The Fall

"God's jokes aren't funny..." Silas muttered as he peeked his head out of the tree, shielding him from the impact of the comet crashing with the ground.

Several trees beside him fell right in front of him by the impact of the comet with the ground; luckily enough, Silas wasn't buried under them, but now he was there standing alone but much farther away from the crash site with just bodies of uprooted trees in front of him.

He looked seemingly dazed as he blankly stared at the sight in front of him, the whole ground having been turned upside down, a gaping deep crater in front of him, even the sight of several dozen dark trees burning in front of him, but the flames didn't seem capable enough to endure the snow and cold winds surrounding them.

"... Holy fuck," he couldn't help but say his emotions out loud as he witnessed the sight and in a daze somehow crawled up over the fallen tree that covered him from impact, but the moment he arrived on the other side, he noticed his drone and the camera it carried had both been absolutely destroyed by impact.

"Having all limbs is a blessing already..." Silas sighed with a chuckle; the loss of the expensive drone and camera didn't seem that deep to him at the moment, and as he glanced at his phone screen, he noticed a few cracks, but the phone still seemed to be working fine.

[Stream end]

Silas's livestream had stopped on its own due to a lack of internet connection in the region, and with a lack of drone camera now, he could indeed switch the stream to his phone, but

"I really am not getting paid enough for this shit." Silas sighed deeply, and placing his phone into his pockets, and out of insane curiosity, he started making his way towards the crashed comet ahead of him.

"After all, how many times do you even see a comet so close and survive?" Silas felt goosebumps from all the excitement, and with a nod, he made his way towards the crash site, jumping over all those uprooted trees, and finding the path through this maze was tough and tiring, but he managed to pass through everything and eventually reached the crash site.

"It's huge..." Silas muttered witnessing the size of the crater, and it was a fact: the hole dug in was more than about a hundred meters in radius, and despite being surrounded in snow, the whole ground seemed to be releasing hot steam, with some places even burning with flames.

Silas knelt down and even inspected the ground; the heat was a real deal. "Haha..." he chuckled dryly, and while shaking his head, he remarked, "... Talk about rare experiences in life."

Silas remained there standing, observing the ground while his eyes were set over a shining stone-like substance at the center of the crater, the meteor, which came from outside of the planet and almost took his life too.

P

'Shall I give it a try?' Silas asked himself; his legs were ready to march forward, but his mind paused his footsteps, and his eyes moved forward and noticed the crystalline shine around the fallen comet. The very ground has turned into glass because of the extreme heat carried by the comet. 

The sight made him suck in a deep, cold breath while bracing himself. "... Seems like curiosity will kill the cat today," he muttered and cautiously jumped into the crater.

"ACK!?" Finding balance in a slope was a bit hard, but he managed to hold on over his legs and eventually, reaching over the flat part to the crater, slowly started moving ahead towards the fallen comet.

"Fuu~" Silas's face was full of caution, yet the eyes were full of curiosity as he marched ahead, and eventually, as he walked, the vision of the fallen comet on the ground was even clearer, and finally arriving at the core center is the crater, Silas could finally see it.

"... Just what the hell is this?" Silas remarked with wide eyes and jaws shaking in disbelief that the comet he had expected to be made up of ice, dust, or rock floating in space had unexpectedly been replaced by something unseen and unique.

Instead of a lump of burning hot rock from space, what Silas saw in front of him was a crystalline red sphere with raw, hard, and sharp texture; it seemed like a jewel made up of blood, refined in heart, is sun, surrounded by the shadows of its eclipse. 

"It's almost the size of my chest..." Silas muttered as his hands, covered in thick gloves, approached that unknown crimson crystal sphere fallen from the night skies.

Silas could already see lots of steam coming from that crimson sphere; without a shred of doubt, that thing was hot, but even Silas didn't expect his gloves to simply turn into vapor the moment it made contact with that crimson sphere.

"Fck?!" Silas immediately snapped his hand back; luckily, his fingers didn't get burned by that heat, and he stared at that strange sphere with a hard look of surprise.

He shook his head and with a deep sigh muttered, "... That was stupid of me." He glanced over at that sphere again and just quietly sat down on the ground beside that crimson sphere while observing it.

"How ominous..." Silas chuckled and took out his phone and took several pictures of that sphere with a tiny smile and started attempting to try to find some network in this godforsaken place with the help of a satellite phone.

"Hmm... well, thankfully I visited the base before visiting this place, which became my almost grave." Silas chuckled as he adjusted the frequency of the call on his satellite phone, and finally a response was heard from the other side of the call.

[Bzzz... This is Fort Icewatch Operations Command. You're on a secure military frequency. Identify yourself and state your purpose immediately.]

"I'm Silas Bianchi! Remember~ I visited the base last month? The guy trying to stream over the North Pole of the planet? The comet guy?" Silas uttered his words in a hurry and with nervousness, but to his fortune, Silas was an impactful personality. 

[Oh! The steamer! But why are you calling now? It's a military frequency for rescues?]

"I need a rescue dude... A meteor just crashed right over my ass. All my camping equipment is thrashed. Can you send help? I'm sending coordinates."

[... That came out of nowhere... Bzzz... Anyway, send coordinates!]

"Okay!" Silas yelled excitedly and told them his coordinates and once again collapsed on the ground with a wide grin on his face, awaiting military rescue.

"... It will take an hour or two, I guess." Silas nodded, taking note of the time on his phone, and his eyes once again fell over that crystalline red sphere, now covered in a thin layer of snow and melted water around it.

"... What the hell is it made of? It cooled off pretty quickly." Silas was amused, and once again picking up the courage, attempted to touch the crystalline red sphere, and this time his gloves didn't burn off. 

"Who~" Silas grinned and started to move his hands all around the surface of that sphere, but he couldn't get the right feel with gloves over his arms; he removed them without hesitation and grabbed the comet with his naked arms. 

"It's warm..." Silas was surprised by the amount of comfort it gave to touch that thing with bare hands and started moving his hands around the surface of the crystal sphere, but... That right there was a mistake made in a surge of excitement.

"ACK?!" Silas accidentally cut his finger because of the rough, crystalline, raw, hard surface of that sphere. He reflexively took his arms back, shaking up the pain from his arms; he took notice of the wound in his palm.

'... Thankfully not a deep cut; it would be another hell to deal with in such a cold climate,' he sighed, shaking his head, but in that moment he didn't even realize the droplets of his blood were being absorbed inside that crimson red sphere beside him. 

All the blood on its surface was almost instantly absorbed, and the red crimson crystal suddenly started to vibrate and glow up in bright red light, which instantly enveloped the whole region in a flash.

"What the?!" Silas was stunned by this sudden red light covering the whole region, but all that happened in just a mere moment, and now as Silas removed his hands covering his eyes... He realized the comet in front of him had changed.

The bright crimson crystal has lost all of its color and turned into a seemingly transparent glass-like crystal while still containing the same hardness within itself.

"What in the..." Silas's eyes widened in disbelief, and he immediately lunged towards that crystal, observing it from every corner, but he couldn't find a trace of redness over that crystal; the one in front of him now was just a plain, transparent, hard crystal.

"Have I finally gone crazy?"