I remember the first time I laid eyes on it. I was young then, my days spent playing a sport long forgotten of kicking a ball to each other. The sun kissed the horizon goodbye as it gently painted the corners of the sky a gentle orange tint. The long, thick, sunlight-coloured pastures cushioned our rolling and tumbling; that was when the poison began. The Oneirotects, the designers of dreams built great cities atop the spine of God. The buildings sang linear and sleek shapes. Metals and glass are woven together into minimal designs. I was an adolescent when they began to cover the sky in soot and steam.
The land cried fire and the clouds rained a frost so violent it insulted the green father. The sky challenged him every day for years; It was his children that spewed rotted breath into the air and left it blocked in a repulsive grey. I couldn't remember the colour it once was after the flying machines peppered the skies. It tasted like smoke in a windowless hut like the one my grandmother used to cook and tell stories in; I'd find myself leaving periodically as I desperately needed fresh air save this time there was none to quench the choking.
The hills were grafted atop the intertwining bones of Gireya, it had given its body to us to live on. The history of it is long lost. Some say Gireya was moulded from the dream of a greater force; Fragga is what they called it. The oceans held much life, life teaming with life that was his kindness to us. Gireya gave us more to discover, find, and connect with. The beaches began to bleed when we built machines to farm the seas more efficiently. We dumped the old, the used-up, and the oils we needed to dive deeper into those waters in those dark depths and we said it was necessary for progress.
We humans were close with the Muti: A vast and intelligent plant-like life form that ruled the land with us. It taught us to tune into nature and see all that Fragga made. The dream and the conscious, how when you slept your mind rasped on the door of a different world. We learnt magic; we learnt Oneiroturgy, the ability to manifest dreams into the waking. We learnt to blur the lines and bring what we held in our subconscious into reality. We were meant to connect deeper with them and everything around us, enlighten our emptiness and be full but we saw a weapon. We could conquer more territory; they could never fight against our power to wield dreams, and they left us in our hubris. They say history is told by the victor but the defeated become more, they become a myth.
I know you are asking me where I am going with this, you could just pick this up anywhere and anytime and get a summary. Why is all this written down by a madman with a penchant for reminiscing how he was part of a people that fucked his planet. Well, the answer to that is easy. We killed God and he wants revenge.
He slumbers now but his will causes ripples to tear open and leak monstrosities you could not dream of. His oceans fill with ulcers and sores of puss and blood. His manic cackle shakes and wreaks havoc on the land: valleys too wide, hills too tall, skies that turn green and purple, and dreams that walk amongst you. I am sorry for what we have done. We fed Fragga toxicities and stabbed several drills into him. We killed our God, and his death is one of violence.
The magic is still here, we use it to defend ourselves. The nightmares that stalk Gireya roam about and kill a man. Strongholds were made and we stay here because if we built countries, our collective subconscious would wipe us out. We cow our numbers, only a few can dream and that is our price. We live how we can for the kind God died by our hand. A slumber she would never once more wake from. The slumbering is all that remains, and in atonement for what we did, we are forever kettle. We fear the day Fragga wakes for he will kill us all.