First came the unmaking.
The oceans didn't drain. They obeyed.
Water pulled back from every shore at once, retreating like a curtain drawn by invisible hands. Seabeds that had known only darkness and pressure suddenly lay exposed, glistening under a sun they'd never felt. The earth beneath groaned—not in pain, but recognition.
Then the continents began to dream.
Mountains didn't crumble or explode. They walked. Entire ranges lifted from their ancient roots and glided across the planet's surface, stone flowing like honey, carving no scars, leaving no rubble.
The Himalayas drifted east. The Rockies folded inward. The Andes dissolved into the mantle and reformed elsewhere, their peaks already snow-capped, their valleys already green.
Cities vanished between one breath and the next.
Steel didn't snap—it forgot how to be steel. Concrete remembered it was once sand and obliged. Glass returned to silicon. Highways softened into soil, their asphalt veins closing like healing wounds.
