They called it the night the sky bled fire.
It began as a whisper in the void — a lone comet hurtling through the cold dark for eons, drawn by a force no human would ever name. It came closer and closer, unnoticed by all but the few eyes who peered through high-powered telescopes and sent warnings far too late.
When it broke the atmosphere, the heavens burned. A trail of white flame split the night, brighter than any sun. People ran into the streets, faces upturned — some praying, some screaming, all powerless.
Then the comet's shell — black rock older than Earth itself — slammed into the land. Cities crumbled in an instant. Tides rose and swallowed coasts.
But hidden beneath the crater's choking dust, something stirred.
The shell cracked further — a final breath of heat and pressure. The silver core seeped out, flowing into the scorched soil, bleeding into deep veins that reached for Earth's molten heart.
And the strangest thing — the moment it touched the core, the world did not explode. Instead, the planet drank it in like thirsting roots.
Storms rose where they had never formed before. Forests wilted, then grew back twisted and hungry. Mountains split, revealing veins of ore that hummed under the touch. And life — plants, beasts, and people — changed. Not overnight, but slowly, like a poison or a blessing that seeped into every cell.
Some people's children were born with strange marks that glowed in moonlight. Some beasts grew eyes where no eyes should be. Some insects learned to gather in silent swarms that watched and waited.
But in the end, the power that survived was the power that grew in human blood. Celestia — a name nobody knows who first whispered it. People don't know when it started, only that some early survivors claimed it came to them in dreams. They were called Awakened. And people began cultivating Celestia — not faith nor machine, but something living in flesh and bone.
For those who could not awaken it, there was only what they could dig up and wire back together. Crude lights, rusted drones, a scavenger's hope that the old ghosts of metal could protect them from the monsters born from the silver core.
In the decades that followed, the old world broke apart. Kingdoms fell, empires vanished, but from the ruin rose something no one had words for yet.
In the stories told around dying fires, parents whispered to children: "Remember the comet. Remember the silver that changed us all."
For when the sky bled fire, Earth learned to breathe again — in a voice none would ever tame.
"And long after the sky burned, the silver still whispered in the blood of Earth's children."