Stone World

Luminous.

A green light was radiating the Earth with its huge diameter. It was… magnificent.

Not knowing what to do, or how to react, I was standing still, shocked. At that moment, I was in the science lab, doing my usual experiments with the group. I love science. Was a science nerd since my childhood. My father would buy me equipment for research all the time, and I would do all kinds of things with whatever I could find. Learning more about the world, and how it functions was my goal.

But forget that for a moment. The light was more important. What was it? I didn’t have enough time to think or react, and before I knew it, I couldn’t move or see. All humans, animals, or any living organism were petrified. Planes started falling down, cars crashed into each other, and every mechanism went unstable. The diameter was 12,800,000 meters, assumed roughly.

It was a slow, but steady process. Humans turned to stone, when the light hit them. The light moved like a giant wave, approximately 20,000 meters tall. Its speed was constant, but fast enough to envelop the whole world in a short amount of time.

Maybe I couldn’t see, but that didn’t stop me from doing something. The internal organ structure was retained, and I could still stay focused and conscious. It was a long time. A very long time. I started counting from the moment I was petrified, hoping for an end. It was difficult to constantly stay conscious, but it helped me. Alas, I heard crumbling sounds, parts of my body that were petrified began to break free. Then my eyes were free of stone, and I could finally see. It was a moment of hope. My whole body got out of the prison I was in, and I could move. Last thing I saw, I was in the school building, but now I woke up in a cave. I was petrified for a whole 3715 years and 241 days. Counting really helped me stay conscious, and I knew which year it was. Year 5738. It was unbelievable. Not only that it took that long, but also the state of humankind. I looked around, and I couldn’t see anything except forests, jungles, and just trees. Wanting to find a vantage point, I moved forward. It seemed like I was on a mountain, slowly moving upwards. I was still naked though, the petrification didn’t seem to affect anything other than the body. Yet clothes and other inorganic items wear away as time passes. There wasn’t anyone near me, but I still felt uncomfortable, so I made myself something with leaves, that would hide and protect my private parts. It was rudimentary, but it did the job for the time being. Slowly reaching the top, I was amazed. The view was incredible, but the situation wasn’t. Buildings were already destroyed, and only ruins were left behind. Planes were crashed into grounds, and ships were sunk.

The most important thing were the humans. I saw hundreds of statues from the shore, all the way up to the next mountain. It didn’t seem like there was even one person alive. The whole system was shutdown. I don’t know who, or what did this, but it has to have a reason. This is an enormous act to pull off, and I still didn’t know what that light consisted of. Hopefully I would find out more about it later on, but for now, I had to focus on surviving. It took tens of thousands of years for us to become a modern civilization, but now, a light changed everything in hours. Hard to imagine, but it was true. I went back to the cave, to see if there were any interesting items. I went inside, and realized that a liquid was dropping from the ceiling. Not only that, but statues of bats were on the floor. After touching, and smelling the liquid, I realized that it was bat guano. This was a guano cave. Maybe the presence of nitric acid helped me get released from the petrification. It could be ten billion percent possible. I have to find out a lot about this stone, as much as I can. Maybe there is a way to “depetrify” humans. I could try it out on these bats first. If it works on them, it’ll work on humans. I got outside, made a small bucket out of items I could find in the forest, and came back. After placing it under the source of the nitric acid, it got filled, drop by drop. In the meantime, I looked for more leaves, and got sturdier clothing. After a few hours, the bucket was filled enough. I picked it up, and moved up the hill again, stopping right before the end of the cliff. Holding the bat in the hand, I poured the acid onto it, and waited for a reaction. Seconds passed, then minutes, and nothing happened. Almost losing hope, I was about to give up, but the stone started crumbling, just like it did with me. Piece by piece, the bat was also moving free out of the stone, and at the end, it was completely free. Immediately, the wings started flapping, and it flew away.

It’s not that there are things that science can’t explain. You look for the rules behind those things. Science is just the name for the steady, pain-in-the-ass effort that goes into doing it.

This was an important moment of the new “era”. This acid could help me revive every human on this planet, that got turned into a statue. I felt excited again, this was thrilling. Perhaps, it would’ve been better if this whole thing never happened, but it was the start of a new adventure. It took centuries for us to become modern, but a matter of hours to return to step one. It’s difficult, maybe even impossible for me to remake the original state of humankind, but I would give my best to try. It was in my hands to make this civilization alive, well, and modern again.

I’m going to beat fantasy with science.

This is exhilarating.