The earth was cold.
Not in the way that ice numbs the bones or winter seeps through to the marrow. No. It was cold in the way absence feels when it stretches on too long — an emptiness that gnaws, that chills without end. The two orbs descended to the cold, lifeless earth with the speed of light. Or so Wander thought, for it wasn''t bound by time.
Yet their journey stretched on for a million years, in the language of the mortals, before they could get anywhere near the land. They hovered and zipped through space, twirling like two great comets dancing in the skies.
The first orb, Body, was a simple but heavy thing. It''s very energy was brimming with the raw potential of matter and form and the first seeds of life. It was heavy. And so it dropped faster. The closer it was to the Earth, something magical happened. Body wasn''t zipping through space anymore but Earth was pulling it, sucking it into itself as if it had been waiting for this very moment.
It was alive. Earth was alive!
And it whole-heartedly invited the intruder.
The second orb, Soul, was a feature-light but complex thing. It couldn''t keep up with Body''s speed. But Body didn''t care. It descended with a greed to possess the raw Earth long before it''s counterpart.
When Body stuck the Earth with an unrelenting force, the impact created craters on the Earth''s surface, breaking its crust and shaking its core. But Earth didn''t scream. It swallowed the orb, the raw power of its energy, letting it seep through every granules of its sand, every drop of its water and carve through the rocks and crusts. That was all Body ever wanted. It enveloped the Earth, the whole of it in its minute, invisible silver spindle-like threads until…
Molecules collided, merged and multiplied until…
Until the first sparks of life emerged. Single-celled organisms.
At the edge of volcanic vents, where oceans boiled with heat and minerals, formed the first life on Earth. These tiny, single-celled organisms—they were simple, almost insignificant. But within them they held the untamed power of Body. They were the direct descendents of Body, of the raw cosmic energy. They fed on the heat and minerals, evolving, multiplying.
Oh… They were happy the way they were. Eat. Divide. Repeat.
But the consciousness of Body within them wasn''t.
It needed more. To be more.
It pushed them to seek the sun light penetrating the ocean''s surface. To them, it was alien and overwhelming. But they adapted, absorbing its energy, turning it into this magical stuff that we now call oxygen and breathing it into the world. Their breathe cleansed the air, forming a protective shield around the Earth—now their home—unlike any Body had seen in the cosmic vastness. This shield turned the skies blue and the seas vibrant.
Body was happy but not satisfied.
It pushed them more, to merge and form colonies, and then… multicellular organisms.
Not quite!
The organisms grew fins and tails.
Not quite!
Fins grew into limbs.
Not quite!
They crawled from oceans seeking the warmth of the land, scales turning into fur and limbs turning into feathers and wings. Forests of green spread across continents, fed by the light of an unyielding sun. Creatures roamed the land.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Not quite!
Body was never satisfied. It kept pushing the organisms—now creatures—to be better, stronger, more intelligent and capable then their previous iteration—their previous generation. Body was at the core of evolution, experimenting with various combinations, producing a variety of creatures with every hunger-filled pulse of its never-ending pursuit for perfection, keeping the ones that were thrivable and wiping out the others that didn''t quite fit its vision.
And somewhere in its countless iterations, it created one species peculiar and fragile, yet holding imperceptible intelligence in them: humans. They were imperfect, yes, their bodies were clumsy and their minds driven by hunger and fear. But they found a solution, a mechanism to survive whatever was thrown at them. Their world was primal and brutal, but they thrived—building shelters, taming fire, and warring over scrapes of land.
Body was happy. It was particularly fond of these creatures—humans— for they were the best of its creations. Yet!
—–
Soul took its time descending through space, down to the now, life-filled Earth. Unlike Body it didn''t feel the urge to possess Earth because somehow it instinctively knew it would soon be ruling over everything that Body had created. And so it descended with a quiet intensity of purpose, unseen by any life form on the planet. Its landing did not create a crater as it did with Body''s. It was a soft and gentle thud, ripping breeze over the surrounding trees, allowing them to sway ever so slightly.
But where it landed, the air froze in an instant, sending shock waves through the frozen bubble. Beneath the impact point, soil blackened and cracked. The molecules that touched the bubble crystallized into a solid, black, otherworldly substance and before the orb had the time to escape the frozen bubble, it was enveloped by a whole mound of that substance. Tiny jagged spires of the otherworldly substance covered every inch of the mound, inside out.
From a mortal''s perspective, it would have as well been a shrine or a womb. But in truth, it was a prison to the orb stuck inside, for every time it hit the walls of the cave-like interior of the mound—an attempt to escape its prison—a part of it was ripped off. It took three attempts, three hits for the orb to realize it wasn''t going anywhere but losing itself to its shield.
What was a wholesome orb of raw energy a few moments ago was now ripped off into eight smaller blobs of pulsing energy, each with their own agenda. They twirled inside the cave, getting accustomed to the Earth''s atmosphere and it''s warmth, undetected by any life form, uninterrupted.
Over the centuries, the eight energy blobs learned a lot about themselves, developing distinct personalities that aligned with their agenda. They were individuals with separate ways of thinking that was far removed from their creator, Wander. They swirled inside the cave, blinking like wisps and giggling and playing, forming a strange kind of kinship within themselves. They were siblings born from the same cosmic energy and they could sense it, if not comprehend.
Over the years, they interacted with one another just to get rid of the boredom and communicated in an odd and silent way that no human could ever hope to understand.
And together they waited a thousand years, for someone or something to free them from the outside because they couldn''t break open their prison from the inside.
—–
By the time Soul reached the Earth, the land was no longer barren. It hummed with life, rich with forests, rivers and mountains. But humanity, the most celebrated children of evolution, carried within them the same flaws that had plagued Wander''s creations everytime before: greed, hatred, pride.
With Soul now on Earth, Wander thought, this time it would be different.
After all, Soul was designed to feed on those unpleasant emotions leaving only the best ones for the humans to live with. So Wander thought, with hope after hope that this time everything would be perfect.
But even Wander couldn''t anticipate what was to come.
—–
Thousand years after the orbs were imprisoned in the crystalline mound, one day, a storm came without warning. It was a feral and apocalyptic surge that painted the skies in bruised purples and blacks. Lightning tore through the heavens, its jagged forks splitting clouds as rain lashed the earth. The storm raged for days, unrelenting, that seemed intent on tearing the world apart.
As if the skies wanted to touch the mound, to feel it and to awaken the orbs within, a bolt of lightning appeared crackling through the night sky, branching into a million tiny fingers, slowly, deliberately reaching the base of the mound.
The sudden discharge and overwhelming heat did it.
The walls of the mound exploded in a deafening blast, releasing the energy blobs out into the open. The blobs twirled for a minute more than necessary, paused their dance, confused, as if they were expecting another mound to form in place. But nothing happened. The ground was littered with sharp, broken pieces of the otherworldly material, big and small. The blobs, now pulsing with a different colour each, wisped along the ground, inspecting the broken fragments, which was once their home. Then as if in synchrony, they turned towards each other, if blobs could do that. A sudden reaization dawned on them—they''re no longer bound to their prison. They hovered, pulsing in unison for a moment, before streaking into the darkened sky like newborn comets, their laughter drowning in the storm.
They were finally free!