Nobody had seen the impact coming until it was far too late to do anything about it. Not that there was anything we could have done even with years of warning. The best people could have managed would have been evacuating my small fishing village that the meteorite impacted and reduced everything to starsand.

In the grand scheme of things, nobody really cared about one little village compared to the absolute chaos and bloodshed that the impact unleashed however. Nobody was left to remember, nobody apart from myself anyway. Who really cared about any of the small villages that had been in the forest as big as a nation, when the forest itself was totally wiped off the map?

The thick and bountiful forest, known by most as the Elderwood, worked well as a natural barrier between the nations bordering opposite sides, and by some diplomatic miracle all four of the powerful nations agreed to keep it as a peaceful zone free of any kind of fighting or attempts to expand.

Whenever refugees or outcasts needed a place to go, the Elderwood was an ideal choice, as you could live off the land far from civilisation, with other like-minded peaceful folks. I was born out in the forest and never learned how my parents had come to be there. Our house didn’t have many signs of their past lives, other than a worn sword and shield and a couple of dusty medals that I knew belonged to my mother.

She never talked about where they came from however, but I always liked to imagine her as a general in one of the great armies that had come out here for a quiet life.

I enjoyed it, but I never knew any other way of life. There were plenty of other children my age to play with, and our small stone house was comfortable. We always had food on the table thanks to the forest being so massive, and any disputes between villagers were settled peacefully by the head of our village.

It was hard for me to know just how good I had it with such little knowledge of the outside world. Our village had a library of sorts, but I didn’t spend much time there, much preferring to play outside or join my father for hunting and gathering. Our village even had a mage with some basic healing abilities, so we didn’t worry about sickness or accidents too much. It was a peaceful life, humans and other races living together happily.

Looking back on it, I know the peace would have broken eventually due to one greedy nation or another, the Elderwood becoming the Scorch just sped the process up. I still remembered that horrible day the sky had shattered. I had been out with my father, an early morning fishing trip meant to surprise our mother by hopefully treating her to some fresh salmon, when we spotted the falling chunks of crystal.

They were small at first, glowing crystal shards each about the size of a clenched fist. My father and I just watched in confusion as they fell all around us, and that confusion all too quickly turned to terror as the falling crystals started getting bigger and more frequent.

“Son! With me now!” father yelled.

He grabbed me by the arm and sprinted over to our horse, leaving our catch by the edge of the river. I was only fourteen at the time and had never seen my father truly scared before. I had seen him nervous, like when we were out hunting in the woods and I saw a bear for the first time, but never truly terrified like he was now.

Seeing my father, the one who had always known what to do and soothed any of my childish fears like that only added to my own terror.

When father pulled me onto the horse I buried my face in his back and clenched my eyes shut. I wrapped my arms around him desperately just as our horse sped into a gallop toward the village. When I worked up the courage to peek at the sky, it just made things worse. The surrounding trees blocked much of the coming catastrophe from view, all but a small patch directly above us being obscured.

Through it I could see the horrible truth. The sky was on fire.

Iridescent flames danced in a rainbow of colors across the once-blue expanse, their destructive beauty heralding death to all beneath them. I just screamed, clenched my eyes shut and went back to gripping my father tight.

At that time, I was just a child, desperate for any assurance that things would be OK. That it was just some freak storm that would pass, and my father, mother and I would all laugh about it over dinner.

Nothing would ever be the same again though, and part of me had known that even then.

“Where is she…” I heard my father’s panicked voice as we arrived at the outskirts of the village.

I worked up the courage to take another look around as my father leapt off the horse. The other villagers were having mixed reactions to the coming catastrophe. The adults sprinted around, yelling for people to get to shelter or run, while the younger villagers cried or stared up in awe. Meanwhile, I was frozen in a state of terror, gripping onto the family horse, trying and failing to ignore the mind-numbing horror descending upon us.

But the rain of crystal chunks had only been the beginning. The clouds above the village had parted, and what emerged from behind them gave off a bright halo of rainbow lights, the glare so strong that it matched the sun.

Despite the fear, curiosity made me look, and with a lot of squinting and shading my eyes with one hand, I managed to steal a glimpse of it. I shouldn't have. I only managed to look for a short second, but it was enough to renew my absolute terror.

I had thought many times about how to best describe what I had witnessed that day, but the right words always eluded me. None I could think of could carry across the absolute terror that thing inspired: an enormous, crystalline moon, plummeting from the sky right onto my village.

I hadn't had enough time to register any more than that until the shockwaves began, and I was thrown from the horse, the wind blasting me back as the ground began to shake. I was knocked into the side of a house, crying out in pain as I felt something in my left arm snap. I heard many other cries and screams from all around as the other villagers were similarly displaced.

I tried to look for my father, hoping to see him return with my mother so we could flee the village, but all I could see was destruction wherever I looked. As the crystal descended on us, more and more violent shockwaves and powerful winds were whipping through the village, causing the simple structures to collapse and the people to be thrown through the air like myself.

I tried to scramble to my feet despite the overwhelming pain, but another powerful shockwave shattered part of the wall I had been blasted into, causing several large chunks of stone to come crashing down onto me.

