"I don't know"

?? ????? ???? at ???:??

Philip opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything, a heavy gray haze covered the place.

It looked like ash.

When he woke up, he realized he was standing on asphalt.

—There are no volcanoes here, and I doubt that smoke from a fire would cover such a wide area.

He tried to make sense of what was happening. He felt something running down his face, ran his fingers over it, it was blood. He had a very large head wound.

—What happened?   

His line of sight was just over five feet. He didn't want to walk without knowing where to go, but it was better than standing there waiting for help he didn't know if he was going to get. As he moved around, he saw cars scattered randomly and even one embedded in the top of a building.

There was not a single person, it was as if humanity had been wiped out, and he was the only survivor. If he tried to make sense of the situation, his head hurt.

—There is no way he could find an answer with so little information.

He kept not walking for some time that he could not measure, as his electronic bracelet did not work, nor did the traffic lights and any other electronic device he could find. Just as he was about to give up hope of finding anything more than empty buildings and cars, a very strong light appeared at the end of the street he was walking down. It was purple and intense enough to illuminate several meters through the thick gray fog. Philip approached it very carefully, he did not know what awaited him.

He continued to move slowly towards the light. The mist grew thicker with each step, so he was careful not to fall. He reached a wide area where there was no fog, no cars or buildings. The only thing there was a crater much larger than the one left in the center of the city on 21 June. The only difference is that this one is much shallower, about three meters, he estimated. In the center of that hole, about 10 meters into the sky, was what caused the light he saw. He stood at the edge of the crater and saw that there was not just one light, but seven that were very close to each other. As he tried to visualize what was emitting them, something pushed him in the back, a soft touch. He rolled several meters into the gaping hole. Inside the crater, unlike the one created on 21 June, there was no dust from the disintegration, by dark energy, of buildings, plants, animals and humans. It was just empty space.

—What is this, was there a space earthquake?

After thinking about that, which was a joke to him, so he wouldn't feel so tense, he analyzed some options of what could have happened and dismissed them all.

—Dark energy would leave dust, a meteorite would leave a lot more traces. Agggh I can't think of anything else.

He looked up again, the 7 purple lights were still there, but, being closer, he could better distinguish what was producing them.

He couldn't help but open his eyes as wide as his sockets would allow. What he saw stunned him completely.

What produced the lights were humans, psychis specifically. He couldn't make out their faces or even their genders, but he knew they were human figures. He stretched out his arm in a futile attempt to reach those lights, he wanted to reach them because they looked like deities in his eyes. At that moment, everything around him began to disappear, turning into tiny particles of light. Philip ignored that and became absorbed in the seven figures in front of him.

—Why? Why is all this happening? It doesn't make sense.

Absolute darkness surrounded him, everything around him was gone, and he too began to disappear.

—Why are they doing this? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Everything became darkness.

...

A voice echoed in that intense darkness.

"In that case, can I give you my dream? It's something I can't fulfill, various things prevent it, but... It's something I don't want to leave behind, no matter how impossible it is for me to make it come true".

"If you don't know what to wish for, I'll entrust you with my wish. What do you say?"