Apocalypse Forecast: Prologue - The Last Supper

A.D. 2020.
Mount Qomolangma.
A roar echoes from afar.
A massive layer of ice slid from the black peak into the sea.
The violent icy sea surged, sending waves high into the air, as if it stretched to the very ends of the world. At the ends of the world, the wind blew, and the scent of ash and dust hung in the air.
The world suddenly shrank.
The towering firmament pressed down, turning into pure white iron, and large cracks appeared on its transparent surface, revealing stars in the universe that were gradually darkening and breathing their last.
As if lights were being extinguished one after another during a power outage.
Between the vast heaven and earth, it was as if nothing existed; all that remained were the narrow flat land at the highest point in this world and a makeshift work ship.
Setting a fishing rod on the edge of the flat land and casting the hook into the sea, the float bobbed up from the murky seawater.
The idle fisherman sat on a folding chair.
He seemed to be killing time. An aged chessboard sat beside him, and he moved the pieces at will, unconcerned by the constant sound of collapse echoing from afar.
Perhaps due to the long passage of time, the black and white pieces were missing, like teeth from a comb, and the "King" and "Bishop" were riddled with cracks from the weathering of time.
The chessboard also had a large corner missing, and the black and white squares were distorted and intermingled, turning into a chaotic gray.
But what was surprising was that no matter how much the ground shook, those pieces stood steadily in their territories, not wobbling in the slightest.
"Chairman, we have received word from NASA."
An assistant wearing thick glasses emerged from the cabin with the last of the luggage.
"--The fourth settlement is complete. The upload to the New York Stock Exchange is finished. They have already withdrawn. They say they hope our work goes smoothly."
"They should have left sooner."
The Chairman shook his head unpleasantly.
"Those guys at the Control Bureau are such a pain. They're always dawdling, never packing up efficiently."
"They were making backups, I suppose. After the fall of 'Heaven,' data had to be transferred to hard drives."
"Don't be stupid, kid," the Chairman sneered. "They just enjoy the thrill of the last minute. They think they're good at meeting deadlines. Tch, if they had been ten minutes faster, no one would have died."
"Haha..."
The assistant laughed awkwardly, said nothing more, and leaned in to look at the computer next to the chessboard. Besides the two screens searching for 'Himalaya Fishing,' it displayed real-time satellite weather information.
The old NASA satellites were still stubbornly fulfilling their mission, sending back bird's-eye views from space without a single hitch.
But unfortunately, what was on the monitor was no longer the beautiful planet it once was, but a figure riddled with holes.
A chaotic low-pressure system covered the whole thing, and the places visible between the thick and thin layers of typhoon clouds were covered in burns.
At that moment, a large rift slowly appeared on the satellite map. A streak of red spread for thousands of kilometers, extending rapidly, capturing the withered yellow continent and the black-gray sea, finally whipping up a typhoon and tearing a hole in the atmosphere.
"Is that an earthquake?" the assistant exclaimed, leaning in to get a better look. "Amazing. I didn't think it would be this spectacular."
The Chairman looked up, glanced at it, and understood immediately.
"That's a geothermal explosion. Since the crust began to cool, the third tremor originated right from the North and South American tectonic plates. The shaking will subside in about sixty years... Look, New York has sunk into the sea."
"What a shame, I haven't seen the Statue of Liberty yet."
"I've been there," the Chairman said, returning his gaze. "It wasn't much..."
A roar suddenly came from the distance. Something seemed to glow in the depths of the sea. Red light flickered in the black, illuminated by the light of agony beneath the crust.
A foehn wind blew from the ends of the sea, wrapping gray dust and white mist. As if covering the entire world.
The world looked as if it had been boiled in seawater.
"Like teppanyaki," the Chairman said suddenly.
"Huh?"
"Teppanyaki. Shall I take you sometime? It's quite delicious."
The Chairman, perhaps feeling sleepy, stretched out on his chair, pulled his hat over his face, and said as if he were about to take a nap.
"A friend from Yingzhou once told me that there are two types of teppanyaki: Kanto-style and Kansai-style. The common one is Kanto-style, which is simple, but the truly delicious one is Kansai-style. You spread a thin layer of oil on the iron plate first, and when the temperature rises, the ingredients cook in their own fat. That is how the original flavor of the ingredients is brought out..."
The assistant was silent for a moment before saying,
"That's cruel."
"It is. But aren't humans inherently cruel creatures?"
The Chairman asked back.
"We must eat to survive, so we eat. It's a simple logic. It's an evil rooted in humanity. Since we started using fire, we've burned fields, mined coal, then extracted oil, and when oil ran out, we sought nuclear power... and now, this world is dying. But you can't let your guard down. Ever since our ancestors, the Neanderthals, were thrown into a cookbook, there's been no turning back."
The assistant turned to look at the man lying on the chair. But his face was hidden by his hat, and it was impossible to tell if his gaze held pity or the familiar sarcasm.
During the long silence, time passed, and the originally pure white sky gradually darkened, until finally, the faint light above the cloud layer grew small and vanished...
