Nadya opened her eyes

She found herself standing on a small outcropping of rock, poking out of a wide pool of molten stone. The pool itself was at the top of a broad mountain that overlooked a burning plain. The sky was tinted a hellish red, and the horizon was jagged with volcanoes spewing dark gases into the atmosphere. Occasionally, an asteroid burned a hole through the firmament, dragging behind it a bright tail of plasma. The sun was harsh and white, gazing menacingly from just above the horizon. The magnetic field of the planet was tortured under its unending gaze, twisting and stretching in painful ways, burning with green and red flames where it met the young atmosphere. All was silent. Even as the supersonic asteroids screamed through the sky, they made no sound.

Nadya was surprisingly unconcerned about this vision of apocalypse before her, if rather confused. As she regarded the glowing rock that surrounded her, a single, resounding drum beat sounded from nowhere in particular. It shook the stones and seemed to echo for a few moments.

Gradually, the rock cooled, turning from red to a dull grey, then finally shattering into an abrasive sand, broken by an unfelt wind. The volcanoes calmed and stopped spouting their debris into the sky. A few clouds formed and died under the crimson backdrop. The mountains in the distance began to slump, driven into the ground by erosion. The sun glided silently toward the zenith.

Very gradually the planet cooled. Water hauled by an endless barrage of comets began to rain on the boiling surface, covering the sphere in a thin, transient film of toxic fluid. The moon, bloated and red, swung violently around the planet, pulling the new oceans with it. Tides like none seen since ripped across the barren shores, clawing at the stony outcroppings and turning them to dust. The waters, filled with chemicals carried in the frozen hearts of comets, raged and boiled. Rain fell only to evaporate immediately upon striking the ground below, and many oceans that managed to hold their position momentarily fell to the heat quickly. A few, however, lay stable in topological basins, throwing themselves at the cliffs that contained them. At the pace of a glacier, the waters conquered the planet.

Another drum beat.

Within the steaming oceans, unusual chemicals began forming. Organic molecules imported by yet more asteroids coalesced. Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen organized themselves into complicated structures, coaxed into their new shapes by the furious energy of the roiling oceans and the churning, poisonous atmosphere.

The sun set, after only seven hours, revealing a sky full of unfamiliar constellation. If one looked at the stars carefully, one would notice that the tiny dots were drifting. Very slowly, but they were moving, as the sun and all the other stars wheeled around the galaxy, a shoal of puny fish being caught in a whirlpool. But Nadya was not looking at the stars, for she was intent on the water that lapped soundlessly at the shore in front of her.

Eventually, through a combination of chance and sheer quantity of trial and error, a molecule emerged that had a shape that could create itself. It could attract other molecules, cause them to latch onto itself in such a way as to complement its own structure, creating two different halves that carried the same information. It sheathed itself in more hardy organics, evolving to coexist and work with other simple chemicals. The results were tiny, replicating units, consisting of billions of individual molecules working in unison. They struggled to survive in the terribly inhospitable waters. The sun above skewered them with radiation, degrading the strands of organic molecules that allowed them to replicate, while the residual heat of the planet burned them from below.

The sun rose after eight hours of darkness.

Of course, all this molecular evolution happened on a scale far smaller than Nadya could see. All she noticed was the continent sailing calmly through the primordial seas. Forever it marched, with no sign of change. The moon receded into the heavens, as tidal forces dragged it faster. The sun took longer to arc across the sky as the Earth lost rotational momentum to the moon.

Then, the sky started turning blue. It shifted gradually from its original maroon to a familiar turquoise. Simultaneously, the greatest holocaust in the history of the planet was occurring, as trillions of tiny organisms, sculpted to live in a world bereft of oxygen, suffocated on the caustic gas. A few survived, having adapted quickly to the changing atmosphere. The reason for all this, of course, was the sudden emergence of a new type of organism, one that could turn atmospheric carbon and water into basic sugars with the light of the sun. One of the byproducts of this reaction was a terrible gas consisting of two bonded oxygen atoms. Like fluorine and chlorine, it ate at most biological structures, destroying the delicate spindles of carbon and hydrogen. Even so, the strategy was extremely lucrative; carbon was easily available across the globe, and the sun showered free energy on those able to harness it. The cyanobacteria spread, quickly becoming the most common life form on the planet, generating a lethal flood of oxygen in their wake. Those precious few that survived the apocalypse were forced to adapt, developing ways to derive energy from the now abundant gas. The first aerobic organisms evolved, breathing the toxic oxygen to help them break apart sugars. They began preying on the cyanobacteria themselves, consuming the products of the same process that had doomed their brethren.

The planet continued to spin, heedless of the wars and genocides that raged in the thin layer of fluid sheathing its surface. The only large-scale indicator that anything was happening at all was the bright blue of a new atmosphere. Radiation from the brightly burning sun interfered with the now ubiquitous oxygen, reorganizing it into a three-atom molecule. Ozone began to build where the atmosphere was most exposed to the harsh radiation, and, through a lucky coincidence, blocked it from penetrating deeper. Oxygen, the destroying angel, became the savior. The sun no longer killed with its gaze, only shined benevolently, its vengeful aspects negated by the gas.

