A small dove was hopping along the busy sidewalk. Perhaps it was trying its best to fly, but an injury to its left wing caused it to fail again and again. After every attempt, it fell face-first onto the hard but clean pavement.
Yet, there was a spark of unstoppable hope in its eyes. The dove is called a symbol of love. But cruelty struck right then. Under the heavy shoe of a distracted pedestrian, the tiny life was crushed in an instant. In a single moment, all its struggling stopped.
The clean sidewalk was now a little dirty.
When the man lifted his foot and saw the destruction he had unknowingly caused, he could only offer a useless sigh of regret. It was a sudden accident, perhaps beyond anyone's control. Yet, with that careless step, he had unknowingly crushed the sleeping tenderness and love within himself.
Just then, through the heart of the darkness, the grave voice of a mechanical robot echoed. A very simple, yet sharp question:
"Do you know which was the most terrifying date in the world?"
The question might seem meaningless at first. The pages of human history are filled with thousands of cursed moments, more horrifying than nightmares. But in the context of the present time, there is only one answer to this question…
***
The battlefield was not a geographical map; rather, it was an open graveyard of metallic horror. The sky was not gray—it was pitch black with the toxic smoke of burning 'Detonism.' The air was heavy with a harsh scream; it was not from any human, but from the mechanical throats of steel monsters.
With every step, the earth shook. Giant war-robots, as big as mountains, could be seen across the horizon, sitting on their knees. Hundreds of lifeless bodies were being crushed under their titanium gears—a gruesome mix of invisible blood and marrow.
Laser beams from the hyper-energy cannons on the robots' shoulders sliced the sky into pieces. Above, warplanes and attack helicopters circled like birds of prey; whenever they got a chance, they rained fire down on targets on the ground.
Humans! Their existence here was merely fuel for destruction.
A group of soldiers was running for their lives behind a wrecked armored vehicle. In the intense heat, their rough uniforms were melting and fusing with their skin. A little further away, a soldier stood tall, aiming a rocket launcher at a robot's torso. But before he could hit the mark, a laser from a warplane tore him apart. Where there was a heartbeat a moment ago, there was now only drifting smoke.
Every cry of death was drowned out by the roar of the robots and the sharp sound of helicopter blades.
Suddenly, amidst this violent noise, an unusual, almost supernatural silence fell. No, the sound had not stopped—but it felt as if all the blood flow in the universe had frozen. Warriors, machines—everything stood still for a moment.
Then, the apocalypse arrived.
First, in the northern horizon—an unbearable white flash that outshone a thousand suns. A fraction of a second later, the same intense light came from the eastern desert. Then not one, but hundreds! It was as if the sky itself had torn apart, with millions of moons exploding at once. Mushroom clouds rising from the southern ocean reached beyond the horizon to swallow the earth. Ancient mountains, millions of years old, evaporated in the heat—just like a piece of butter left in the sun.
This horror moved faster than light. By the time the shockwave of the first bomb arrived, the skin had already peeled away from the bones. Steel began to melt; concrete boiled into liquid lava.
Millions of cities, civilizations, and dreams—all vanished in an instant. The ozone layer of the atmosphere blew away like dust. The rotation of the earth seemed to stop. This scene was not 'tragic'—because the word 'tragic' is linked to personal grief. This was final, extreme, and a universal extinction.
Where there were lives and dreams, there was now only a hot, silent emptiness. All that remained was the skeleton of a burnt, evaporated, and twisted planet.
Boom!!—a massive sound. But seventy percent of the people on Earth were no longer alive to hear it.
***
"The time was January 1, 2212."
A robot extended its metal hand toward the silver moon in the sky. Tilting its neck slightly, it stared fixedly at the constant satellite. Despite being a robot, its posture reflected the deep and poetic style of a poet. In a tone of soliloquy, it began to speak:
"Only the new year's number was engraved on the calendar—but it was a mere false promise, a cruel mockery. From that day, the most brutal chapter of history began: 'The Great Nuclear War.' A great war that did not just erase the boundaries of maps, but forever changed the destiny and the very definition of humanity's existence."