"Will the sun disappear too?"
"Yes. The power of the Source Pillar is beginning to run out."
"Another storm is coming."
"Indeed."
"Will it stop?"
"Who knows?"
The Chairman stood up slowly and put his hat back on.
"Either way, this is no longer a land where humans can live... You saw it, didn't you? Aside from the pain of the wounds, there is nothing left in it."
He paused for a moment and muttered.
"This is our last supper."
He lit his last cigarette.
A wisp of purple smoke rose.
On the computer monitor, the satellite signals gradually faded, and instead, one by one, they changed into strange marks. They moved across the black monitor, bearing an indescribable dignity, as if spirits were passing over their own abyss.
Utopia, upload.
Survival Institute, upload.
Control Bureau, upload.
Stone Cauldron Society, Bronze Hand, Cemetery of the Departed...
Across the dark monitor, it was as if countless gazes were fixed on this last piece of ground, waiting for the final moment to arrive.
All the guests were in their seats, waiting for the final curtain to rise.
He stared at the broken chessboard.
The assistant swallowed nervously and looked carefully at the pocket watch in his hand. The moment the hour and minute hands overlapped, he looked up as if electrocuted and reported.
"Essence Pillar, preheating complete."
"...Wait!"
The Chairman suddenly furrowed his brows and listened.
Not only the assistant, but the marks on the monitor seemed tense, as if facing an enemy.
Then, he suddenly reached out, grabbed the fishing rod, and pulled up something that had jumped out of the sea. It was fluffy and looked like a cat, but it had fish fins, which was quite strange.
"Haha, waited two hours and finally got a result. Who said Webpedia is unreliable?"
The Chairman laughed and looked at his 'catch'.
"It's fate, little guy! You don't look like a fish at all, but can you be eaten?"
"..."
Everyone was silent.
They ignored it.
The small creature that had been fished up opened its mouth wide and cried unpleasantly, trying to scratch the man's face with its two small front claws, but it was put into the creel.
Once in the seawater, it seemed relieved, gave a jump, and then didn't move.
"Alright."
The Chairman pushed the fishing rod and bucket to the assistant and picked up the chair.
"Let's go."
He reached out and picked up the white Bishop from the chessboard.
With that movement, the last light went out.
The traces of the sun high in the sky vanished.
Everything in the world was swallowed by darkness.
The light disappeared, and even the sound of the wind could no longer be heard. Except for them, everything stopped abruptly. As if time had frozen.
The first to leave was the universe. A supple arm appeared from nowhere, plucked the black Queen—the 'Star Essence Base' extracted by Utopia—and the fundamental Prakriti faded, countless stars vanished without a trace, leaving only meaningless emptiness.
Next, the remaining sea withdrew. As the Life Institute carried away the 'Proof of Existence,' the black Bishop disappeared. The sea roar that reached the heavens and the boiling red sea, the water level of this entire world dropped in an instant, leaving only a flat black seabed.
Then, the white Bishop vanished like a phantom, the Control Bureau closed the 'Light of Brilliance,' all things became quiet, the roaring earth fell silent, the lava erupting from the gaps solidified rapidly, and all heat was lost...
Now, in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, and North America, the desolate land, the raging sea, in the freezing or scorching typhoons, or in the sky... everything was destroyed in an orderly fashion.
All that remained was the scream of the world collapsing.
Like the strings of an instrument snapping one by one, in the end, an empty echo remained.
In the vast and lonely destruction, the old Gaia, Earth VIII, met its end.
After finishing the last cigarette, the tattered world was left with only its outline. Beside the Chairman was the last door that had not yet been closed.
"Oh, the fourteenth abandoned Eden and Promised Land..."
The Chairman stared quietly at the empty chessboard in front of him and took a bouquet of pure white flowers from his pocket. Where he had brought them from, the petals were covered in dew.
The dew dripped into the cracks of the chessboard like tears.
"Thank you for over three hundred years of acceptance and patience. Thank you for your hard work."
He took off his hat and gently said goodbye to everything.
"--Someday, let's meet again in another hell."
※
Finally, the door closed.
In eternal darkness and silence, the space that no longer held any meaning contracted inward, and the pulled, dying spectrum began to pointlessly redshift, following the collapse of the four fundamental interactions, and the chessboard and flowers vanished into nothingness.
The annihilation of Earth Eight was complete.
The International Astronomical Union's 14th World-Ending Project was completed here.
At the final moment, a ray of light appeared on the chessboard, revealing the outline of a pure white Queen in the flower's dewdrop, which then flew away into the distance like a shooting star.
The old world died again. As it had many times in the past.
And a new world will arrive.
All things are in flux.
This is a record from ninety years ago, the last remnant of a glittering era.
Since then, such prosperity never came again.

Translator's Note:
This is the 'Prologue' before Chapter 1 of 'Apocalypse Forecast'.
I didn't translate this because the foreshadowing for it is revealed much, much, much, much later. The Chairman and the assistant reappear much later. I didn't think they would (lol).