The sun slowly rose in the Guangdong province of China.
In a complex of abandoned apartments scheduled for demolition an alarm was ringing at 6:00 am in the morning.
The sound was coming from an almost broken down apartment, a door you couldn't close properly no matter how hard you pushed, with a chair behind it in a 45 degree angle acting as a lock for the door.
The apartment was medium sized, around 80 s.m. yet it was almost empty inside. A bed mattress was in the middle of the living room along with a small sized table with an alarm clock on it. On the side of the room were 10 big water bottles along with some packs of instant noodles.
A body could be seen moving under the blanket that was covering the mattress, reaching for the alarm clock on the table.
''Ugh'' that person groaned after he tapped the alarm clock once.
A malnourished body revealed itself from underneath the blanket as it slowly rose from the bed.
A young man seemingly around 16-17 years old rose from the mattress as he walked towards the bathroom. The water was cut off since the apartment was abandoned so the young man couldn't even take a shower in the morning. He grabbed a half empty bottle of water from the table with the alarm clock on it, and used it along with his toothbrush to wash his teeth and when he finished, he then gulped down the rest of the water from the bottle. Then he grabbed his work clothes from the table and put them on as he left the apartment.
It was around a 20 minute walk from the apartment complex until he reached a huge construction site with a lot of warning signs of: ''Danger'' and ''Work in progress''.
As soon as he walked towards an 8 story half-finished building, the young man heard a voice from behind him shouting ''ay Rock''. The voice belonged to a 45 year old man.
''Good morning uncle'' said Rock.
Of course Rock wasn't his real name, but a nickname given to him by the people working in the construction site with him as he didn't like to talk that much. Rock didn't have a real name from his parents, he was an orphan, and he grew up in a house complex owned by the government for orphaned children. The government sends food to those houses once a week but it wasn't enough for the kids there to feed themselves. The orphanages were all full and that's why the government created these houses and sent food to the children but a lot of them still died due to hunger or illnesses as there was no one to take care of them even when they were ill. Rock stayed there until he was 12. He could fight the other children for the food, but even then it was not enough to feed himself so he decided to leave.
He attended junior high-school in a public school not far away from the house he lives. It was school in the morning and construction work in the afternoon.
Usually people in the construction sites didn't allow kids at work, considering it was illegal but due to the low wages, few people went to work at those construction sites, and since lower manpower equaled slow production, the construction manager accepted even a kid like Rock with skinny arms and legs, and allowed him to work there, for a pitiful amount of money as his wage of course. Rock wasn't dissatisfied, as he would finally have enough money every month to feed himself at least.
This situation occurred until Rock graduated from high-school but he never stopped working at the construction sites as that was his only way of income.
It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel aggrieved. Even working for his food in construction sites without proper security measures was considered normal to him nowadays but he still hoped deep inside that his luck would change one day and his life would take a turn for the better.
For the past half a year that Rock has been working on this construction site, this ''uncle'' has taken care of him plenty of times, either by sharing with him food or drinks, or taking care of helping him during work when needed.
Needless to say that rock felt extremely thankful to this man and he also helped him during work whenever possible as well.
''Haa kid.. I knew you wouldn't bring breakfast with you again. My wife gave me extra again today so let's share it together.'' as soon as he finished his sentence he grabbed a plastic bag and took out 2 big water bottles along with 2 sandwiches and 4 rice balls. He split them at 2 portions and gave one to Rock.
The man knew Rock wasn't one to accept charity so easily so he said ''Hey kid we have to eat up to start working, you still need to take care of me as this job is really dangerous so eat up.''
Rock still didn't respond, until the man spoke again and said: ''You will treat me to drink again when you get your wage okay kid? Let's eat!'' then without even looking at Rock again, the man started eating the food.
Rock didn't say anything but he also started eating, keeping this gesture of this man deep inside his heart. This middle-aged man was the only one who had ever shown any form of care for him, in the 20 years of his life and Rock would never forget this kindness.
After they finished their food, they started their daily work but little did they know that this would be the last day of Rock's life.
Rock and the middle-aged man were among the first ones to come to work everyday. The man's wife was pregnant for 6 months and his child would soon be born, so he had to work hard to make ends meet both for his wife as well as his unborn child.
