Gaea

Chapter 21

Eventually, the swarm of color resolved back into a stable shape, a sphere not dissimilar from the one he had touched. George tentatively opened his eyes and found himself staring directly at the blazing orb of an aging star. George felt no discomfort on his part; he could stare quite readily into the light. Even more surprisingly, he could clearly see the tiny dots of planets in orbit of the bloated star.

George was allowed to bask in the soft orange glow of the sun, floating in the empty void. Then, a disembodied force pushed him toward one of the glinting planets, which quickly grew into a blue-white sphere. George could make out thick white clouds, beneath which was only the bright dusty yellow of desert. A faint trail of gases stretched behind the planet, like the tail of a comet. The sun was a monstrous orange disk in the sky. George could suddenly feel its immense heat and terrible glare.

Even at a cursory glance, he could tell the planet was dying. The clouds meant there was water, at least in the past, but it was obvious that any life that may have once grown in the oceans had long since boiled away. George guessed that the star was reaching the end of its life and drew nearer to its spectacular death throes. No doubt the planet would go with it.

The pain of light and chaos returned, and George closed his eyes in an attempt to escape it. The faint sound of static joined the color.

Once again, the swarm of stimuli subsided and order was reasserted. He saw a barren landscape, not entirely different than that on Gaea. The ground was composed of fine dust that became airborne at the slightest touch. Dense haze obscured the horizon. A heavy canopy of cloud hung above the desert, but it promised no rain. The sun burned through even the thickest cloud, heating the air to a shimmer.

Far in the distance, George could make out the faint outline of a city, lost in the dust and vapor. He knew that nothing still lived in the rusted hulks of the remaining skyscrapers.

The towers warped and shimmered into a jumble of light and sound that again blinded him. His mind was slowly losing coherency as it experienced complete sensory chaos every few minutes. George began to make shapes out of the random static of his vision, if only to provide himself with a mental anchor. He saw ants, an army of red-black insects scurrying across a background of yellow and green.

Reality returned in a very disorienting manner. George, dazed, looked up to see he was suddenly much closer to the city, standing among the towers. There was no cloud cover here, and the sun shined with its full, terrifying strength. It swallowed half the sky, its surface a boiling, churning cauldron of liquid flame. The last traces of water were fleeing from the baked ground, rising in wisps from the dust. The skyscrapers remained largely intact, belying the hell raging around them. Each building took a unique, fluid shape. Those nearby were shaped like ripples on a pond, other were crystals stacked atop each other in a random jumble that still conformed to a pattern. Once, they had been beautiful examples of architecture, poetry made of glass and steel. They were all clothed in the dust, their crystal facades faded to the same drab brown as the dead soil.

The chaos quickly consumed it, this time taking on the subtle appearance of a fire. It lapped at his vision, a bright flame seeking to burrow through his eyes and into his mind.

When it ended, George found himself lying in a dry riverbed. A skeleton bridge arced across the sky directly above him. Over the years, it had shed most of its structure into the valley it had once spanned. A pile of rusted metal lay half buried in the dust, almost black against the fierce glare.

George waited for the confusion of sensory input to return, but was pleasantly surprised when he was allowed to remain present. To better survey the environment, he climbed up the shallow slope of the riverbed, dislodging cascades of loose sand. He felt his skin burning and his throat dry out. He quickly reached the lip of the valley and saw the horizon.