Chapter 44-Ninety percent

Chapter 44: 44-Ninety percent

The night grew darker, yet the storm showed no sign of weakening. If anything, it seemed determined to tear the world apart.

The clouds above the ocean ripped open beneath the hurricanes, exposing brief wounds of black sky before colliding and folding back into an even darker mass.

Lightning slashed across the heavens, bleaching the endless ocean white for an instant at a time. Thunder followed almost immediately, deep enough to make the fortress tremble in its foundations.

Outside the fortress, the temperature had dropped dramatically. The once unbearable heat was gone, replaced by freezing air that bit through every exposed surface.

The wind howled across the ocean, driving sheets of icy rain against the fortress windows with the force of thrown gravel.

In a matter of hours, the world had lurched from scorching heat to deadly cold, while the ocean kept rising to swallow whatever remained.

The system’s latest global analysis appeared on the television.

GLOBAL FLOODING STATUS: 90%

Nathaniel stared at the number. Ninety percent. Almost the entire world was underwater.

The news footage showed what remained of major cities. Some had vanished completely, while others offered only the broken crowns of skyscrapers above the waves.

Entire mountain regions had become islands in a limitless gray sea. Roads, airports, ports, and electricity networks had collapsed across enormous regions. The old world was not merely drowning. It was being rubbed out.

And yet, inside the fortress, the temperature remained perfectly comfortable.

The heating system had automatically adjusted to the freezing conditions outside. The lights remained warm, the air remained clean, and there was no freezing wind, rain, or cold.

Nathaniel sat quietly in the lounge, watching the television, while Aymara was in the kitchen again, preparing another meal for a late night snack.

Since Nathaniel had spent the entire day in bed, he wasn’t tired and she too had taken naps during the day, so staying up in the night had used up the dinner they had hours ago.

This time, however, she wasn’t making ordinary dishes. She had decided that the freezing weather called for something warm and hearty, something that could make them forget, even for a little while, that almost the entire world had become an ocean. She carried a large steaming pot from the kitchen.

"Move over," she arrived beside him.

Nathaniel looked at her. "What is that?" He asked, obliging by moving over. "Didn’t we already have dinner?"

"A hot pot... And no, that dinner doesn’t count. My stomach is grumbling, you must be hungry too."

He stared at the enormous pot. "You made all that for just the two of us or we expecting company?"

"Of course, it’s for the two of us. Who else would I invite?"

Aymara carefully placed it in the center of the dining table, and steam immediately rose into the air.

The smell was rich and comforting, almost absurdly gentle against the violence beyond the glass.

Inside the pot were thin slices of tender meat, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, noodles, potatoes, and other ingredients simmering in a fragrant broth.

She had even prepared different dipping sauces so they could choose what they liked. Several other dishes were already arranged around it, including roasted meat, steamed vegetables, rice, vegetable buns, fresh fruit, and a few lighter dishes prepared specifically for Nathaniel.

Aymara looked at the table proudly. "Not bad for a late night snack!"

Nathaniel glanced at the spread. "Are you planning to feed an army?" He examined and the food was too much for the two of them to finish by themselves.

"No," she laughed awkwardly, realizing she had gone a bit overboard. She sat down. "Just you."

Nathaniel looked at her, then at the amount of food. "That’s worse. If I eat all this, I’m going to explode."

Aymara laughed. "Stop complaining and eat."

She picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks and placed it into the bubbling broth.

Nathaniel watched it curl and pale in the heat as another enormous wave struck the ocean outside.

The television briefly showed a coastal city collapsing beneath the water, towers vanishing one after another into the black surge, and Nathaniel’s expression darkened.

Aymara noticed, but she didn’t try to stop him from watching. She understood that he needed to see what was happening to the outside world.

Nathaniel had spent days calculating the coming disaster, reducing the end of the world to figures, probabilities, and rising lines on a screen. Now he was watching those calculations become streets, homes, and people. Reality was worse than his predictions because reality had faces.

The news anchor appeared again, her voice strained. "Global flooding has now reached unprecedented levels. Emergency communication networks are failing across multiple continents. Officials estimate that approximately ninety percent of the world’s habitable land has been affected by flooding, with vast regions completely submerged."

Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed as the footage changed. Entire neighborhoods had disappeared, leaving only rooftops visible. People crowded onto the highest buildings they could find.

Some waved at helicopters, while others simply stared at the endless ocean around them, as if waiting for the water to explain itself. Then the broadcast cut to another region. Nothing remained there except water.

Aymara quietly picked up a piece of meat from the hot pot.

"Eat. Don’t let it drain you."

Nathaniel looked at her. "You aren’t watching?"

"I am," she said, she just didn’t give it as much attention. She had lived through that, on the outside once and it was enough experience for both lives.

She dipped the meat into sauce. "But reacting to everything won’t change anything."

Nathaniel was silent. She placed the food into her mouth, and the warmth spread through her. "Besides, you and I are here. We are safe and the food is hot."

Nathaniel looked at her for a few seconds before lowering his gaze and picking up his chopsticks.

"You’re strangely calm."

Aymara shrugged. "I’m not calm. I’m happy."

That answer caught him off guard. Of all the emotions, happiness wasn’t something he expected her to express under such conditions. "Happy? About what?"

"You’re alive," she uttered and pointed toward the food. "We’re warm and have food to eat."

Then she pointed toward the television, where another city was being swallowed in silence beneath the roar of the broadcast.

"The world is ending and those who’ve survived are practically starving and exhausted," she smiled. "And we’re eating hot pot."

Nathaniel stared at her.

Aymara grinned. "What more could I ask for?"

For a moment, the storm flashed white across the windows, turning the room into a photograph of the apocalypse: two bowls, a steaming pot, and the ocean climbing toward the glass. Nathaniel couldn’t help it. He laughed softly.

"You’re unbelievable."

"So i’ve been told," she didn’t take offense to that. Infact, she was extremely excited that he found it in him to bicker with her over small, irrelevant things.

He picked up a piece of meat, but his hand paused halfway to his bowl.

"I keep thinking about the people who didn’t make it."

Aymara’s smile faded, though the warmth in her eyes remained. "So do I."

"I knew this was coming." His chopsticks trembled slightly. "I had the numbers. The projections. I knew what the water would do, and I still couldn’t save them."

"You can’t save the world," Aymara declared. That was a truth she’d learnt the hard way.

"I could have warned them to be safe."

"Maybe." She didn’t soften the word. "Or maybe you would have died trying, and then I would have had this fortress full of food and no one to argue with me about portions."

Hahaha. Hahaha.

A breath of laughter escaped him, but it broke at the edges. "You make it sound so simple."

"Because it is." Aymara lowered her gaze to the broth. "You and I, that’s all that matters. The rest of the world can drown, survive or whatever... I don’t care."

Nathaniel looked at her in shock. The coldness in her eyes seemed forged, not faked.

His heart squeezed in pain. ’What must she have gone through to master that kind of coldness?’