The planet grew older. The seas began to recede slightly, allowing the island continents to claim more of its surface for themselves. The sun completed its ride across the sky, taking slightly longer with each cycle.

Another drumbeat, bringing the oceans to a momentary boil.

The seas continued to abate. The organisms, who required a constant shower of sunlight to survive, welcomed the change. A lower sea level meant that more of the planet's surface would be composed of the shallow seas that suited them best.

Far above, the erratic transitions of the atmosphere spelled their destruction yet again. The cyanobacteria, truly a force to be reckoned with at this point, had robbed the sky of some of its carbon dioxide, slightly tipping the gaseous balance. Carbon dioxide happens to be both a very useful molecule for photosynthesis and a crucial part of the terrestrial climate control mechanism. The gas was capable of intercepting infrared light radiating from the planet below, and keep its energy as heat within the atmosphere. It was thus the surface temperature was maintained. However, the perfect balance of gases was disrupted by the introduction of these new creatures, and less heat was retained by the planetary blanket. Temperatures dropped, only slightly at first, but climatology soon grabbed a hold of the unbalanced system and began doing its work. The cooler temperatures caused ice caps to form, the first of their kind to form on both poles of the planet. Solid water is a novel substance exhibiting a variety of unusual characteristics. It was often crystalline in nature and less dense that the liquid variation, causing it to float above the seas. Another trait of ice was that it had a very high albedo value, meaning that it reflects almost all incident radiation back into space.

The waters, shelled in thick glaciers of bright snow, no longer absorbed the sun's warmth. Instead, it all shined away into the void, leaving the planet even colder. The ice advanced, reflecting yet more sunlight into space. The viscous cycle built as more ice caused more cold, and the cold froze yet more of the sea. The glaciers marched ever faster toward the equator from both directions, engulfing dwarf continents and covering the shallow seas that the organisms thrived in. As the ceiling of ice extended over the waters, the life-giving sun stopped shining on the cyanobacteria that formed the base of the recently evolved food chain and bringing the organic system to an arduous halt. Yet another genocide ravished populations, once again wrought by the unintended effects of photosynthesis.

With astonishing rapidity, the planet was covered in ice and snow, the water trapped in lifeless darkness below. The organisms were dead or locked within the sheets of ice that encompassed the planet. The latter were mostly extinct as well, their delicate structures sheared apart by tiny daggers of frost. Only a minority remained perfectly intact, ready to begin mindlessly living once the ice melted.

The planet remained frozen for whole minutes. It continued to spin exactly as it had since the beginning, despite all that had conspired, listening only to the mighty commands of the universal laws that ruled over the cosmic dance. Its spin continued to slow, inexorably wrenched by the complementary dance of the planet and its moon.

Another drumbeat echoed across the landscape, shaking the world to its core.

With it, a spout of ash burst out of the ice. It quickly grew to become a mountain of obsidian, pushing steadily upward as it spewed molten rock. The ice surrounding it exploded into steam, leaving a boiling circle of tormented water in its place. More volcanoes punched through the icy surface of the ocean, their black slopes stark against the white of the horizon. They belched flame and smoke into the air, along with a vast array of chemicals that had been locked below the crust until then. These gases acted as an effective layer of insulation, trapping warmth as it radiated off the ancient ice packs and into space.

The planet's surface had long been compressed by the weight of the ice above. The pressure of circulating magma below pushed back, building pressure between the two titanic forces. The frigid power of the glacier and the raw fury of the planet's core battled until the lesser succumbed. The planet retaliated with a vengeance once it had gained the upper hand, relieving the restrained might of its molten heart. The maws of the volcanoes roared with a continuous flow of lava.

The gases that these volcanoes released helped to counteract the damage done by the cyanobacteria, capturing more heat. Ice melted and weakened, cracking under the unrelenting pressure of the magma. More volcanoes erupted, further insulating the planet and causing yet more melt. The cycle that froze the planet ran in reverse.

The organisms thawed and began their usual activities, as if the past thousand years had not happened. They began to multiply, quickly expanding to their previous numbers. The volcanoes had saturated the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, so the cyanobacteria photosynthesize with greater ferocity, inhaling the carbon and releasing oxygen in large quantity. For a time, all was well.

Once again, a less than ideal amount of carbon dioxide was present in the atmosphere, having been consumed by the organisms. The planet cooled, and ice spread across its surface yet again. A few seconds later, the ground recoiled after its eons of compression. The obsidian mountains punched through the ice and spewed their ejecta. The glaciers weakened and collapsed into growing oceans.

Another drum beat.

Five more times, the cycle of ice and water occurred. A truce was eventually reached between the planet and its living denizens, and a stable atmospheric equilibrium was achieved. The background level of carbon emission by geologic processes matched the consumption by life forms.

