The clouds were a closing curtain that had called the end of the stars’ show, a curtain that would never be redrawn. The clouds were a complex congregation of turbulent twists and collisions. White billowing columns were split by a violent dance of rapturous winds, of hostile air. A constant intermingling, a boiling pot of indecision as none of the clouds could unanimously decide where they wanted to travel; the air currents were imploding, collapsing and rupturing, never committing, portraying a dynamic and rapidly morphing skyline of oppressive haze. The dark billowing masses were a thick pressure ever present, submitting the land below them to eternal gloom.

Destructive cracks of lightning were the only thing to illuminate the voided nightmare below. Those angry clouds above rained down an incessant and dense rain of electrical demolition. Thunderous javelins struck down so inordinately in scale that it sheared the terrain below. Each collision of electricity and land a cratering bomb followed by an ear wrenching explosion. It was only through this monstrous light source that the rest of the land could be observed.

The clouds, like a sentient animosity, stretched their elemental limbs to torment the lands below. Twisting, spiraling cyclones the size of entire cities tore across the landscape at unimaginable speeds. The crushing grinders of those tornadoes had been so expedient and unrelenting that the weakened wood within them were set ablaze. Behemoth infernos, mountains of toxic combustion, they were so numerous and grand that they formed their own metropolis of natural calamities, its buildings: cyclones, its lanterns: lightning, its roads: chasms.

The surface was a living shifting mass of ice. A lumbering bind of quarreling glaciers that ground together in fits of tearing fissures and jutting spires. Cracks would spontaneously sprout open revealing a seemingly eternal depth, the primal magma below spewing forth like the spitting bile of a disdainful planet. The magma and snow brewed together erupting into plumes of caustic vapor. The entire place shook with fervent malice; The few mountains left standing were sent crying rivers of tumbling land, a never-ending assault of rushing stones, snow, and ice.

This place that was rejected by the day star was swallowed by a biting cold. A ceaseless blizzard concealed viscous hail that hurled invisibly as deadly projectiles. The snowstorm was so thick, so absolute in its density that merely walking through it carried a noticeable viscosity, let alone the visibility.

Each of the five senses were buried in their own excessive torments. The ever-energized pyres emitted a choking smog; a terrible smell enveloped the place, memories of defiled life echoed across, so tangible that they made their place on the tongue. A taste of death, a taste of the poison, the evil that caused it all.

It was beautiful.

He sat cross-legged at the mouth of a fabricated cave. He didn’t wear clothes; rather, a soft cloud enveloped his body like a wispy cloak, small stings of lightning occasionally jolting across and lighting the cave around. He looked out to the lovely sight outside. It really was truly beautiful, such a raw display of the pure tenacity, the ferocity that the planet held.

He remembered back when humans still dominated this land, they often talked about preserving the natural environment, they incentivized preservation and care for the greenery around them. They would often mention how these natural ‘disasters’ were proof of the planets growing sickness, proof that their changes had meaning, and the humans should take responsibility. The general idea was that the environment was healthy when it best housed them: they were wrong.

The sight before him was a truly healthy planet. It did not care for life; it did not care for anything; at the end of the day it was just a collection of minerals and rules of interaction. The best planet was one that would play and utilize all its capabilities. A self-destruction performed for the universe, a short brilliance etching itself in history.

The humans pretended to care about him, but they kept him in a cage, they manipulated his powers for their own benefit, they were only ever kind when it benefited them. Now this was his country, and now he could make the skies smile however he liked. He did like the smile the sky currently gave him. He loved it, it filled him with so much joy to see the planet happily play like a child after a rainy day. He stood up and walked deeper into the cave.

The ice cave was carved out in a perfect cylinder slowly inclining downwards at a very comfortable slope. He had made the cave himself. He had sensed through the tremors that there was an underground pocket of relative stability. Perhaps some of this countries originals denizens continued to reside in that desolate patch of forgotten soil.

