. But with that realization came something else—a sense of purpose, of destiny fulfilled.

Somewhere in this strange new world, answers awaited. And Arthur would find them, even if he had to traverse entire continents to do it.

The beginning after the end had already started.
