March of the Monsters Small mercies

Gaia shifted her weight. Deep ocean currents wandered out of their smooth helix. Clouds of small lives swirled into new water. Hot and cold currents mixed. Plankton, zoea, myriads of tiny lives tumbling. Out of context, they died, floating or sinking in thick inert blankets. The floating raft of plankton turned purple as they died in the unfamiliar heat.

It took a few days for the oxygen depletion to impact the land species. Once it did there was a mad scrabble about the surface. Massive population shifts to the jungles, and nocturnal death even there. Inter-species massacres, intra-species massacres, frantic tree planting. Small tokens far too late. Warmth and death, fish floating, animals gasping on land. The smell was thick and coloured all surfaces with a greasy timestamp. Lava and rock shifted hue in the reductive kiln.

She slept. In deep aquatic valleys a few adaptive souls survived. An anaerobic genesis.

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