Chapter 2: The World That Forgot Me
The wind was colder than he remembered.
Sharper. Thinner. Like it had forgotten how to carry warmth.
The sky above was no longer blue.
Now it shimmered in unnatural hues of purple and indigo, swirling slowly like spilled paint on canvas. No clouds. No stars. No sun. Just endless, quiet twilight.
This is the world now… I guess.
Stelae stumbled forward, his bare feet crunching softly against cracked stone and overgrown moss. Every movement ached. His limbs felt like rusted machines, unused for ages. His skin clung loosely to lean muscle—pale, stiff, starved—but it moved.
And that alone meant everything.
This is paradise compared to what I've done for the last two million years.
He stepped into the ruins of what once was a schoolyard. The metal fence had rusted to dust. Nature had crept in without hesitation—vines curling up locker doors, flowers blooming through tile cracks, roots breaking apart the pavement like old scars.
"I need to understand the condition of Earth... or whatever this is now," he thought*.
If you can even call it Earth.
It was practically hell at this point.
The remains of civilization stood like decaying bones. A jungle had devoured the town—trees grown too tall, too fast, with bark that shimmered faintly and leaves the size of blankets. Strange fungi clung to railings and doorframes, glowing dimly blue in the dusk light. Crumbled brick walls were covered in moss, while long-forgotten playground swings swayed gently in the wind.
And yet, there was silence. No birds. No bugs. No life that dared make sound.
"This used to be where I played dodgeball..."
His voice was hoarse, deeper than he remembered. Like it belonged to someone else.
He passed the old gym entrance, its doors rotted off the hinges. The hallways were caked in ash and vines. Broken desks, collapsed lockers, cracked glass. A skeleton slumped against the wall nearby—still clutching a rusted lunch tray in bony fingers.
The sight didn't scare him.
It hurt.
He wandered deeper. Past the nurse's office where he once hid to cry after being bullied. The stairwell where his sister had kissed his scraped knee. The bathroom where he used to stare at his reflection and wonder if he was cursed.
Gone. All of it.
The world hadn't just ended.
It had moved on.
The temperature was colder. The air thinner, but somehow purer. Each breath filled his lungs with clarity he hadn't felt before. But the beauty of it was deceiving.
Even the trees felt unnatural—bigger, stranger. Some had bark that shimmered like metal. Mutated? Or... evolved?
A torn backpack still rested by a skeleton's feet—his little brother's name stitched in faded thread.
His eyes welled with tears at the sight.
Tre. His little brother. His pal
He remembered the games. Basketball. Racing around the block. Playing catch. Dinner, fights, laughter. All of it—gone.
His family the one's he loved.
The only one's who cared for him.
Why?
He felt stiff—numb. His emotions trapped beneath layers of time and grief
All of it was torn away from him.
The whole world was.
Beneath the surface… was rot.
"This world… I have to live in it now," he whispered. "But why me?"
He looked up.
Purple skies. No sun. No stars. Just that endless void above. It felt wrong—like someone had wiped the heavens clean.
You gods better be laughing while you can.
You took the ones I loved.
And made this place into a grave.
You should've killed me. Because I'm going to make you regret it.
In a shattered mirror, he caught sight of himself. He almost didn't recognize the reflection.
His purple hair hung in thick strands past his shoulders, tangled with leaves and dust. His eyes glowed faintly gold in the gloom, sharp and inhuman. His face bore no wrinkles, no scars, no signs of age.
It was like time had paused just for him.
Why didn't I age? Why didn't I die?
He touched his face, then let his hand fall.
No more questions. Just answers. Just forward.
Behind him, the Sloillar tree still stood—tall, regal, eternal. Its bark shimmered like onyx, its leaves glowing a soft blue in the dark. The wind rustled its branches gently, like it was breathing. Watching.
He turned, placed a hand against its massive root.
"Thank you," he whispered. "For keeping me alive."
The root pulsed once under his touch—like a heartbeat.
Then he turned away.
He walked through the ruins of his past.
Past the stairwells, the skeletons, the shattered dreams.
He crossed cracked streets overtaken by glowing vines. Passed rusted cars that had become mossy tombs. Past a world that had erased all memory of him.
Into the wild.
Into the unknown.
Into the world that had forgotten his name.
A world where humans were now nothing more than insects.
And he—he would be the god that crawled back from the grave.