Built it (or not). They will come.

Predictions set the time to thirty six minutes after it actually ocurred. The judgement day had started and science got it wrong, again.

The believers had no doubt about when. The exact time had been written for centuries. How many? The carbon tests were inconclusive. Maybe a span of more than a thousand years.

The only thing human ingenuity could get done in preparation was a tribune. A special place, a building like no other, which would offer a premium seat to the carnage of humankind.

No, there were no trumpets or golden rays bathing the cold waters of the north sea. That was the only prediction scientist and believers alike agreed on. Late had the men in white robes with their black boxes, who they gave named to as a desperate attempt to exercise some sort of control in the days leading to the reckoning, discovered that a power rested beyond the sketches of paper and bytes. One that could not be tamed or comprehended. One that awkwardly juxtaposed with the myths and folklore of ages.

Many tried to excuse the finding in probabilistic terms. Yes, it bore similarities with the word professed by the ignorance of religions, but that why in an universe of probabilities, the shape that the truth acquired happened to bemore similar than the collective hallucination of religion. Not in any way, because those text reflected some kind of reality.

And yet, an scenery as close as the abhorrent painting of medieval madmen was seen through the polarized windows and the screams permeated the lead reinforced walls. Gamma rays struggled to reach the men and women gathered under the pretext of civilization, but the shriek of pain found no problem leaking betweek the 3D printed junctions of The Arc.

Because it was supposed to be a space event, unique. But with the uniqueness of a solar storm or a meteorite too big to want to hear about the news and too close to consider its effects, that would eventually, by small margins, skip our space rock and allow us to continue with our taxes and lovers.

But as the decades became years, countries allied to pursue better research conditions, adding a diversity of researchers and a diversity of requirements for the new structure. The quick printed plastic, was replaced for layers of titanium and rare metals that would help to increase the absorption of transmissions of the rare event but also provide cover to allow its observation.

The code name Black Cube went through several discussions between countries that would pause their trade and blood wars for spaces in small rooms and smaller cubicles, getting in conversations that each time seemed scarcer from the media and while its coverage faded from media attention, the trucks and machinery kept digging, expanding the initial calculations of the foundations and pouring a mix of materials, adding the first layers with an amalgam of patents and materials that would see themselves being used together for the first time.

The rare Chinese concrete foundations that used the famous Epoxy 23 was wrapped in German alloys and wrapped in Brazilian and Turkish silver and bauxite plates, achieving the most flexible and yet strong column a building ever seemed to have had.

French government and architect firms from Scandinavia planned the first floor, and had to re-plan the whole thing as government approved side budgets for the program with the explicit need to reinforce the cover to improve the safety of the now more than a thousand experts from across the globe that would join project. But such a big enterprise would also require the watchful eye of the best minds and the head of such companies. The Techworld shared their patents and with academia created a complex net of a living electronic tissue that would cover the internals of the building to provide exact tracking and would reinforce the wall if required. New floors were added to the project.

As the years ran scarce and the size of the structure grew it was agreed to cover the external side with a powerful shell made of Asian alloys and the latest biocompounds that would dilate based on the external conditions and the fragility of the soil.

Many watching stations would be added across the cube, but also a second tier would be created with the exact strength in half the time. Qataris and Emirate chiefs were set for the construction of the new areas and canals were dug on the perimeter of the construction, to avoid potential floods that could come from the outer space event as was officially communicated to the few that still intended to cover the progress of the construction. Social network posts claimed that this were made to dispossed the corpse of the workers that would plummet to the floor in exhaustion or by failed measures. But the floors were built faster. The search for material became a national concern.

It was believed that in the wake of attempts to trade the scarce materials, and by the play of supply and demand, the countries found out that the distributors in their channels were not able to produce what was promised. Many left with fortunes that tripled and quintupled, and with only a scarce amount of months left for the event it became a group conclusion that the fortification of the observation building was not possible in the available time, and the decision was to opt for reinforced glass and transparent materials that would offer some sort of protection and would of course serve as the main observation area of the complex.

Days before the event, it was leaked that the count of researchers had been severely reduced. Instead, heads of state, companies, oligarchs and men of other arts were booked in the many rooms of the complex. Places were sold, killed for, and reinforced.

Of course there will still be a research team appointed to the building, those that didn't go agaist the decision of the states. The grandeur of the materials and miracles created by the collaboration paled under that fierce fist of the power that can be exercised by togetherness. Men in white robes were placed in the transparent walls, in the middle of the building. they would report the first incident to the rest. They would see first-hand when the ceiling cracked and pass the news to the ones in the dark walls.

But when the things came from over the sky and raised from the waters, no level of ingenuity held up their pace. and fortunate were the ones that heard, because they were blinded from what happened to them. And the ones in their dark holes could watch from their electronic eyes and flesh ones the end of all. Piece by piece. And the construct of the dark tree that they build together hugged their corpses. And the lucky ones dripped from the severed windows and meet with the old bones, and together they were engulfed by the sea, and the things that came from the bowels of time.