Earth Year 2388
The Earth, once a thriving cradle of life, had been drained to the marrow. Natural resources were nearly exhausted, and humanity had been left fractured by greed, war, and its relentless march toward ruin. World War Four, ignited in 2319, brought nations to their knees with weapons that scarred the planet irreparably. Cities turned to ash, oceans turned toxic, and the skies burned red.
At its height, humanity had numbered 18 billion in the year 2176. Now, fewer than a billion remained—a shadow of its former self. The survivors, battered and broken, clung together in a desperate bid for survival. They united under one banner, but it was too little, too late. The Earth was dying, its ecosystems collapsing, temperatures spiking to 100-degree lows and unimaginable highs. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis became routine. Death lurked in every corner.
The end was inevitable.
It happened on a Tuesday.
The day began like any other, steeped in mundane misery. Those who still worked trudged to their jobs. Children played in streets lined with crumbling buildings. The rich, isolated in their remaining bastions of luxury, ignored the plight of the world around them. It was the same routine humanity had followed for decades—a desperate attempt to cling to normalcy in a world that was anything but.
Then, the skies darkened.
At first, it seemed like another one of Earth's countless storms. A minor annoyance in a land besieged by disasters. But as the hours passed, the darkness deepened. The sun vanished entirely, and the air grew heavy, thick with an oppressive weight that no one could explain. Across the globe, power grids flickered and failed, communication lines went silent, and panic began to spread.
The first sightings of the meteor came shortly after.
Astronomers, baffled by its sudden appearance, scrambled to understand how something so massive could have evaded detection. The object was larger than Earth itself, an impossibility that defied every natural law they understood. It wasn't just the size—it was the speed, the inevitability of its approach. By the time the world's population turned its collective gaze upward, it was too late.
For hours, chaos reigned. Governments issued statements of calm that no one believed. Survivalists fled to their bunkers, though even they knew there was no escape. As the meteor loomed closer, blocking out the heavens, humanity's cries for salvation grew louder. Millions fell to their knees in prayer, their voices rising as one.
And then something answered.
The prayers, born of desperation and despair, coalesced into a force that pierced the void of space and time. It reached a being—something vast and ancient, a consciousness that had watched the rise and fall of countless civilizations. This entity, detached from mortal concerns, stirred for the first time in eons. It regarded humanity with neither pity nor malice, only curiosity.
"A second chance?" the being mused, its voice reverberating across existence itself. "Very well. A trial you shall have."
With a single thought, the being acted. The Earth shattered beneath the meteor's impact, its crust splintering like glass. Mountains crumbled, oceans boiled, and all that humanity had built was reduced to ash. Yet, the souls of its people endured. Torn from their fragile bodies, they floated in the void, suspended in the entity's grasp.
"I will grant you a new beginning," the being declared. "But you will be tested. In this new world, you may rise… or you may fall."
The void gave way to light.
Humanity awoke in Tulmyria, a realm vast and alien.
Tulmyria was a land of wonders and terrors, where sprawling continents stretched farther than the oceans of Earth ever had. Vast deserts sparkled with crystalline sands, jungles teemed with beasts that defied imagination, and mountains pierced the skies, cloaked in eternal storms. It was a world as beautiful as it was dangerous.
But Tulmyria was no paradise. Its people were as flawed as those of Earth—greedy, ambitious, and willing to destroy what they could not control. It was a realm on the brink of its own ruin. Into this chaotic tapestry, humanity was reborn.
Their souls found new vessels: the newborn children of Tulmyria. For most, memories of Earth faded like a distant dream, leaving only faint impressions of their former lives. They embraced their new existence, forging kingdoms, building legacies, and shaping their destinies.
But not everyone forgot. A few clung to fragments of the past, haunted by the loss of their loved ones and driven to seek them out. Among them was one soul whose fate was unlike any other.
The being, curious and capricious, chose to break its own rules. This soul was not reborn as a human but as something entirely different. Cast into the form of a beast, it was isolated from the rest of humanity, its new body imbued with the wild, primal magic of Tulmyria. Alone and uncertain, it faced a path far removed from the lives it had once known.
This is his story.