The beauty of nature

"Ok! those two were the last ones. Now, time to see the end of the world."

Arya turned away from the tunnel and walked towards the mountains in the distance before backtracking after a few steps.

"Cant leave it like this."

He looked around and found a boulder. Trying to lift it but failing, he pushed the boulder to the hole and over it effectively covering it. This would prevent anything from getting in or anyone getting out. Curiosity about ones surroundings is not really the best quality to have during an apocalypse. Especially when you are already in a safe zone.

After finishing his heavy duty work, Arya clapped his hands to remove the dust before nodding and returning on his journey to the mountains.

As he took a few steps in, he saw Haka city shaking in the distance. The earthquake spread to its surroundings claiming ground and laying waste to all that lay before it. The force of nature couldn't be contained by any barricades. The trees collapsed as the waves of power spread through the ground swiftly reaching Arya.

The ground cracked and crumbled and the man who stood in the way of nature looked at the devastation swiftly approaching him before turning and running with as much haste as he could manage, which wasn't much in the face of what was coming for him.

"Damn, I'm late. Its already been twenty minutes."

***

The destruction spread with disregard for the tiny ant running desperately to reach its objective. The

city of Haka sank into the pits of the earth as an expanding crater opened up.

The pit swallowed up the surroundings and soon the tunnel through which Inca, Sim and the rest of the inhabitants of the city fled was swallowed too. The fleeing Arya couldn't reach his objective as the

ground beneath him gave way.

Arya struggled to leap across the falling rocks. He could see that this was not like a typical. earthquake.

The cracks opened were wider than he could see. Despite knowing about what was to come, he had

taken no action to save himself previously. Neither had he stopped the perpetrators responsible for this.

He had simply...let it be. Now, he was regretting his decision. He couldn't have fathomed the degree of what he would be facing.

Still, the place he sent the rest was absolutely safe. Only the entrance was gone. But the pocket he sent them was connected to something he couldn't completely comprehend. The silver sky had ensured him

that the place he had discovered was infact, not in the world he knew. This discovery coincided with his discovery of the apocalypse a week ago as if it was giving him a way out, a path for survival. It was nothing short of a miracle that no one else had discovered this location despite the innumerable years of its existence.

So, he sent everyone he knew and everyone they knew down the hole into the sanctuary. He could have gone with them but what would be the fun in that?

Arya ran across the massive pieces of falling broken earth and leaped from one piece to another. His

strength and stamina not failing him like his speed. He found that despite running as fast as he could, This was still not enough. But, he could not simply give up now could he?

The falling rocks were as endless as he needed them to be because though it was tiring to jump across them, it would be worse having nothing to step on.

This continued for a while and he slowly descended despite his tiresome efforts while his stamina could not keep up with him.

Slowly he stopped moving and collapsed on a rocky mound. The last thought on his mind before he

fainted was, 'I really wanted to out run at least the earthquake...'

The unmoving body of the youth vanished as it passed through an unseen membrane similar to the

'doorway' he had previously discovered

***

As Arya lay in slumber, the situation did not calm, instead it increased its ferocity. All the points denoted on the globe as seen by Mika were the epicenters of the disasters and also the entry point for the entities of the mysterious realm known as the Abyss.

The earthquakes spread from each point and met up to join together. This resulted in visible cracks

starting to appear on the surface of the planet. With that, the first phase of the terraformation ended.

But immediately, the rest of the natural disasters started at the same time. But no one could call these forces natural.

The winds of razor cut through the land. They parted the boiling seas. The magma rose from the depths through the cracks formed on the surface. The tornadoes and hurricanes washed through all.

The lightning and thunder revealed its rage. The water rose and flooded the land conflicting with the

already present lava and magma and let out bursts of steam as the water struggled to cool the magma which attempted to evaporate it.

The resulting steam formed clouds and came back down as rain thus giving life to the storm that

engulfed the planet.

As the torrential storms and rain purified all, the magma cooled and sprayed out indefinitely as if

without limits. The size of the outer crust increased as it expanded due to quakes whose resulting cracks filled up with cooled magma which broke again with the power of the earth's shake. This cycle

continued till the size of the planet more than doubled. The source of this excess magma was not

known.

But the change did not end there. The razor winds sliced the lands and scarred it making permanent

marks that no amount of surgery would fix. The changes to the mass and size of the planet affected its only moon pulling it close and clashing with it and engulfing it to increase its size yet again. Broken pieces of the satellite floated above the surface due to unknown new laws. The metals and minerals formed mountains on the already uneven surface.

The amount of water increased and filled up canyons in order to make seas and oceans rivers and lakes.

The changes mentioned did not actually take too much time. It took only a single year for the changes to the planet to complete. This prepared it for the arrival of its new hosts. Beings of chaos whose home was the abyss.

