It is said that in the beginning, when God created Earth, on the first day, they stated, "Let there be light," and there was light.
On the second day, it was said that God stated, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water," with that, the sky was created.
On the third day, it was said that God stated, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear," and with that, Land was made.
After the creation of Land, the Old Testament dictates that God moved on, creating vegetation, the day and light cycle, and until after some time, they moved on, and it came time to form living beings to habitat the planet.
Although it is a topic of contention or, maybe I should say, WAS, a subject of conflict between the various scholars and minds of Earth, there was one thing that could be said about the creation of Earth, and that is, no one knows what transpired when the planet was formed because they weren't there.
However, one thing is certain: unlike the last time there was a massive change in our sector of space and the planet was created, this time, every living human had a front-row seat to the show as Earth underwent tremendous changes.
As I hovered, frozen in place, floating in what was previously the Requiem Space, my eyes were wide and filled with curiosity as I watched the chaos playing out as if viewing a movie.
Lightning flashed around the atmosphere; volcanos erupted; the oceans rose and fell; hell, there were even multiple Earthquakes occurring, which entirely restructured the tectonic shelves the human race had come to acknowledge.
The icy polar caps melted and reformed almost instantly, generating massive floods and feeding the newly growing oceans to adapt to the new size of where they would eventually reside.
Right before my eyes, and playing out in real-time, I watched as the floating sphere of rock and water expanded. I couldn't fathom the enormity of what I was watching, but as time passed, I realized I didn't recognize any familiar landmarks.
Gone were the previous seven continents I had grown up learning about in school; gone were the individual seas that I could name by heart.
Sure, some places resembled their previous selves, such as the rough-shaped landmass, which I believed to be a drastically changed Australia. Still, overall, the oddly shaped continents had grown multiple times in size and changed their shapes as new Land rose from the water or other parts broke off.
Where there were once seven distinct bodies of Land were now 15, instead of four named oceans, there were now countless bodies of water.
Right before my very eyes, the entire layout of Earth had become foreign to me, and it no longer looked anything like the world I had grown up reading textbooks about.
I had so many questions rattling around in my head, but as I floated in the void, watching my home reforming into a massive, super-sized version of itself, a handful of thoughts came to the forefront of my brain and took over my consciousness.
'How is this possible?'
'What caused this drastic change to occur?'
Unable to get the answers I sought or even consider who was responsible for everything, it took everything I had not to panic or have a full-blown mental breakdown.
'If the planet was changing so drastically, what would happen to those of us asleep?'
'Are we already dead?'
'Instead of a mass slumber, like Niklaus had informed us about, are we all just spirits floating in outer space?'
My rational brain refused to accept any supernatural explanations for the changes Earth was experiencing, and instead, it unraveled into a series of inconclusive and erratic thought chains.
While I floated above the planet, I entered a strange and frankly dull state as I watched Earth like a kid watching a campfire for the first time.
Awe, shock, amazement, these were the only truths I could grasp as I floated alone in the void above Earth.
Then, after an unknown amount of time, my attention was drawn to two of the 15 landmasses exploding, as if a nuclear bomb was set off underneath them, and soon, two more floating rocks joined the moon in orbiting the new planet Earth.
It was around that time that I became aware of the movement of the sun, and soon, as my rationality began returning, I took note of the day and night cycles; that was how I learned that it wasn't only a few minutes that had gone by since the changes began.
Days turned into weeks, then months, followed by years, until I eventually stopped counting and lost track of how long I had been floating above the planet.
The strange thing was, however, that all of this played out in an accelerated manner as if I was watching things in fast forward, and for me, it only felt like a few minutes had gone by since I appeared in the void of the Requiem Space.
As I watched on for an untold amount of time, I began noticing minor incidents all over the place, a burst of light here or an explosion of rock there, and I couldn't quite see the cause behind these.
It wasn't until I observed an enormous fireball, large enough to be spotted from my position, that it clicked in my brain; something magical was happening below.
'Water…Earth…Fire…and I suppose those hurricanes could be considered Air…, it's like something has taken control of the elements and manipulated them into acting this way.'
Hold on, could this be the power source behind the so-called Superpowers that Niklaus spoke of?' I thought as I watched the fireball transform into a long jet stream and burst through a mountain range like a dragon.
If that's the case, then it makes sense that the planet needed to engorge itself; maybe the virus triggered a defense mechanism from the Earth, causing it to adapt and allow for more powerful beings to exist forcefully…still, that doesn't give me any insight as to what happened to my body, or my families for that matter.
"You are quite the curious one…what is your name?" While I was lost in thought, the voice of an elderly man came from behind me, startling me so badly that, like during Niklaus's speech, I began spinning out of control in the zero-gravity environment.
"FUCK! What, where, who? HUH!" I screamed in confusion as I tried swimming in the opposite direction of my spin to stop.
"Heh, I should have expected this outcome; I apologize for scaring you, young one here; allow me to help you." Appearing out of a foggy cloud, a sagely old man with skin like aged leather manifested and caught me by the shoulder, halting my spin.
"There, that's better; if I allowed you to keep spinning, we never would have gotten anywhere in our discussion." The old man said with a warm smile.
He held me by the shoulders in less than a second, stopping my spin and leaving me floating in place, dazed, while examining this old man, who appeared out of nowhere.
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