The perfectly frozen walls of water acted as a transparent window to the carnage outside only obscured by the few bubbles suspended within. Each step he took deeper into the cave sent out an echo which bounded off the walls and floor; the way the sound was enhanced by the icy barriers created an odd musical twinge like the sharp resonance of a water bell. The echoes ran up and down either side of the tunnel, each consecutive bounce creating a hollower more bass-like tune.

He smiled as the musical rhythm that caressed his ears but felt that a piece of the song was missing, the song needed lyrics, a singer. He gently placed his hand against one of the smooth walls of the tunnel letting it loosely drag along as he continued to walk. In reaction to his sways, the ice began to shift and shear against itself. The tunnel was a throat, and such the cave began to sing a melancholic choir of tinkling glass. He closed his eyes for a while softening his senses so that he could properly take in the sounds that danced around him.

Even with the musical distraction it was still a very long walk, the ice he had to scale down was tremendously deep, but time was not a factor that bothered him much. Eventually he did arrive at a wall of legitement clay. Not ice, but true ground, of course it was frozen solid but regardless this wall represented the world that once existed. This wall was a divider obscuring him from his contemptable foes. Behind this wall is where the potential final survivors of the old country were.

He placed his hand on the clay and to his thoughts the wall answered. The clay collapsed inwards of itself, folding back and relinquishing space to him, the clay burrowed a hole all the way to that underground clearing. He was a little disappointed in the sight. There was a small encampment that had once housed a persistent few, but they had already succumbed to the meager challenges their abode gave out.

The clearing contained a collection of makeshift houses, small huts fabricated of mud and ice. The whole village tightly compacted together desperately maximizing its effective space. A little hole in the ceiling that led all the way to the ice accompanied by a dead furnace had once allowed a constant drip of water to wash down to nourish the humans. He predicted that this place probably sustained about a hundred or so people based on the bodies but there were less than a dozen buildings present. The bitterness he felt against them for defiling his land by hiding here was alleviated slightly by the thought of all the sick and cold crammed tightly in hastily built constructs. Some of the corpses could still be properly identified, brittle corpses highlighted in a thick frost, the skin seen below wrinkled and torn. There was only one section of the cave, which was not stuffed to the brim, a small clearing containing a pile of thin withered livestock gave a glimpse to how these humans tried to nourish themselves. The tragic cattle forced to satiate itself off a gruesome gruel left them sickly and feeble even before they died.

Speaking of cattle, this haven had garnered quite a diverse collection of people. He was never too good at identifying the different types of humans, but he could definitely recognize some soldiers, nobles, families. He didn’t need to be afraid though since they were all dead. None of them could hurt him anymore.

He stretched his arm out in front of him and opened his palm. He thought about the space above that palm, he thought of a particular mixture, of an interaction of volatile chemicals. The chemicals collided together and reacted with the air around it combusting into a small purple flame. The flame was hungry quickly grew devouring the oxygen in the relatively small space. Soon the fire demanded more, it desired more oxygen to feed itself to grow, to destroy. Having emptied the cave of its oxygen it began calling to the outside. A piercing howl could be heard from the mouth of the cave. The reduced pressure from the consumed oxygen caused the cave like a hungry beast to suck in any passing air creating a powerful suction guiding the air into the clearing to feed that purple flame indefinitely.

He ignored the ravaging flames and powerful hurricane clashing around and peacefully made his way back through the ice cave back to the mouth of the cave. He turned around and looked through that transparent ice, its surface so pristine that he could see that purple flame rage below. He managed to create another neat little exposition for his nature park. Another interesting interaction of chemistry and physics, a fun show that would be sure to entertain any hypothetical tourist. Who wouldn’t love a screeching cave that travelled impossibly deep leading to an eternal purple flame?

He returned to his casual stroll through his wonderful home when he was interrupted by the chime of a bell. In front of him there was a pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other forms. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards him holding a glowing parchment: it read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Nimbus