《From Dust》 1: An Empty World It was empty. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was blue, ablue and vast sky going on for miles in every direction. It stretched on beyond the horizon, and kept going beyond the reach of my eyes. The first thing I did after gaining consciousness was try to figure out who I was, and more importantly as of now,where I was. Unfortunately for me, both questions currently held no answer. I tried to rack my brain in an effort to recall some sort of memory, some lifeline I could hold on to, but to no avail. According to my brain, I was nobody, and as far as it was concerned, this was the first experience of my life. It was as if I was the first star in the sky, alone in such a vast and empty universe. Answering the other question, too, proved to be a futile action. This place, this world, for that matter, was all foreign to me. Never in my life had I seen a barren landscape such as this. Actually, I did not recall remembering any other landscapes than the one I saw before me now. Of course, my lack of prior memories did not help me at all in this case. I got up from my position on the ground. Or, at least, I tried. The feeling of using my legs, too, was foreign to me. Although it took me a few tries, I was able to eventually stand on my own two feet.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Looking around, it seemed as if the whole world was made of the same, pale dust. The ground underneath my feet seemed to be no exception. Although it seemed to be made of dust, however, tapping the surface revealed it to be made of a stone-like material. Even so, after all was said and done, there was still one burning question left in my mind:"What now?" The thought resounded in my head, yet I could not think of a solution. The only items I had with my were the clothes on my back, echoing a Greek-style toga. "Wait, Greek?" I thought. The word sounded familiar to me. A smile grew on my face. I finally had my first clue to figure out who I was! Whatever this "Greek" was, it was clearly something to have to do with who I used to be. However, the clue didn''t provide much help if I knew nothing else about it. For example, what even was a "Greek?" Was it a place? A style? I became dejected once more, as I realized my one lifeline to figuring out who I was led to nothing in the end. I sighed, and tried to decide what to do next, now that the option of trying to dig up past memories had gone to bust. Seeing as I had nothing better to do, I choose a random direction, and began to walk. The ground felt odd to my feet at first, but I quickly became accustomed to the feeling. I continued to walk, eager to find something new in this empty world of dust. Hopefully, I wasn''t the only one here... And so began the story of Gaia, the Goddess of Nature. 2: Freedom And so I walked. I walked and I walked and I walked. And then I walked some more. My footprints littered the previously untouched ground below and became a trail that followed me as I continued to move. It became hard to tell just how long I had been walking. Even so, I continued on, optimistic that I would come across something, something to break the stagnation of flat dusty terrain all around me. I did not tire, and did not require sleep. This revelation shocked me at first, but soon became another reason to keep walking. And so that was exactly what I did. It was hard to tell exactly just how much time had passed since I began. The planet had no day or night cycle, just a perpetual blue sky, it seemed. Even as I walked on, nothing happened around me. The landscape remained unchanged, and the sky stayed the same shade of blue it had held ever since I had woken up on this prison. It felt cruel, really. To be so free as to be able to roam the world as you pleased, and yet still feel trapped. I felt lonely. I stopped walking for the first time in what seemed like forever, and fell to the ground. The ever-persistent legs that kept me walked had stopped responding to me.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I cried. It just wasn''t fair. It just wasn''t fair that I had to suffer this hell alone. I squeezed my eyes shut, and tears fell from my eyes, wetting the once dry land. More and more tears fell as I let my emotions loose upon this accursed world. Suddenly, I felt something other than dust beneath me. I opened my eyes. "Grass," my mind unconsciously thought. It was green, and was vastly different from the dusty terrain I had grown so accustomed to. I brushed my hand against it, and reveled in the sensation of something new. Tears welled up in my eyes again, yet not for the same reason as earlier. I did not know how long I sat there, brushing my hands on the soft green blades before I gained the strength to once again stand up. I felt much weaker than before, my legs barely holding me up, but still felt newfound strength for overcoming my somber mood. The grass encompassed a large circle around where I had cried. The greenness of the land contradicted the pale brownness of the chalky land around me. The grass defied the barren world surrounding it, life in a empty, desolate world. It was unlike anything this world had ever seen. "Did I do this?" I thought. In my mind, there was no other explanation as to how this could happen. A new feeling rose up within my heart, one I had never felt before. The ability to change the world around me ignited a spark within me, and granted me strength. It granted me hope. As I lingered on these feelings I came to a sudden realization. If I had the ability to grow life in a harsh environment, then what else could I do? What were the extent of my powers? Suddenly, a grin smeared itself on my face. It was time to see exactly what I could do with these new powers of mine. 3: Creation "Ahhh..." I fell onto the grass patch I had created earlier. Of