Even though he seemed exhausted there was a smile on Emilio's face. He knew his niece was waiting outside, and no matter how tired he was, that was something good.
Amelia Torres was one of the few people in this world he actually cared about. Actually those people included only one other person: his sister, and mother of Amelia, Nicole.
With another sigh he started to shut the computer down, while thinking how exhausting it was to have a kid at home. He might love Amelia, but the energy consumption was beyond him. Even worse, he was incapable of saying no to Amelia.
It was usually fine as he would play with her and just rest the next day. But his beloved sister decided to leave her daughter with him for a full week!
Ok, not decided, she needed to go to the USA to meet with the C-Suit of the multinational she is working in… He couldn’t understand how she liked to rise in the business ladder. He was a Senior Software Dev and he couldn’t stand all the meetings. He didn’t hate his job, it was interesting and had a good pay, but he couldn’t stand the useless meetings.
Emilio closed his eyes to enjoy the last seconds of quietness as he waited for the calamity on the other side of the door to enter.
At exactly 6 PM the door opened to let through a clearly over excited teenage girl about 1.4 meters tall, with long brown hair and brown eyes. She was covered in dirt from head to toe, with a little bit of mud.
“Uncle Emi, Uncle Emi. It’s time, let’s go play!” the girl spurted out of her mouth so fast that it was almost unintelligible.
“Not so fast!” Emilio stopped her while looking at her feet entering his office. “Where the hell have you been? Did you see yourself? Go take a shower!”
“Not fair! I was waiting for you!” Amelia pouted.
“Yeah, waiting while playing in the backyard?” He asked while rolling his eyes. Of course the girl was playing outside with the football, she just loved sports, especially if she was the one playing “Go shower. Now.”
“Ok, I’m going,” She drawled while faking being disappointed and vanished, running to the bathroom.
“Wow, that’s some energy,” Emilio commented, not too surprised. Apparently, he still had some time before being dragged into another day of endless activities.
“Well, I can maybe go make some juice.” Emilio stood up, before realizing that he actually couldn’t do what he planned because Amelia forbade him to use the fridge. As if he didn’t know what it was there, being that today was his birthday.
Well, I might as well just sit on the couch and rest a little while.
With a short walk to the living room, courtesy of the heaven blessed home office, he finally decided what was the best thing to do while waiting for Amelia: rest a little while.
He sat on the couch, closed his eyes and started thinking about how he didn't actually have a birthday with family in his house since he moved out of his father’s house.
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His mind moved into remembering his lovely parents, both gone by the goddamned pandemic, before the vaccines were invented. Gone and with no one to blame. Leaving him with just Nicole and Amelia as his loved ones.
As he kept thinking about his family he started to doze off into slumber.
---
Emilio was happy in his dreamless slumber when he started to hear a chorus. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you…”
Emilio opened his eyes to see a spot clean Amelia in a green dress with a cake with lit candles in one hand. Her other hand held a smartphone with the face of a woman that looked almost the same as the one who was holding it. The difference was that Emilio’s sister was the grown up version and his niece a teenager, but for sure no one would ever doubt they were family.
Both of them were singing, clearly enjoying themselves after they managed to wake him up with the surprise.
He watched them sing with a heartwarming feeling in his chest. As they finished the song he finally asked “Whose idea was it? Was being dirty part of this ruse?”
“Of course it was Ami’s, what did you think? I was just part of her idea too” Nicole answered “Now blow the candles Emi, you have three wishes”
“If I didn’t go to your office like that you wouldn’t have stopped and fallen asleep! It was a perfect plan!” Amelia added. “By the way mom, why did you name me with a name so similar to Uncle Emi?”
“Don’t you like it?” her mother replied “It’s not like I would have known you would choose Ami as a nickname, anyhow, three wishes for the candles Emi.”
Emilio smiled looking at his small family, small but perfect. Before he got sidetracked, Emilio looked at the happiness in his niece’s smile and decided his first wish.
I wish for Amelia to be successful.
After that one, Emilio’s thoughts settled on the girl in front of him. The one that had made that week significant, or at least a bit more than the monotony he was used to and made his second wish.
I wish to be able to spend more time with my niece.
After his second wish, Emilio started thinking about what else he could ask for. His life had been settled for a while and he had not wanted to make any changes for a long time. Overall, he liked it, but the last few days with Amelia had shown him that his life had become a little bit boring.
It might not be a bad idea to try something new, but hell, this week was exhausting. Ok, that’s it. I wish to have more energy.
With those wishes in mind, he blew the candles.
Some would say his wishes were the cause of what came next, some would say it was just luck and his wishes just happened to become more than true. The reality was that in that exact instant their future changed for good.
After Emilio blew the candles, some kind of weird heaviness could be felt in the air. It was as if the atmosphere was denser, but, at the same time, it was not. It felt like there was something else there, but they couldn’t see it.
“What the hell did you wish for Uncle Emi?” Amelia asked, quite suffocated by the weird feeling.
But no one had time to answer before all hell really broke loose. All three of them suddenly saw –or heard, or both?– a message. It felt like the message was in front of their faces to be read, but, at the same time, it didn't impact their vision. Not only was it there to be read, but it was also spoken out loud, without interrupting any other sound, as if the sound was not really there. Or at least, it would not have interrupted any other sound if the whole world didn’t fall silent for the outstanding event that was happening.
- Welcome to the Realm.
Your planet has achieved the minimum requirements to be officially integrated in the Realm.
Type of requirement complete: Intelligent lifeforms (Minimum time, development and territory occupied).
The planet [Earth] will start the integration.
Congratulations and strive to reach the top of the Realm!
“Hey, do you also see this Realm message?” Nicole asked her family almost half a planet away.
Uncle and niece both silently nodded quite confused about the situation, but it soon got even worse.
After that message, things got even weirder as the earth itself started shaking, not just in one place, but all over the world at the same time. It was the biggest event to ever happen on the planet, and one that would change everyone’s lives. Something that anyone could notice instantly, especially if you were in contact with someone in another country, like the Castro family was at that moment.
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