Fauna dig themselves out of the earth, appear from spatial membranes and crawl out from the depths of the new oceans. They take to the skies or roam the earth with some staying in the seas as well.

Flora break out of the infertile land. Spores spread throughout via the sharp winds of the now

inhospitable terrain. New plants of various colors and shapes appear everywhere. Their numbers

unmatched by the fauna.

New forms of life previously unconceived now propagate everywhere. Their numbers grow swiftly as

this is not the creation of life but merely transference.

The light from the sun is the only thing similar to the old world.

***

"Uhh, where am I?"

The first thing he noticed was the change in air pressure from what his body was used to. He also sensed the increased purity of the atmosphere.

Arya looked around to find himself in a place he couldn't recognize. The rocky black terrain. Colorful grass and seemingly petrified trees. Though he said trees and grass, neither remotely resembled any that he knew. Temperature could not be clearly discerned. It could be called both hot and cold.

He stood up displaying his nudity in full glory. There was nothing the cover himself with, not that he had worn much when he had them. The 'leaves' didn't seem as though they would be of much help either.

The took in more of his surroundings and identified several moving objects as animals. Again, these were nothing like any he'd seen. Though they had several characteristics of animals he knew, they were definitely not them nor were the likely to be related. He observed a bit more and finally discovered a few familiar entities. These were the insects.

Insects could be said to be the most resilient beings on the planet. Despite their small size, they were extremely adaptable and their methods of survival were numerous. These amazing life forms were the only survivors of the old world.

"So this is what hell looks like! Not too shabby I'd say. I think I'm gonna like it here."

***

The hungry predator stalked its prey with experienced steps. The animal kingdom is fraught with similar battles of life and death. The strong and fit prey on the weak and grow even stronger. The strong die and become nourishment for the weak. This cycle continues for eternity wherever there is life, even in this new world.

The prey seems to be an organism with characteristics mildly similar to the rabbits of old. Its seemingly soft fur and basic structure though similar to that of a rabbit, this carnivore has four eyes as well as sharp prickly appendages reminiscent of the classic rabbits ears. Its three clawed feet and four clawed fore legs serve well as tools for hunting and dissecting prey. The sharp teeth allow this hostile organism to bite clean through hide and bone. Its tail also houses a neuro-toxic barb allowing it to hunt those larger than it.These organisms despite having an arsenal of lethal tools, share the timidity of its similar sized brethren along with their muscular strength.

This is the prey Arya had found after searching for hours. Every other animal he found looked too threatening to approach. The plant life being an unknown variety did not reassure him with its oddly colorful fruits and seemingly non threatening branches which seemed to be quite capable of quick movement akin to tentacles of squids. Their sharp thorns were of no help either in convincing him that they were safe for consumption.

Hence, he had no choice but to try to sustain himself with the most primitive and sacred form of energy gathering -hunting.

The green rabbit infront of him looked less likely to be able to kill him than his other findings.

Arya watched the lone rabbit carefully. He studied its movements and planned his own. When the rabbit showed the slightest opening, he would strike with everything he had. His weapon was nothing but his own body. There were no fallen branches for him to use around and the ones connected to trees looked to be even more difficult of an opponent than the rabbit. Any rocks he found were too heavy for him to even lift let alone wield as a weapon.

After the excruciating 20 minutes, the rabbit which was burrowing the ground, the same ground Arya had trouble denting, seemingly looking for insects or such seemed to have found what it was looking for. Arya's patience had been rewarded by the rabbit's momentary lax.

This allowed Arya to lunge forward horizontally to the ground and pounce on his prey like a spring. The rabbit, immediately aware of its folly and the approaching danger made a leap in order to evade the threatening claws of its soon to be predator. Alas, Arya had been studying its movements well and was well aware of how it would respond.

Pushing down with his right hand like a spring, Arya launched himself towards the rabbit and punched out hard with his left. As a result, the light body of the rabbit was launched further up in to the air. This unexpected action was enough to faze it for a moment. This was enough for Arya as he retracted his outstretched limbs and righted himself. There after, he caught the small animal by its neck and squeezed hard breaking it before it was able to further react.

Arya was not pleased though as the battle was a pyrrhic victory as the rabbits retaliation before its death caused him to suffer deep lacerations on his arms and chest as well as a poisoned arm due to its tail.

The victorious predator was not able to enjoy his hard earned meal due to collapsing from the toxin. His convulsing body rejected the foreign agent and emulated various forms of pain. The poison also had both a numbing agent and a hallucinatory agent as well. Despite the numbness spreading through out his body, the pain did not relent. Instead, he started to experience auditory and visual hallucinations which were strangely disjointed from each other.