Time flew and soon, noon arrived.
Rock was about to finish with the 5th floor and take a break for a few minutes to rehydrate himself, since working under the scorching sun for hours was never good, especially with a body as weak as his, when coincidentally the middle-aged uncle also stopped for a break. They started descending the half-completed stairs that connected the 5th floor to the 4th, and they had to cross atop a wooden plank to reach the 4th floor.
While they were walking atop the plank, a huge rumbling sound and a tremor started to shake the entire building. Who could expect an earthquake at the worst possible moment, especially one of such magnitude that started shaking the entire structure of the building down to its foundations !?
Rock saw the middle-aged uncle walking unsteadily to the other side, terrified of the earthquake that was taking place, but before he could get to the other side of the plank, his right foot slipped as he lost his balance!
''NO!''
Just as he was about to fall down and crash, from the 4th floor directly to the ground, Rock rushed from behind and pushed him using all of his strength, causing the middle-aged man to almost fly to the other side, saving his life with that push.
Just as the man landed on the other side, even more intense rumbling came from the gap above Rock's head. A huge mass of debris buried him to the ground and half of the building itself collapsed. The middle-aged man starting to roar and cry and as soon as the rumbling stopped and the opposite side of the building collapsed while the one he was on miraculously stayed intact. He run down as fast as he could and used his bare hands to remove the pieces of rock, glass and concrete that buried Rock.
But it was pointless, the debris was practically a tower at this point, since half of the building had collapsed.... it was already a miracle that the other half stayed standing and didn't fall along with it.
The middle-aged man was still crying, his hands bloodied from the pieces of glass stuck in them but he was still removing the debris hoping to save Rock. He felt so guilty that the kid exchanged his life so he can stay alive. He kept going until the other workers came over and stopped him.
Rock had seen the debris fall on his head and understood exactly how unlucky he was as this was practically certain death, yet he didn't regret saving the man. The middle-aged uncle was the only one who had shown care for him, and the thought that went through his mind as he was being buried by the rocks was ''Ah it's good since uncle lived.. but it's truly unfair that my life will end like this''. The rumbling continued for a while and Rock's vision turned dark as he blacked out.
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Rock tried to slowly open his eyes as his mind started to regain its consciousness, only to discover that his head was about to split apart from a terrifying pain he was feeling. He started wailing left and right as he couldn't feel anything other than the splitting headache that was about to rip his mind apart.
What Rock hadn't noticed was that his body wasn't buried under any rubble or debris, but was lying on the ground with his face up, on a patch of red grass, right in the middle of a huge thunderstorm with thunder and lightning striking the ground all around him.
The bones on both his arms and legs were broken, his head bleeding from behind, and his clothes were tattered and full of blood. There was a huge wound on the left side of his chest probably made from a sword or a saber judging by its size. Luckily for Rock, it was still a few inches away from his heart.
He felt as if something was forcefully being stuffed in his brain, but there was not enough room for it to fit and his brain was about to burst.
Just as a bolt of lightning was about to strike his head and end his life for the second time today, a space tear appeared above him as the lightning was swallowed and disappeared inside it.
At the same time, a stone slowly left the space tear in the air, and as soon as it appeared, heaven and earth suddenly fell silent.
A few miles away, the people of Blue Forest-city had all gone still. Pedestrians were frozen mid-walking, people inside the restaurants were frozen while they were chatting and laughing or eating, stall owners haggling to sell their merchandise were immobilized, and even the fire in the taverns and the food that stall owners used to cook, were all in a frozen-like state.
Bolts of lightning all around Rock were stopped in place like a painting in the air, as if the very heavens themselves were afraid to move the moment that this stone appeared.
The triangle-shaped stone released a blindingly bright azure light that destroyed the black clouds and the bolts of lightning frozen mid-air around Rock, along with everything else in a radius of one mile of Rock.
Rock suddenly felt the change in the environment around him and finally opened his eyes, forcibly suppressing the head-splitting pain he was feeling which had slowly started to ease, only to see a blue like light from a triangle shaped-like stone right above the space between his eyebrows, plunging itself right inside his head.