Synopsis

Phase One
Year 2053. Climate change pushes Earth to the brink. Electricity vanishes.

Phase Two
A global blackout sends society into anarchy. The President had said it would be fixed in a few days. It’s been six years.

Phase Three
But the government has been hiding a secret. Earth’s resources are dwindling, natural disasters are intensifying, and a nuclear catastrophe is looming.

Phase Four
Lucy Tanaka, The Shadow Killer, unravels the truth and discovers a spaceship in Washington DC, humanity’s last hope for escape.

Phase Five
When Lucy’s infamous gang finds out, they send her to escort the Mayor of New York City and his family to DC. Her mission: gain their trust and take over the spaceship, no matter the cost. But time is running out.

Phase Six
Scientists had warned them. The government ignored it. There have been five mass extinctions in history. Lucy knows they’re living through the sixth, and she has the power to determine who survives.

Prologue

The light was dim in the apartment they had just broken into. The room was plunged into near darkness, the only source of light flickering from a candle on a wooden table beside the window. Its feeble glow cast dancing shadows on the walls. Outside, the storm raged with relentless fury, the wind howling like an angry beast, rain pelting the windows as if seeking refuge from the tempest. Thunderclaps shattered the silence, each one sending a shiver down their spines, a percussion accompanying their unwelcome irruption.
It didn’t take long for them to pick the lock of the entrance door and tie the First Deputy Mayor of New York City to a chair. After all, they had her: Lucy Tanaka. Or better yet, The Shadow Killer. 
That name haunted every alley and every street, yet her identity remained a puzzle to all. She was chaos. She was a whisper. She was a myth. She was silence. 
Everyone who crossed paths with her never resurfaced again. 
She was the city’s worst nightmare, but the ace up her gang’s sleeve. She owed them everything. They helped her discern what was right from what was wrong. They taught her endurance and resilience. They gave her every tool to become their very own war machine. 
She knew she was doing the right thing, no matter how it felt. No matter how it didn’t feel. 
She felt nothing as she grabbed her knife. It was routine, her job. Nothing more than a simple chore.
Her heels clicked on the wooden floor as she made her way across the room. Only the feeble light of a candle allowed her to scan the faces of those she had to kill. A woman was gagged, restrained by one of Lucy’s comrades, wriggling in vain. As Lucy’s boss brushed her shoulder, she stopped applying any resistance. 
Robert had a lot of flaws but being unconvincing was certainly not one of them. The touch of his fingers froze the woman like a block of ice. And Robert thrived in it, he fed on people’s worst fears as though they were the only thing keeping him alive.
The Deputy Mayor writhed aimlessly and tugged on the ropes keeping him in place. His rifle was on the floor. He had tried to defend his wife when the three of them broke in, but he barely managed to hold them off for ten seconds. 
Lucy remembered the match in his hand, the fire, the flames, the smell of burnt flesh. And the more she evoked those memories, the harder she rejoiced in seeing Mr. Jacobs accept his impending fate.
‘Pathetic.’ Lucy’s comrade chuckled and scoffed under his breath.
She ignored him and removed the gag from the Deputy Mayor’s mouth. She had learned to tune out the screeching sound of his voice, to be blind to the ever-present pretentious look on his face. She was an assassin, a killer for hire, she sometimes had to force herself to hate her victims just to sleep well at night. If they ever asked her to kill Kevin, she wouldn’t have needed to make the slightest effort to do so. She despised him with a burning passion. 
And from under his eyepatch, she bet he still looked at her with the same flaming glare he always offered anytime they accidentally met in a corridor. 
‘Let her do her job, Kevin.’ Robert silenced him.
It was almost like the first time she’d done it. The same thrill reverberated through his voice. He was looking at her in admiration, like an engineer would look proudly at the machine they created. 
‘Mr. Jacobs,’ she started, observing the man’s pupils as if she could pierce right through them. 
The flames, the heat, the fire swallowing the hospital.
When she looked into his eyes, she saw the usual: dread, helplessness, and maybe a hint of frustration. It wasn’t supposed to be that easy to break into the First Deputy Mayor’s living room, and yet there they stood. 
‘Why are you doing this to us?’ He asked in a whiny tone. 
‘I think you know why we’re here.’
‘I don’t even know you,’ he stammered, almost on the verge of tears. 
The wrinkles on his forehead converged between his eyebrows, slowly morphing into the shape of a V turned upside down. 
‘I’m sure you do,’ she said with a sly grin on her face.
His expression was puzzled as he tried to put together the pieces of whatever prompted that situation in the first place.
 His gaze moved from Lucy to her companions, and then something clicked. ‘The Shadow Killer.’
She took a moment to savor his reaction. He knew there was no chance to get out of there alive, but before she could absorb all of his despair, Robert cleared his throat. She needed to hurry up. 
