The instant in which the explosion traveled at the speed of light lasted less than a heartbeat of the universe — yet within it fit an eternity.An eternity of pain.
The explosion rose in the sky like a sun born out of time.A colossal sphere of living fire, tearing through the air as if the entire planet were breathing for the last time.
All senses shut down.Only sight remained.It was necessary to see.
And then the sound arrived — delayed, heavy, furious — pushing a massive wall of hot air that swept everything away.
Tribal moved before any thought could cross his mind.With a single mental image, he opened a colossal abyss, swallowing the entire village of giants.The earth folded, became tunnel, became womb.In seconds, everyone was protected inside a cavern the size of a small country — created solely by the power of his thought.
Alaya, still bearing the appearance of an ancient tree that had lived far too long, regained her senses and raised her hands to restore whatever she could.
Silence took over.Above them, the world screamed.Thunder, violent winds, breaking stone, the surface burning like incandescent metal.
The ceiling of the cavern began to heat up.Tribal pushed the village deeper, sinking it several more kilometers until the planet itself completely swallowed the sound of destruction.
Darkness took hold.Even so, the giants did not panic.There was fear, yes — but greater still was their trust in the two protectors of the blue planet.
Tribal and Alaya were like two sides of the same leaf.What one failed to do, the other completed.One was pause, the other flow.One was silence, the other voice.Together, they were perfect.
Alaya, now fully restored, raised the palm of her hand.From it emerged small luminous beings: insects, caterpillars, children of light that illuminated the cavern and comforted the giant hearts.
— Alaya, I will go up. I need to see what happened, said Tribal.
She merely nodded.She knew nothing on that planet could harm him.
— Go through the rift, through the fabric that protects us, she suggested.
— No. I want to feel this in my body.
He needed to.He needed to understand the magnitude of the energy that had crossed the sky.
Tribal touched one of the cavern walls and walked into it.He was swallowed by the earth.He passed through rock, roots, ancient fossils — and emerged at the surface.
And what he saw… hurt.
Where once there had been fields that fed the giants, there was now only a gray wasteland.Burned earth.Domestic animals reduced to smoking bones.Trees turned to dust.
Residual energy still scorched the air.Tribal felt his body bubble.Pieces of flesh began to fall, melt, peel away like wax from a living candle.He let it happen.
He wanted to feel.He wanted to understand.
When his flesh finished dissolving, his true form emerged — a body of light.A light that did not blind, did not shine, that simply was.A light that seemed displaced from reality.A light that observed.
And by observing, it understood.
He breathed the chaos.Meditated on the destruction.And then… he acted.
Like a maestro, Tribal raised his hands and summoned clouds.He condensed the air.Lowered the temperature.It rained.
Life hidden beneath the earth began to germinate once more.The Moon and the Sun swapped places dozens of times as Tribal accelerated the natural cycle.The bodies of the animals became nourishment.Microorganisms thrived.Green returned.Balance was restored.
When everything breathed again, Tribal lifted the village back to the surface.
Alaya awaited him — in her perfect form.Beautiful.Radiant.
Upon seeing him, she grew sad.She knew he had endured too much pain.
Sensing the melancholy in her eyes, Tribal brought back his fleshly form.He approached her.Took her hand in his.
Alaya had created an entire ecosystem underground:fruit trees, small animals, vegetables, subterranean streams.No giant had suffered.All were safe.
— Come, said Tribal. Let us go to the center of the explosion.
And together, like those who never needed to walk because every place was home, they thought.
And in a quantum entanglement, they vanished.They appeared where they wished to be:at the epicenter of destruction.In the silent heart of what had once been a blaze.
In the middle of a complete nothingness.