"It is terrifying to think—that advanced civilization, which had captured the sky in a web of glass, which kept cities flooded with light through streams of silent vehicles, which brought the orbits of distant planets within reach—all vanished in a flash. Humans had mastered the technique of conquering the universe, but they could not learn to control their own anger. That earned knowledge and arrogant technology were turned to ashes in an instant."
"Today, the Earth is no longer that familiar blue-green sphere; it is now a toxic skeleton of ash and radiation. It is true there are no visible raging fires on the planet's surface, but the unbearable heat of hell is mixed into every grain of dust. The wind carries a constant warning of death. What was once vibrant with life is today a gray desert."
"Curse that tiny spark! How a small conflict between two minor countries turned into such a global wildfire—where all the achievements and the bright future of civilization were crushed into a permanent darkness. That thick darkness... which was born at the moment of the first sunrise of a new year."
When the robot finished its poetic description like a monologue, it slowly lowered its metal hand. Moving its gaze away from the moon's magical light, it looked at an eight-year-old boy sitting in front of it. He wore dirty, slightly torn pants and a T-shirt. The robot asked, "Do you want to know more, Surjo... what happened next?"
The boy Surjo did not take a moment to answer. He said flatly, "Ugh! This is so boring."
"Eh!!?" The robot was probably not prepared for such an answer. Though it paused for a moment, it pretended not to let Surjo notice and said, "I see! You have no interest in how your own world was destroyed."
"No... I am interested. But can't you tell it in a fun way? And you are telling the story in some weird foreign language, half of which I don't even understand..." Surjo was sitting on the ground with his knees bent, resting his chin on his hands. Signs of clear annoyance were on his face. He added softly, "...Osman."
"No Surjo, war is not a fun subject. It is a monster that has the power to burn everything to ashes in an instant."
A kind of grave warning appeared in Osman's mechanical voice. The alley they were in was very narrow and damp. The worn-out walls on both sides were covered in dark dirt and moss. Looking up, only a slice of gray sky could be seen, from where the moonlight peeked at them.
"Osman, you've been talking about this war for so long! I don't like it anymore!"
Surjo interrupted, completely annoyed. He had expected an exciting story from Osman, but Osman seemed stuck in the memories of that destruction.
"Almost... yes, it's been twenty-five years since that 'Great Nuclear War'—"
Before Osman could finish, Surjo said in a huff, "Again the same thing!"
But a moment later, a childish curiosity appeared in Surjo's eyes. "Wait Osman, according to you, this war happened twenty-five years ago?" He started counting on his small fingers. "1, 2, 3... 10!"
Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Surjo said, "Wow! Twenty-five is so big! I can't even fit it on all my fingers!"
Osman burst into a mechanical laugh, "Ha ha... where will you find twenty-five on ten fingers? Take your fingers, take your toes, then borrow five more fingers from me—you'll see it becomes twenty-five!"
From Osman's words, it seemed that although he was a robot, he understood human emotions and humor quite well. Yet, in reality, Osman was an abandoned robot who had found a place in this junk pile. He had no part from his waist down, and his left hand was missing. With only a head and a right hand, he was an incomplete existence.
Surjo settled down a bit and said, "Okay Osman, forget those calculations. I had another question." Surjo's face had that same interest and curiosity.
A flash of a smile appeared on Osman's mechanical face. "Yes, tell me Surjo, ask whatever is on your mind. I will answer everything."
Surjo looked directly into his eyes and asked, "My question is—twenty-five is a very big number, and twenty-five years must be even more massive? You weren't even born then, so how do you know all this?"
Osman's mechanical neck tilted slightly. "You're right. Twenty-five years ago, I didn't exist. At most, I was born two or three years ago inside a factory, which you can count with just two fingers. And I know so much because..."
After a short pause, Osman came very close to Surjo and whispered, "The Internet."
As soon as he heard the word, Surjo was startled. He shouted, "Oh! Internet!!!"
His voice hit the walls of the alley and echoed back. But immediately after, he became confused. Managing his excitement, he asked hesitantly, "What is that again?"
A strange silence fell between the two. Osman looked at Surjo, and Surjo looked at Osman. The whistling sound of the wind in the distance made the silence even deeper.
Finally, breaking the silence, Osman acted as if he had fallen from the sky and said, "What are you saying?!! You don't know what the Internet is?"—in a slightly exaggerated and funny way.