"What's going on? Both NASA and Roscosmos… I can't get in touch with either of them!" Shamil said in something akin to panic.

"Is it broken?" Lillian asked him.

"No, nobody's answering." Byakuya replied her.

Shamil gulped silently. The person on the screen who looked exactly like him and could possibly be himself was panicking. He was a cosmonaut. He was trained to never panic and take on any situation as calmly as possible. Just what was happening there?

"The communication device must be broken, right? That's why they can't get in touch with both the NASA and the Roscosmos." Yakov commented with a hand on his chin.

"Both of them? At the same time? Kind of unlikely, don't you think?" Darya replied dismissively, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Perhaps a massive scale attack from a hacker group? They probably mess with the communication line. That's why it looks like nobody's answering." Connie said shyly.

"Ah… even on the amateur broadcast waves… it's completely silent. Not even one person responding…" Connie informed them.

"That light just now… something's happened on earth. Something absolutely terrible!" Darya hypothesized.

"Something absolutely terrible?" Lillian repeated Darya's words in a questioning tone.

"Like what? A nuclear war?" Connie continued softly before she gasped and put both of her hands on her mouth, like she couldn't just believe that she said something like that.

"That's really scary! You are giving me goosebumps here!" Byakuya said in response to Connie's words, face paling rapidly from imagining the horrible situation.

"Do you think it's nuclear war?" Connie asked with tears in her eyes.

"What?!" Yakov exclaimed in a frightened tone.

"Quit it with your scary imagination!" Darya told her firmly.

"Alright, I am finally connected to the internet!" Byakuya suddenly exclaimed.

"Is anyone tweeting about the situation?" Lillian immediately asked him.

"It's no good… everyone's posts suddenly stopped." Byakuya said while gritting his teeth.

"What about fixed webcams?" Shamil immediately quipped up. A second later, the Ishigami Byakuya on the screen seemed to come up with the exact same idea.

"What about fixed webcams? There should be sites with fixed cameras that you can view the footage of twenty four hours a day?"

The next sight that greeted them made them all raised their eyebrow in confusion.

"What? Is that statues?" Lillian asked uncertainly.

"What in the world? Statues?" Byakuya said in disbelief.

"How can this be?"

"How?"

"Tell me, God…"

"That… something like that…" Byakuya tried to utter a few words before he fell silent in shock, completely lost for words.

It wasn't just him but all six of them were starring at the screen in complete silence. Speechless. They were truly lost for words to express their feeling on the scene that they saw on the screen.

The screen turned black for a second before Rei appeared on it.

"On that day, all humans are petrified to stone and only the six of you remain."

"This is a little bit too far for a joke, isn't it?" Yakov said lightly, trying to laugh it off.

"I don't know who you are but it is not funny at all. Quit it already!" Darya said boldly, supporting her husband.

"Is this for real? When is this going to happen?" Connie asked in a quiet voice.

"All humans are turned into stone and we only survive by chance cause we are in space when that thing happened on earth…" Byakuya said, standing up from his seat.

"Hey, old man, you can't possibly be serious! There is no way that you actually believe this bullshit, right?" Shamil cut him off.

"What about Senkuu? What about my son, Senkuu?" Byakuya asked the robot.

When Rei didn't answer him, he collapsed on his knees. He didn't even need to ask because he already knew the answer deep inside his own mind but his heart was still hoping for some kind of a miracle.

"Would you all like to continue to watch this until the end?"

Lillian stepped forward and answered for all six of them.

"Yes."

They returned to their seat on the sofa while the screen continued the memory display.

"Let's not do anything rash and just wait here. There's over seven billion people on earth, right? Let's wait for the survivors to contact us and rescue us." Yakov suggested brightly.

"Wait? How long? One month? Two months? While that's befallen humanity? Waiting to be rescued would be something that might work if we were still on earth." Shamil responded with narrow eyes.

"Then, what's the right thing to do?" Lillian asked in a soft tone. She was a diva, famous for her voice. They, on the other hand, were all a genius with a degree to prove it. A second later, the Byakuya on the screen answered her question.

"Everyone… listen up. We six are the last remaining humans. We gotta go down there and save them! All of humanity!" Byakuya said decisively.

His powerful words didn't only jolt the people on the screen but also the ones watching it.

"But Byakuya, what if our return trip to earth ends in failure? With us gone too, humanity would truly go extinct. The Soyuz's reentry capsules are equipped to land on the plains of Kazakhstan near the spaceport but without ground support, even making that landing will be tough. And then, escaping the capsules and getting to the base sounds impossible! You get it, right? Humanity doesn't survive without cooperation. Right now, the ones who need saving the most is us! Do we even have any hope of making it down to earth in one piece?" Yakov explained briefly, trying to make Byakuya to see his point.

None of them uttered a single word, mind working in consideration of Yakov's words. The man wasn't wrong in the slightest.

"No problem there." Byakuya replied shortly, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"What? Seriously? You didn't just say that to sound cool, do you?" Lillian asked with a grin, elbow nudging gently at the man sitting beside her.

"Uh, probably?" Byakuya replied the songstress with his sheepish smile.