Inside a restaurant in New York city, beside the ceiling to floor window stood a polished wooden table. Two guys, high school graduates, sat at the table eating in silence, ignoring the background noise of conversations overlapping, glasses clinking, cutlery tapping against the porcelain, and the noisy kitchen.
"With the way things are going, we are definitely going to die in poverty."said the one sitting on the left. He had black hair, blue eyes and the face of a bad playboy.
"C'mon Ryan, don't be so negative. We only need to find a problem to solve and we are definitely going to make a load of cash. With my coding skills, we can go from MVP to mature software product in a short time."the boy on the right assured. He had blonde hair, green eyes, freckles and he wore glasses. Overall, he looked like a nerd.
"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Why don't you also tell me that we are going to surpass Mark Zuckerberg's record and become billionaires in two years time at the age of 20. Norman, if finding a hair on fire problem was that easy, then millions of startups will be cropping up every year."
"You are just being impatient, we are still very young, we haven't even entered college yet."said Norman.
"Easy for you to say, you don't have the drive or passion to make money. You need to cultivate the mindset of a billionaire. Ever since we graduated, all you have done is read those stupid webnovels." Ryan dropped his spoon, not in the mood to eat anymore. "You need to abandon fantasy and face reality. Money runs the world, if you don't have it, you will suffer." He continued with his voice slightly raised.
Norman didn't look affected, they both came from poor families, but Ryan was the one obsessed with money. "There you go again with your get rich fast speech. This worl is just too boring. We came to this world just to go to school, graduate, make money, spend it, make some more, spend it and then die. That is the motive of every human in this world, it is just too boring."he said.
"When will you become mature and realize that all those fiction you imagine everyday is not real and will never be real. In the real world, you are meant to become rich so as to attain freedom. Financial, time, and space freedom will become available to you only if you make money. " Ryan's lips were facing downward. He was clearly not happy with his friend who has refused to grow up.
Norman stood up. "I understand what you mean, I have to leave now, I have a coding session of 6hours. Let's meetup tomorrow and continue our task of finding startup ideas." He signified to the waiter to bring the check.
The waiter immediately rushed over. "Yes sir, both your bill amounts to $20, of course you can also add a little tip, cash or transfer?"
Norman brought out a $20 note, gave it to the waiter and left. The waiter was sad at not receiving the tip but left anyways. Ryan remained seated,he was in deep thought.
Life had hit him hard early, unlike Norman who still had parents that were able to support him financially. His parents both lost their jobs and now we're living off their savings. But their savings is not going to last, and each passing day, they become poorer.
He had to start looking for ways to help his parents financially. He first started with gambling and then trading futures and CFDs and then music and content creation. He finally resorted to selling drugs, but all those experiences taught him a lot and he realized that he doesn't want to make money. No, he wasn't after money, he was after the power that came with money and to get that he had to become a billionaire and none of those previous paths could get him there.
That was what led him to his friend, Norman, the software genius. Together they shipped multiple software but they all failed, being unable to even pass the validation stage as people didn't really need them. They started looking for serious problems that people or businesses will pay for.
Ryan was still in deep thought, when suddenly a minor tremor could be felt. He looked around him, but no one except him seemed to have noticed. Everyone were still chatting and eating, waiters moving about attending to customers, the kitchen, as busy as ever.
He was about to term it as his imagination when suddenly a large earthquake tore through the city.
The restaurant's lights flickered violently as the ground beneath it shuddered. Tables wobbled and clattered sending cutlery, plates and glasses tumbling across the tiled floor. Destruction was happening as things were getting smashed from violent impacts. People screamed and rushed out of the restaurant, pushing and stepping on others on their way out, some even jumped at the window, smashing it as they passed through it.
Ryan rushed out through the window and immediately started running away from the epicenter of the earthquake. As he was running, everywhere suddenly became quiet and the earthquake stopped. People stopped running and faced back.
Ryan looked at them, their brows shot upwards, their eyes wide, irises shrank. They all looked as if they have seen hell.
He decide to also turn his head to take a look and became shocked too. What he saw before his eyes was really likened to hell. In the far distance, stood a massive volcano that just sprung out of the ground. Impossibly hot lava was bubbling out of it, it looked like it was going to erupt.
Unaware to Ryan, the same kind of volcano had sprung out in millions of locations all around the world. They were all going to erupt. Their appearance marked the end of all living things on Earth.
The government of various nations, and all international organizations were all unable to react in time. There was no time at all for emergency alerts, evacuation or military mobilization.
Ryan stood where he was, frozen in shock. 'I am just going to die like this, without achieving my dream, without experiencing what it feels like to have money. I don't want the world to end now.' he thought. Unfortunately, the current crisis was beyond anybody.
Not far from his location, two streets away stood Norman who was still thinking that he is the special one and he would be able to escape this apocalypse. He was trying to rack his head of ways in which he can avoid this calamity.
Alas, nature had decided, all the volcanoes across different locations all erupted, bringing out massive amounts of lava. The lava rained down and travelled quickly, flooding and consuming every person, building, plant and animals. No single thing was spared. A thorough destruction.
The volcanoes kept on erupting for 30 hours. Everywhere had been consumed, after two days, there was no land anymore only a lava ocean.
There was no living thing on earth anymore, even those in the ocean had experienced the lava, the boiling ocean water killed all marine creatures.
Anywhere you looked on earth, you would see only the lava ocean and the boiling oceans and seas of water. Yet if you looked up, thousands of meters above, you would see billions of glowing green balls of energy. These balls of energy are what you would call a SOUL. These were the souls of humans, yet among these souls some were red instead of green, but they were also the souls of humans.
Unlike the green one which counted in the billions. The red ones were only a few millions.
And there were also some green souls that had an irregular shape, they were not solid, instead they seemed like gas as they were constantly changing shapes. These were the souls of the numerous plants and animals.
The volcanoes didn't bring with them destruction, instead they brought an opportunity that was granted to them by a higher being. An opportunity for REBIRTH.