Marked by Gaia

There was something different about Gran's story last night

It felt personal, like she wasn't just repeating history but reliving it.

Like she had been there.

All those years ago.

When the second breaking shattered what was left of the world.

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I've got pretty much nothing to do till mid-period, so I head over to the Culture Center—a sprawling facility that goes five levels deep into the rock beneath Sanctum.

The first level's open to everyone.

For the second level, you need clearance

And the last three levels? Completely restricted.

But being part of the Program has its perks.

Nobody stopped me as I step into the elevator and hit the level two access.

My dark blue combat uniform does all the talking.

Shaper.

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The first level wasn't going to give me the answers I was hoping to find.

It only held information from our most recent history—about fifty years back, when the Sanctum was first founded.

What I wanted, if I was lucky... would be found somewhere deeper.

Hidden somewhere here.

Among the neat rows of books lining the shelves around me.

There were a lot of them.

Thankfully, everything here was sorted by historical age.

I paused for a moment in front of a section labeled "Anno Domini."

Whatever that meant.

A few old books could be found on the shelves here, but that wasn't what I came for.

I moved on, heading toward the section I knew might hold the truth.

The Post Common Era.

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Sorting through the titles, I focused on the shelves covering the Breakings.

There was an itch at the back of my mind—the kind that only got worse if ignored, so I got to work.

I didn't know what I expected to find, but I could feel something calling to me.

I had to follow where this would lead.

I picked out anything that looked promising: personal memos, scattered journal entries, ancient religious texts.

Even old government documents, released long after their issuing bodies had ceased to exist.

I was looking for something real.

Something buried, anything that could tell me what really happened.

Before the Breakings rewrote everything we thought we knew.

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I settled at one of the nearby tables, ready to begin.

But before I could even open the first book in my stack, my eyes catches on something else, an old work by a twenty-second-century priest.

He refers to himself as a chosen acolyte.

It's a journal, filled with entries documenting the defining events of his time.

I lift it carefully, mindful of its worn pages and fragile spine.

Even without the knowledge it holds, the book itself feels like a relic—something sacred, long out of place in a world like ours.

It begins:

19th Oct. 2193,

If anyone saw us now, they'd never believe that only a decade ago the planet was on its final breath.

The war, to many, signaled the end of days—the Armageddon, as people called it.

What began as a minor boundary dispute spiraled into a global catastrophe the moment the first weapon of mass destruction was launched.

Sides were drawn, alliances formed, and the deadliest war ever witnessed unfolded.

The bombings didn't just scar the surface.

They cut deep, carving fissures that bored into the very soul of the planet.

We moved her out of orbit.

Entire populations vanished.

Governments collapsed, and the world slipped into anarchy.

But worse than the war itself were its aftershocks.

The air turned poisonous.

Water, nearly impossible to find untainted.

Surviving animals mutated into beasts we could barely recognize.

More died from the aftermath than the war itself.

We were ending.

And the Earth was ending with us.

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Then came the miracle—the Chosen.

Transcended humans, granted powers by the planet itself in a final act of hope.

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I still tremble when I remember that day—the day she spoke to us.

Not with words, no.

There was something deeper… something primal.

We were connected, all of us.

To feel her pain.

Her fear.

Her sacrifice.

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Time flashed before my eyes—not in a way my mind could fully grasp.

But I saw.

I saw her first breath of life.

Fast forward to her wonder when we emerged.

Her joy as we discovered fire and planted our first seeds.

Her quiet acceptance when we began to hunt other creatures.

Her growing apprehension when we started to kill not for survival but for sport, for power—until even she could no longer restore what we destroyed.

And then… her terror.

When we, her prodigal children, went astray.

Still, she chose to believe in us.

She believed that if we could see what she saw—feel what she felt—we might finally change.

But her way would take time.

Ages to us.

And time was one thing we no longer had.

So she unlocked something deep within us.

She made us… more.

But that was all she could give.

The rest was left to us.

As a parting gift, she gave us her name.

Gaia.

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It took some time for all of it to sink in.

Even now, I wasn't sure I fully understood what it meant.

This journal was written at the advent of the First Breaking—the same period when the first shapers appeared.

Back then, they were simply called the Chosen.

And for a time, it seemed like things were getting better.

That was, until the infighting began.

Until the battles for supremacy between Shaper sects tore the fragile peace apart.

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Classes at the Knowledge Acquisition Center often pointed out that the Shapers who triggered the Second Breaking were not evil—just morally misguided.

They had access to the past but lacked the wisdom to apply it.

They were too much like their ancestors, destined to repeat the same mistakes.

They were never meant to lead.

Only to catalyze change.

The planning and structuring of society was to be left to others, to those not burdened by the strain of wielding power directly connected to Gaia's will.

That was the reason for the ministries.

For the parliament.

To govern all, especially the Shapers, and to protect humanity from itself.

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My doubts echoed louder now.

I needed to talk to Gran.

There was more to this—more than she was letting on.

But that would have to wait.

Time to get back to the journal.

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Just as I flip to the next page, my watch buzzes.

If I didn't leave now, I'd be late for the training session.

I shelved the books—and my curiosity—as quickly and carefully as I could.

I had to go.

But this wasn't over.

Not by a long shot.