Fractured

In the beginning, there was the Earth.

Just as it is now, except for one tiny thing in a hidden corner of the world.

And that one thing grew, and grew, and grew, until people noticed it.

And when they noticed it, they saw what it was doing:

birds fell fell out of the sky, dead mid-flight.

trees collapsed it spread up them, the dust-turned trunk unable to hold the still-green leaves.

lakes evaporated, leaving behind flopping fish that quickly perished too.

boulders fractured and split apart, leaving behind only a dusting of the finest sand.

air stood still without the joyous buzzing of bugs to fill it and give it life.

turning their beloved land to dust and ashes, gone and inhospitable.

They tried to stop it, built walls and shelters to hide from it, but as it grew it moved faster and faster, killing all they knew.

But the world did not want to die.

It wanted its birds and trees and water and fish and rocks and bugs and everything to survive.

It did not want its creations, all its work, to die.

It would not let this disease kill everything it had made.

But it could not stop its corruption.

So it cut off part of itself,

severed off a section of world before the plague infected it,

and this small fraction of the great world survived,

on its own,

forcibly abandoned by its creator,

in isolation,

alone,

but alive.

That is the world we know today,

The sole surviving piece of a world once much greater, bigger,

Incomplete but existing,

a miracle, from a sacrifice.