Kalopsia

The liquid glass fell like stars from orbit, shining an eerie red while burning its way through the atmosphere. Cooling just before reaching the surface and for one brief moment, turning clear and reflecting the light of the iridescent moon of Kalamtron like prisms and shining out like an aurora borealis. Then the solid hardened glass would slam into the ground and shatter into a hundred thousand shards, sounding like mirrors being broken, over and over again.

Then when the blue sun of Galestrom rose, the splinters of the clear bubbled substance would shrink and dissipate, overheated by the light of the sun, rising slowly back into the sky and coalescing into clouds of drifting death, only to fall once again when the sun set, repeating the cycle endlessly.

Kalopsia, I was named for the strange glass rain that my planet experienced. When first observed from a distance, the rest of the galaxy had been obsessed with the molten rainfall. It had been all anyone talked about in the years leading up to the terraforming of Luciform, but once experienced and witnessed, the first night on Luciform turned out to be horrifying instead of breathtaking.

The builders of the first settlements had accounted for the sun that could melt glass through space, but not for the shattering nightmare of falling knives that planet experienced each night.

Most had just wanted to abandon the planet, to forget about it as a failed fantasy that looked prettier than it was, a Kalopsia if you would.

Some left, some tried to stay and went mad after trying to sleep through the endless sound of shattering glass. There were some, a small few to the rest of the galaxy but enough to fill the shifting surface of the world, the ones that had become encapsulated by the lustrous rainbow of light that shone just before it shattered. Some say the light changed them somehow, that it pulled people in like an addiction, bringing them back night after night until they no longer slept at night and stayed awake during the day.

For those that stayed shields were built, made with the glass of Luciform and diamonds forged in the hearts of blackholes.

Then in all but name it was abandoned by the rest of galaxy. Sure supplies were traded and filmmakers and writers still came, but very few stayed, only those that were drawn to what scientists had dubbed the ‘Liternia effect’, the light before brokenness, and people that didn’t want to be found. Though the latter category was few and far between as even the desperate tended to forget about the fallen light that was Luciform.

This is where I was born, my great grandfather was one of the original settlers that just couldn’t bring himself to leave. Most of the people here can trace their family trees straight up to an original settler.

For those of us born on Luciform, life without the falling glass, the shatterstorms was inconceivable. Sure, we’d seen the clips and feeds from earth and similar planets, sunlight that wouldn’t burn the skin off your bones, rain that was gentle and soothing, soft wind that didn’t whip almost 7x the speed of sound every few years, and gentle colors that mixed ambiently with animal calls.

Even our plants were different, hard, crystal like things that tinkled like coins when touched, some were sparkly others dull like frost covered windows. Fruits from most were edible and a few held and retained light, like a miniature heater; hot fruit seemed to be a bit of a novelty for other planets, but to be honest it tastes a whole lot better than whatever dragon fruit is supposed to be.

They say the first flowers bloomed when the fourth generation of Luciform was born, that the Earth Roses and Sunflowers, the Othrys Kaladids and Gemptions, the YilYdian Libakets and Coronas were only able to take root and start living once the planet had truly claimed its foundling inhabitants.

It had started with the first settlers, though it was extremely rare then, it became more often seen with the second generation, and by the third it was commonplace.

But the fourth, oh the fourth truly showed the galaxy what planet they belonged to.

What you’re wondering, became more common?

Markings, markings and signs that showed how truly different Luciform really was. It started small, strands of hair that glowed, nails sharper than they should have been, skin that felt cold to the touch. Then it was eyes that could see in the dark and shone in colors that belonged to no gene pool, skin that almost seemed transparent and footsteps too silent to hear.

Then light seemed to reflect through them, just like the Liternia effect.

Finally, the fourth generation, the children born with the flowers of Luciform growing in a crown atop their heads, with bodies that weren’t affected by the heat of Galestrom. Eyes that glowed in vibrant Neons and every shade of brightness, except for the ones humans are supposed to have, they could see under the blue light of the sun without protection. They could walk in the Shatterstorms and the breaking fragments would flow around their bodies like honey and silk.

Their bodies seemed to generate their own light, shining like prisms, except a prism needs an outside source, the fourth gen needed nothing but their own souls.

The crown represented their birthright, their right to Luciform and everything on it, they no longer needed to eat human food, though who can tell a teenager they don’t need ice cream?

They could still speak the human tongue and probably always would, but they didn’t need it, and they could still dream in the endless slumber that the rising of their sun brought, for even their altered appearance and lives could not change the wanderings of the mind and soul.

That was when the flowers started blooming, when the children of Luciform were completely the children of Luciform.

At first it was thought that the light of the blue sun and the altered glass of the Liternia was producing a kind of light radiation that was affecting the genetic makeup of human DNA, and perhaps some of that is true, but we all know, all of us that live here, that there’s more to it, more underneath that we are only beginning to understand. They say the fourth generation, or as they are fondly called the ‘flourth gen’s’ crowns symbolize who they are, that the crystally, glassy, shimmering plants they were crowned with represent the very being of who they are.

Luciform still has yet to tell the other planets and peoples of the galaxy, we’ve discovered that without blue sunlight shining directly on us, other beings are unable to see our Luciform given bodies. As of yet we have no plans for telling them, why would we?

Living things are volatile enough to things that threaten their comfort zones and ways of life, and no one living had ever seen a planet that could take a race, and turn them into a new species.