course, it was hard to control a power you didn''t know existed until recently. I didn''t even know where to begin at trying to use this strange ability of mine. My attempts to recreate the phenomenon that happened earlier were nearly all in vain. At first, I had tried focusing on a spot to try and figure out how well I could control the growth of life in a specific area. Squinting my eyes at a location just outside of the circle of grass, I focused my attention as hard as I could. Nothing happened. All I had gotten for my efforts was a headache for focusing too hard for so long. I felt dejected, but it wasn''t like anything would happen on this world without me doing it. As far as I knew, I was the only living being on this planet, meaning that everything would remain stagnant until I changed it. Nothing would change, and everything would remain the same. I was the only one who could change that. As for my next attempt, I thought that it was my tears that somehow grew the plant life around me. Thinking back to the first time I had used my power, it was fairly likely that my tears could have grown the plant life. So clearly, the method to growing more grass was to get myself to cry. Probably. It was difficult to get myself to cry. Of course, I couldn''t will myself to cry, so I had to try other methods to get tears out of my eyes. I made a fist with my hands, and punched myself in the gut as I could. Guess how that went. --- After much physical pain, most of it self-inflicted, I decided that this wasn''t going to get me anywhere. I stopped for a second to catch my breath. Maybe I needed to try something else. Something different. I stood back up from my previous position on the grass. I tried to remember the sensation I felt when I first used this ability. The swirling emotions inside of my as I let loose. I looked upwards, breathed in deeply, and let it out. Sitting back down just as soon as I had stood up, I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. I reached back into my memories of what I assumed was my past life. It was strange, attempting to recall something you didn''t really remember in the first place. I noticed that I no longer felt the blades of grass against my skin. I was completely within my own world, cut off from everything else around me. It was an odd sensation, feeling of being there yet not being there at the same time. It was then that I opened my eyes once more. A ball of light lay between my hands. It was a light magenta color, and looked to be no bigger than the palms of my hands. It did not touch my skin, but instead hovered in between my hands. The heat radiating from the ball warmed my hands, and it felt nice. Almost on instinct, I lowered the ball of light into the ground beneath me, and after a small rumble, a sprout rose out of the grass. It reached no taller than my ankles, and yet captivated me entirely.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It was something new, and that fact interested me greatly. Unconsciously, I moved my hands to cover the sprout, and closed my eyes. I felt a great deal of my energy leave me, and flow into the sprout. I was shocked at first, but felt determined to keep my hands over the sprout. The ground shook again, and my eyes widened at the sight in front of me. Taking multiple steps back, I watched as the once-small sprout rapidly grew before my very eyes. "It''s a tree," I thought to myself. The base of the it alone took up nearly half of the circle of grass I made before. Then I looked up. My mouth opened without me even knowing it. It was huge, larger than anything I had ever seen before. It seemed as if it would never stop growing. This continued on for quite some time until the tree nearly blocked the sky from view. The dark green leaves replaced the familiar blue sky I was used too. "Wow," I muttered aloud, to no one. Internally making a list of "The largest things I have ever seen," I immediately put this tree at the top of it. Granted, it was the only entry on that list, but it wasn''t like anything would top this tree anytime soon. I walked up to the base of the tree, and touched it. The bark felt firm, and rough to the touch. It was vastly different to the smoothness of the grass and the chalkiness of the dust I had felt before. As my hand remained on the tree, a glowing white circle appeared in the shape of my hand on the bark. "Wha-?" I said, before the strange circle disappeared as soon as it had shown up. Soon after the circle had vanished, a hole had appeared in the trunk of the tree. I was pretty sure that wasn''t there before. The hole was large enough to fit myself through with room to spare. I could only assume I was supposed to go inside. I peered inside, and only saw darkness inside. I wasn''t sure if I wanted to got in there, to be honest. It was probably my actions that had opened this hole, but that didn''t mean I was willing to step inside without a care in the world. Putting myself on guard, I cautiously stepped though the hole, and into the tree. --- It was dark. I was quite used to the never-ending light of the dusty planet outside, and the immediate transition to darkness was quite unnerving. Keeping one of my hands to the sides of the small passage for support, I continued to go deeper and deeper within the tree. As I made my way into the tree, I saw a glowing purple light in the distance. I squinted my eyes, and saw that it was the same shade of magenta that the glowing ball I held in my hands was earlier. I quickened my pace, and the glowing light grew closer. I reached the end of the path, and discovered that there was in fact a large chamber hidden deep within the tree. A stream of glowing light stretched from the ceiling into the ground. Looking around around, there seemed to be nothing else occupying the room save for the stream of light. I walked further