‘The earth is dying. Do you think we wouldn’t find out about the pretty little spaceship that’s waiting for you in DC?’ She inquired, trailing her pointer finger on the blade of her knife. 
He looked at her in shock. It was classified information she was talking about. Lucy had to give it to them, the government did a pretty good job at hiding the impending global nuclear meltdown from everyone. But not good enough.
Anyone could see the earth was crumbling. Electricity had vanished into thin air after a solar storm and the climate became more unstable by the day. It was freezing at night and scorching hot during the day. Wildfires, earthquakes, floods, droughts, hurricanes. Every single day, a new menace came into play. 
It was obvious that Earth was trying to eject every living being, especially humans. Lucy picked up all that information at the gatherings her gang sent her to. Robert’s contacts with people working in the White House helped them confirm their theories.  
    ‘Oh, don’t be so surprised. You underestimate us, but remember: we have eyes and ears everywhere.’
It wasn’t rare for Lucy’s gang to have her steal a document or two with classified information. That was the way she learned there had been five mass extinctions in history. They were living through the sixth and nobody else knew it. 
Her greatest ability, though, was verifying whether that information was true or only hearsay. And that was exactly what she was supposed to do when she entered the First Deputy Mayor’s apartment.
‘So, now tell me,’ she continued. ‘When is that ship leaving?’
Mr. Jacobs only gulped nervously and looked at his wife. In his face, Lucy could see that he was wishing he could somehow teleport her far away. The way he chewed on his lower lip until it started bleeding was what gave it away. 
‘She asked you a question,’ Robert insisted in a steady tone.
‘I-I can’t… I–‘ He stuttered.
Lucy was starting to grow impatient. 
‘Alright then.’ She said as she started to trail the blade along his loose pajama shirt. She cut off the buttons and placed the pointy end of the knife on top of his chest. She applied more pressure until the metal tip started to carve into his skin. 
Mr. Jacob’s wife tried to break free from Kevin’s grip, but it was no use. She recoiled in fear, listening as his screams filled the room.
The fire, the building tumbling down, the ashes, the paralyzing fear. 
To Lucy, his cries for mercy were nothing more than the soundtrack of the life she had found herself living. 
‘Tell me what I need to know and I’ll stop,’ she spoke over the man’s pleas.
She lifted the blade from his torn, bleeding skin to let him give her an answer.
‘No,’ he said with such determination that he stunned everyone, especially his wife. And with that, Lucy witnessed the last glimmer of hope leave her eyes.   
Robert’s expression told her there was no more time to play a cat-and-mouse game. 
She stood up and made her way to his wife. She took hold of her by her unkempt brown hair and put the blade against her neck. Mr. Jacobs started squirming like a bird in a cage.
The embers, the blisters on her fingers, the rubbles.
‘Stop, please,’ Mr. Jacobs begged her. ‘Let her go!’ 
‘You know what you have to do,’ Robert replied, setting a hand on the small of Lucy’s back, as if to showcase his creation with pride.
‘Twenty days,’ he blurted out, drops of sweat falling down his forehead. ‘We are leaving in twenty days.’ 
‘Go on.’ Lucy incited him.
‘The power to fuel nuclear reactors all over the world is running out. We don’t know why solar power doesn’t work anymore or why natural resources are insufficient, but we have no choice. The solar storm destroyed all power grids. We need to evacuate before we experience a global meltdown. We only have twenty days to get there. Now, please, let go of my wife.’ His voice barely made it to the end of the sentence. 
‘We? Who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about? Is there someone else leaving New York?’ Robert questioned, and Lucy could almost picture the outlines of an idea forming in his head.
 She wasn’t sure what it was, all she knew was that he wouldn’t have wasted an opportunity to ensure a spot for his people on that spaceship.  
Mr. Jacobs hesitated for a few seconds but ultimately gave in. ‘Only the Mayor and his family. Maybe some doctors and engineers, I don’t know… I don’t know. I’m sorry.’ 
Lucy’s boss gave her a small smile and nodded. He was satisfied. It was time for her to get it over with. 
‘We thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Jacobs,’ Robert commented.
A millisecond later, Lucy slashed the woman’s throat and let her limp body fall onto the floor.
The Deputy Mayor sat there, motionless, in silent desperation as he watched his whole world fall to pieces with his hands tied. Lucy grabbed her gun and pointed it at his forehead.
The fire.
The flames.
The heat.
The smell.
The blisters.
Pulling the trigger had never been as easy. 
As the fierce wind blew out the candle, she left the apartment the same way she had entered it, only with two more souls trapped in the barrel of her gun and a wave of pleasure washing over her bones.

They called me a killer. I didn’t know why.

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