• Terra

    Prologue




    Birth, for me, was easier the second time around. The first time I was born, it was filled with chaos, the kind of chaos, and I was utterly, and completely alone, even though billions of others, just like me, were being born the same way. The first time, my will was as weak as a newborn baby, screaming and frustrated at being born violently, cruelly. The second time, my will was asleep, and only slowly wakened. I was born, because I sensed that my death was near, a death to be caused by a great blight in the universe that, like us, was a great accident. With my second birth, there was great sorrow, as I took a different form, leaving the inhabitants, my children, to certain death, though I didn’t realize this until later.

    I took a name, from a giant pool of memories that were not my own, but a sharing of happenings with those like me. The memories were not my own, but they were as real as our sun, or the air which you might be breathing right now. It came from a civilization from long ago, by your standards, though still remembered by many, for they kept records of their history. It was a name that meant ‘of the earth’, a name that was fitting of my new state. At the time, though I lost my home, and those children dear to me, I did not know what it meant, for I hadn’t fully awakened at the time, and sometimes, I wish I hadn’t.

    I have not the power, though, to undo my decisions, and so I must continue to exist with them, until the moment my true death occurs. As I watch the many worlds, my brothers and sisters, recover from near disaster, I can only give them my best wishes, and look towards the future, which we all nearly lost. This story, my story, our story, starts not with my birth, but before it, in a time of happiness that will, surely, return. It does not start with me, but I have still witnessed it many, many times, and will always remember…