into the chamber. The light stream in the middle continued to flow on. The magenta light flowed smoothly, as if it was moving to a set rhythm, a set pattern. I extended my hand towards the flow of light, and the light all at once ceased its movement. My eyes widened, before the frozen light flew towards me. "Ahh!" I screamed as the light assaulted me. Soon, my vision was clouded with magenta light, and I could see nothing else. I knelt to the ground, not out of my own will. The light continued to force its way deeper into myself, despite my best efforts to stop it. I let out a groan when the burden on my mind became nearly too difficult to manage. My vision blurred, and I felt like I was on the verge of blacking out. It was then that I remembered. I remembered everything. Who I used to be, where I used to live, what happened before I woke up on this dust-filled rock. My name was Celeste. I was 18. I had a family. I had a job. I had friends. I had a life. And I was dead. 4: Awakening I was dead. Yet here I was, very much so the opposite of dead. Alive, one might say. Alive, and yet dead at the same time. "How?" I asked. How could someone be dead, yet continue to live? It was a contradiction by the very definition of the word! My mind rattled with answers to the question, but none of them were the one I seeked. Shakingly, I touched my hand to my chest. The steady, yet rapid pace of my pulse served to confirm that fact that I was indeed, living. I held my hand there and felt the pace of my heartbeat gradually slow, letting out a breath I did not know I was holding. I was alive. And that was all that mattered right now. My attention snapped back to the stream of light that had just invaded my mind. I didn''t know exactly what had just occured, but the once vibrant stream of light occupying the room had faded to but particles floating around. Studying my surroudings, I realized that the room was visibly dimmer than it had once been before. The glow from the feeble embers of light barely allowed enough light to see. The dim wisps danced around in my vision, coloring the dark room with lights. They looked like fireflies. Or, at least I think they did. My regained memories were still a bit hazy. Although the light had grown weaker, I had noticed that I no longer felt as weak as I did when I transferred my energy into the sapling. I seemed to have had absorbed the light''s energy and made it into my own. The only question on my mind now was what exactly that energy was. It certainly wasn''t any form of energy I had seen on Earth, and without a doubt didn''t look like anything I had ever seen before. So, if it wasn''t any identifiable form of energy, then what was it?Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. "Mana," I said to myself. The name seemed appropriate, given the otherworldly appearance it held. It was something straight out of a fantasy world. Their enchanting glow looked like magic. I had an idea. I sat on the ground and closed my eyes. Once again, I fell back into a state in which my mind was cut off from the outside world, and began to search inwardly for a trace of mana. Surely, all of that energy I had absorbed had been stored somewhere. And so I searched. Then, after much time had passed, I found it. Deep within myself was a large pool of glowing purple energy. It held a much darker shade than the particles outside. If one was to look closely, they one find it was in fact, growing. It grew in size very slowly, but that growth would surely accumulate over time. I guided a mote of light out from the pool, and into my body. From there, I directed it to my arm. Then, to my fingertips. I opened my eyes once again. A small, luminous ball of my mana emanated from my fingertips. It let out a soft glow of magenta light. I stared at it for quite some time, enchanted by it''s appearance. Then, after deciding it was time to release the energy back into my body, I repeated the steps I took earlier in reverse. I gasped in realization that I had finally done it. I smirked, knowing that my efforts had finally come to fruition. Although the process itself was simple in retrospect, it was my first real accomplisment in terms of using my abilities. I felt proud of myself. I then stood back up and straightened my legs, warming them back up. They had become stiff from sitting for so long. Making my way back though the same passage I had originally come from, I soon made it back outside the tree. After being so accustomed to the darkness within the tree, the completely average amount of light outside was blinding. I squinted for a bit as it became difficult to see. "Now then, what next?" I thought to myself. I looked out towards the still empty horizon. Other than this small paradise, this world was empty. Vast, but empty. As far as I knew, the only things on this planet other than dust were myself, this patch of grass, and this titan of a tree. A new goal then rooted itself into my mind. I wanted to fill this empty world. With what, I didn''t yet know, but I felt a sense of responsibility to shape and mold this world. To fill it with life, and populate it. And with that, I now had a purpose. A desire to fulfill. No longer was I merely a wandering spirit roaming the world. "Time for some terraforming," I said. I had quite a bit of work to do. Sad news: Story is Stopping Here So, as the title suggests, I''m going to stop the story here. Don''t worry, I''m not dropping the project completely, but I feel like I need some more time before I''m ready to post this on a website for others to read. Perhaps I''m just critical of my own work, perhaps I''m scared that I won''t be able to keep consisted quality updates, but my decision remains.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Sorry for ending it here guys, but trust me, I''ll be back, and better than before. -HeatBlaze