Dust

Chapter 2 - Dust

Emilio once again experienced his dream, but this time, it felt as if his soul had truly departed from his body, ascending higher and higher until he left the Earth far behind.

From this elevated vantage point, Emilio saw the café, the city, the continent, and eventually the entire world. He thought he was an astronaut for a moment. However, his awe quickly turned to shock as he witnessed Earth undergoing rapid transformation. Human civilization vanished, leaving no trace of cities or buildings behind. The continents shifted, and nature's greenery spread, covering up all remnants of human existence.

"Is time accelerating? The moment I perceive now could be a hundred thousand years or even a million years in the future," Emilio exclaimed, utterly shocked by the sight before him.

He wondered whether time was progressing forward, leading to humanity's extinction, or if it was moving backward to a time when humanity never existed at all. Before he could delve into his theories further, Earth suddenly slipped from his view, leaving him in profound silence.

Abruptly, a force pulled Emilio's body, hurtling him into the vastness of the universe. He saw the majestic sight of countless stars being born and annihilated, witnessing galaxies collapsing in rapid succession. The grandeur of the cosmos was beyond anything he had ever imagined, shattering his perceptions and beliefs, making him feel insignificant in the face of such vastness.

In the presence of the universe's majesty, Emilio questioned the meaning of human existence. The birth of life, the rise of civilizations, wars, conflicts, ambitions and sufferings truly as important as people claimed? "The life of mankind, the entire history of humanity, and even the Earth itself," he reflected, "can only be described as one thing - dust."

Emilio felt overwhelmed by the scene before him, realizing that races and civilizations, including mankind, were fleeting sparks in the vast expanse of the universe. Humanity was like a bright star, shining momentarily before ultimately turning to cosmic dust, a mere blink in the cosmos.

As he contemplated these existential thoughts, a bright light appeared in the distance, pulling him with a stronger force than before. Emilio transformed into a beam of light, flying towards the depths of the universe. He believed he was moving backward through time, heading towards the origin of everything, the moment of the big bang, and the beginning of existence.

Finally, all the stars vanished, and the universe united into a single entity. Everything ceased to exist.

In the beginning or the End.

---

Emilio found himself in an unknown place, surrounded by endless emptiness and silence. There was no darkness, and it seemed like he had disappeared, leaving only his consciousness in this boundless void.

"This must be beyond the universe or an unknown dimension," Emilio speculated, realizing he might be the first and only being to ever arrive in this peculiar realm.

A sudden terror gripped him as he recalled Valentina's words about the possibility of the soul being imprisoned for eternity in an empty void.

"Eternal," the word echoed, intensifying his fear of the unknown that lay ahead.

However, just as his panic, a blinding light appeared before him, accompanied by the roaring sounds of the sea and waves. The sensation was warm and heavy, and Emilio even felt imaginary bubbles rising around him.

As the sea materialized before him, he observed the sand and gravel at the bottom. In this surreal place, Emilio saw a bug similar to a trilobite, resembling the fossil Valentina had given him. Its horseshoe crab-like body featured lobes in the head and tail regions, with an exoskeleton covering it.

Beside the trilobite, a long, noodle-shaped centipede with two wriggling tentacles and sharp mandibles crawled through the gravel.

In this mysterious and surreal place, Emilio's mind raced with questions about where he was, and what lay ahead in this place..

He recalled his friend's words, linking them to Valentina's statements and the trilobite before him.

"Anchor!"

"My anchors on Earth appeared. They allowed me to observe the Earth."

"They are my eyes, my anchor, and coordinates in the vast sea."

Little did he expect that the trilobite fossil given to him by Valentina would become his anchor into this universe, specifically to Earth, pulling him out of the eternal prison and bottomless abyss.

To his surprise, the fossil revealed another creature, a centipede or worm.

He stretched out his hand to catch the cute trilobite.

With that touch, he felt a sense of liberation. He broke free from a cage that had confined him and returned to the universe once again.

His consciousness was drawn into Earth's history, traversing unknown places beyond time and the boundaries of the universe. He found himself anchored at a specific time node in the vast universe, hundreds of millions of years in the past, on a blue planet within a remote solar system.

He now stood in a shallow sea, basking in the sunlight from above. The seabed teemed with various ancient algae and naked fern plants, with large areas of seabed plants resembling tulips, gently swaying with the waves. Cactus-like sponges adorned the outer walls, their sharp long spikes extending outward. Soft tongue snails embedded themselves in the sand, and patches of trilobites crawled on the gravel.

Emilio carefully walked step by step along the bottom of the shallow sea, a feeling of dizziness and strangeness.

This should be Earth, yet it felt unfamiliar, unlike the Earth he was familiar with.

Finally, he emerged from the shallow sea and stood on the barren and sandy ground.

Barren, rocky, dry, and empty, he gazed into the vast nothingness filled only with rocks, sand, and gravel, devoid of vegetation or any living being on land.

Emilio looked at Earth millions of years ago, gazing at the clear sky and the sun, realizing he was the only human in the entire world.

"This is Earth?" he questioned in awe and wonder, as he delved deeper into the mysteries of his transmigration.

Standing at the sandy coast, the sea behind him suddenly made huge waves and burst into a loud noise.

BOOM!

Suddenly, the centipede mutated for unknown reason. The centipede devoured everything in its path, from seaweeds, trilobites, sand, gravel, and everything. Its body visibly grew into a massive behemoth of a monster with a width of 10 meters and a length of 50 meters. Its back grew a black shell filled with pearls that shone like stars, like the bright galaxy behind it.

Emilio had to look up just to see its head.

"ROAR!"

The centipede bellowed with force like a territorial beast that declared his authority, marking the start of its reign but it eventually laid down and closed its eyes.

Emilio couldn't help but marvel at such a sight. This is the first time he has seen such a large animal, and the fact that the centipede had grown to this size was visible to the eye.

He then saw just beside him that he dropped the cute trilobite in his hand. The unique trilobite that Emilio saw eventually evolved as well.

But this is different from the centipede. Its body changed and metamorphosed similarly to Emilio's humanoid form.

Its body changed into a human-like torso, its many feet conjoined, creating two arms with hands, it grew feet, and eventually a tail from a tailbone. It crawled and eventually stood up and looked at Emilio.

The body was covered in black and red exoskeleton with unique horns that spiraled on its head like a crown, its tail supporting its body. It grew a human face similar yet different from Emilio's face. If one looked closely, they could see Emilio and Valentina's features in this trilobite turned humanoid creature.

It opened its eyes and looked directly at Emilio. For some reason, he could feel a connection towards this trilobite, and he could feel its emotions and the message it wants to convey.

Emilio then touched the head of this trilobite humanoid, patting it like a child.

Then the trilobite opened its mouth and uttered the first word.

"God."