*The first two hit the towers so hard that the whole city shook. The buildings didn’t completely collapse; half of each still clung to the sky, bent and screaming under the weight. The giants lay there, bleeding, unconscious, as if someone had thrown them from a world above the clouds.

Then the clouds opened wider.

More giants fell. No, not just giants. Mythical creatures. Dozens, then hundreds. All different—some with wings, some with horns, some shaped like nightmares dragged out of old stories. And between them came pieces of land. Real land. Forests, marble ruins, cliffs—whole chunks of somewhere else. The sun vanished behind it all, and the city went dark.

People ran. They didn’t even scream anymore; they just ran because the sky itself was falling. Creatures slammed into buildings. Land crushed entire streets. In minutes, New Jersey was just… gone. Buried under bright grass and pale stone and strange trees that looked like they’d been drawn by a child.

And the news spread. Everyone watched, half of America in shock, the rest of the world staring as more pieces of “heaven” fell across states, across countries. Cities crushed. A few small nations were erased beneath this otherworldly earth.

Militaries mobilized as soon as the falling stopped. Jets, helicopters, tanks—whatever still worked—pushed into the new land. National Guard and police tried to gather people, but there wasn’t much to save. Hundreds of buildings gone. Millions—maybe billions—dead.

Hours passed. Maybe days. Then the mythical creatures woke up.

Giants. Dragons. Things that might have been gods.

They tore through what was left. Military units couldn’t respond fast enough—most of the command centers were buried, and most of the people who gave orders were already gone. So the survivors mobilized whatever was left. The same jets and helicopters they’d used to rescue people were now being swatted from the sky by godlike creatures.

And then the fog appeared. A strange, glittering haze drifts through the ruins, pressing down on people. On some people, anyway. Others walked through it like it wasn’t even there. Dragons ignored them. Giants stepped over them. Mythical beasts moved around them like they were… kin.

These people lived while everyone else died—slowly, inevitably.

More pieces of heaven fell. More land covered what was left of the old world. Within a couple of years, everything that had been 2001—its technology, its cities, its history—was crushed beneath heaven. The survivors, the “special” ones, learned they could control the fog. Absorb it. Use it. A little at first. Some barely at all. And the same peaceful creatures that didn’t harm them before suddenly turned hostile without warning.

So the survivors built villages. Small ones. They scavenged what remained of modern tech, tried to rebuild it with metals and materials they didn’t understand. Hikers, loners, wanderers—they were the ones who adapted best. But even they felt the guilt. Most of the world was gone, and they were still here.

By 2025, they’d figured things out. Recognized the materials they mined. Named the fog for what it really was—magic. They could spark fires with it. Send messages with it, like living phones. They rebuilt most of the old technology in primitive forms… but not everything. No real electronics. No satellites. The military still existed, but as a small kingdom of its own. A few jets. A few tanks. No fuel. No ammo. Relics of a world crushed under heaven.

The old man sighs, grabbing a wooden cup by its handle and watering his mouth. He sets the cup back down on the pale wood table.

“Is that all, grandpa?”

“Yes, kiddo, that's all, if I wasn't one of those people who survived.”

The kid sits up, getting comfortable in his wooden chair as he waits to hear anything more about the story. “Well, tell me about the old world grandpa!” The kid's eyelight up as he waits.

“Not tonight, kiddo, you gotta get to sleep, you and your parents got some work to do when you wake up tomorrow.”

You are now that same kid, and it has been 12 years since then.