Without the ice to interrupt their development, the organisms began to evolve. That very first organic compound slowly changed. It carried information which determined the structure of the organism and as it changed, so did the organisms. Finally, after hours of evolution, two organisms began to function as complements to each other. There were certainly relationships between organisms before, mostly in which one consumed the other for the sugars it had collected from the sun. However, this was a symbiosis, beneficial to both organisms. The two were connected by thin strands of protein. One devoted its energy to collecting as much water as possible through its lengthy, hollow tube of a body, the other was flared and broad for collecting the sunlight filtering down from above.

The sun set in a flourish of red and purple.

The principle of banding together to allow for specialization among organisms was an extremely profitable one. A coalition of two organisms could function much more effectively than one, simply because they could divide the necessary processes of survival between them, allowing each to become especially good at its assigned task. Just as the first organic compounds coalesced to create the first cells, the organisms coalesced to create more complex ones.

It was the first time Nadya saw the organisms herself, as a transient floating scum on the ocean surface. Mosses and even simple seaweeds appeared soon after, waving in the cyclical current. These organisms were severely more complicated than their ancestors. Unlike the cyanobacteria, they had a layer of cells devoted entirely to dissuading those seeking to feed on them, as well as structures, consisting of hundreds of cells, designed specifically to collect water and sunlight. Multicellular herbivorous creatures soon evolved to feed on the new, armored plants, destroying their hard shells with primitive teeth. Almost immediately after that, organisms evolved that could prey on those that preyed on the plants.

Over the next minute, the arms race between organisms resulted in the largest explosion of diversity the planet had ever ignored. Creatures with thick dorsal armor made of chitin began to crawl out of the sand to chew on the huge variety of mosses and algae that grew all around them in unprecedented numbers. Predators grew to several meters in length, terrifying arthropods that rippled through the murky water as they stalked for prey. Worms wriggled through the sand, sifting through for something organic to consume. Soft-bodied creatures in colorful spiral shells hung passively in the water, waiting for something to pass by.

The land around Nadya changed too, expanding with every volcanic eruption until it had grown from a tiny island to a fully-fledged continent.

Another drum beat echoed across the waves.

The continent, in its patient journey across the planet, trudged onto the south pole of the planet. The temperature dropped, and a faint frost of briny ice began to form on the shores.

Oceans are very good at transferring heat. Water can absorb a tremendous quantity of energy without a great change in temperature, and currents of warm and cold have always surged through the planet's seas. These two characteristics of the ocean allowed it to maintain an almost constant temperature, regardless of how much heat fell into it or was siphoned away from it. However, as Nadya's continent crawled over one of the coldest places on the planet, that location no longer had access to the warmth of the world's oceans to keep its temperature steady. Only sand and stone stood where there was once water. The land caught the paltry rays of the sun, warming slightly, only to be plunged back into darkness. Heat was lost as infrared radiation and escaped into the night. Were there an ocean there instead of a continent, the warm currents from the equator and water's natural imperviousness to shifts in temperature would have kept that surface warm until the next dawn. Instead, heat radiated off the cooling rock. Some, of course, was caught by the planet's atmospheric blanket of greenhouse gases, but a crucial amount was lost forever.

The sun rose above the horizon after nearly twenty hours of darkness.

For hours now, the organisms had not committed genocide on each other. There was certainly a constant stream of death and extinction as predators murdered their prey to obtain precious calories. Those same prey animals consumed whole fields of photosynthesizing plants for the same purpose. There was even the occasional extinction, the death of an entire lineage of organisms, as some other organism hunted them to oblivion. Even so, there had been no holocaust, a great dying inflicted by one organism onto the rest.

But the planet, going through its colossal motions, doomed them regardless. The continent, positioned entirely by chance over the pole, radiated heat. The temperatures dropped, and the climatological equilibrium that had been created between the organisms and the planet they lived on was broken. Ice spread from the shores of the continent. The sea levels dropped, destroying the complicated ecosystems that had grown in the shallow coastal seas. Only a few, isolated groups survived, enduring the freezing temperatures as the rest of the world died around them.

The ice eventually receded, as the planet's natural balancing system worked its charms. It melted and released vast gushes of water into the oceans, replenishing them and raising sea levels. The water itself, however, was low in oxygen, having been cut off from the photosynthesizing organisms for whole minutes. While this was not a problem for most the organisms, those that had come rely on the substance as an absolute necessity for basic metabolic processes suffocated in the torrent of meltwater.

Another drum beat. It dawned on Nadya that the drum was playing faster. It took only minutes between beats, where it took hours at the beginning.

Of course, life moved on. The arms race between organisms continued with even more vigor than before. The photosynthetic ones found a novel way to avoid death at the hands of grazers, and began to crawl onto the dry land. It was an alien place, devoid of the water necessary for all life to exist. Even so, moss began to grow on stones near the shore, relying on the tides to keep it alive. A few even evolved a new type of cell, a long, tubular one that took advantage of capillary suction to bring water out of the moist coastal sands and into simple vertical shoots.

There was soon a short lawn of verdant greenery extending deep into the continent. Between the moss and lichens, a few clubmosses poked their heads, rising above the faint covering of plant life below. Arthropods, their hard exoskeletons gleaming in the sun, clambered onto the shore and grazed on the fuzz of plant life. When they inevitably collapsed, the moss feasted on their empty husks.