I screamed for my father and mother to help me as the rubble battered me, burying me under it. My left arm took another heavy hit from a falling stone brick, but the pain was almost negligible, veiled behind the hurt the many bruises covering my entire body inflicted.

By the time the debris had stopped falling, my entire body was beaten and broken, fiery pain flooding through me as I continued to cry out for help. I was trapped in the pile of stone bricks and wooden beams, forced to watch and listen to the desperate screams of the rest of the village as the crystal glowed brighter and brighter. The descent almost seemed to stop for a few hopeful seconds, but the light kept on growing brighter and brighter. It became so strong I could make it out through the remains of the collapsed wall, even with my eyes clenched shut.

Then the impact came, and everything shattered.

All I could do was scream as I felt it, everything shaking, everyone screaming, my entire body wracked with pain beyond belief as the light seeped into me through the holes in the rubble, then everything went black.

When I woke up, my village was gone. Everyone I had ever known, the family I had loved so dearly, all gone. Tears filled my eyes, the pain that racked my body now so faint. Sadness had dulled everything else. The rubble that had trapped me was gone, replaced by strange, shimmering sand that cut my hands when I brushed it off.

This shining sand was all that remained of the village now, I couldn’t see anyone else, I couldn’t even see any trees as I looked around. All the way to the horizon, there was nothing but the shining wasteland. I was truly alone for the first time in my life.

Not knowing what to do, my mind overwhelmed with grief, I made my way toward the source of it all. The center of the crater, where the enormous iridescent crystalline mass seemed to be sang, filling the air with a strange ethereal sound that I could feel resonating through my body. I felt like a tuning fork, as if my very bones were vibrating.

The closer I got, the worse the sensation felt, but I didn’t stop. I slid down through the glittering sand and made my way toward the huge shining sphere. The pain had returned now, and was almost too much for me, but that light was calling to me. With a cry, I reached out with my ruined left arm once I finally got close enough, and the moment I touched the cold hard surface the singing became a scream. I screamed too as I felt the light of the crystal flood into my body, and my arm started to change.

Ten years ago was the day that had changed me forever. The day of the impact that had warped and scorched everything in its path, myself included. Even though I could remember it all so clearly, I knew that I was not the same boy from those memories anymore. That part of me had died with the rest of the forest. Now, I was something different.

The land that would soon become known far and wide as the Scorch was my home, and just like all the creatures of the forest that hadn’t been wiped out by the impact, I received the blessing of the crystal. The Scorch was my birthright and, with time, I intended to show that to the world.

Those first few months after I had received the blessing of the mother crystal, after my town had been reduced to starsand, I had wandered the wasteland without purpose. The black crystal that had engulfed my once broken arm felt like it was talking to me at times, filling my head with images of the stars, images of the journey it had taken to reach us, images of what our world would become. I could feel its influence forcing its way into my mind, a presence trying to dominate me and control my body.

As I wandered I encountered other creatures that had also been touched by the crystal, spiders, scorpions, bears and even some more fantastical creatures I knew the Elderwood had been home to in my distant memories. Those that had been touched were in similar struggles to my own, their minds bending over the force the crystal exerted on them until they were nothing more than willing servants.

The crystal tried to do it to me too, turn me into a slave, only fit for protecting it by killing all those to trespass on the starsand wastes it had made its home, but a human mind was too much for it to dominate completely.

There were times where it almost took me, the crystal creeping further and further over my body, starting to move onto my chest, but I held out and eventually it stopped trying. My entire left arm had been taken, but that was all I allowed. I tried to leave the Scorch at first. I even tried to mourn my family once I regained my mind, but both endeavors ended up being pointless. I found that whenever I got close to the borders of the vast waste, my crystalline arm stopped glowing and caused me immense pain.

It felt as if pressure on my brain was building, alien voices and images flashing through my mind until I felt like my head would explode. I would collapse on the spot if I tried to continue. It was a small miracle nobody found me like that before I woke up and crawled back into the Scorch. The land had claimed me, even starting to corrupt my mind.

To survive, I had to accept my new role, and survive I did. Those who first encountered me called me a demon. But once I made sure they received the blessing of the crystal too, they fell into line and served me well.

I had never wanted much out of my life before. I was content to stay in that forest village forever. Now, I wanted more. I shared the desires of the crystal that had taken everything away from me. I had hated it for a short while, but that hatred turned to love once I realised it was a gift instead of a curse. A gift I could share with the world.

I had first come to truly understand my new gift when I had stumbled across a crystal creature for the first time, long before I had encountered another human. In the years to come, whenever I looked back on it, I always found it funny that I was likely the very first living being to encounter one, and instead of trying to tear me to pieces, it had bowed to me.

I was terrified, not sure how to handle what I was seeing, but my arm pulsed and glowed vibrantly as the twisted and many-legged horror stared at me with its many eyes. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, a being that truly defied comprehension and understanding, more than just some animal blessed by the crystal like I had been.

As I gazed upon the bowing crystalline horror, a single word entered my mind. It permeated through every part of me, casting away the fear, the surprise, the wonder and everything else until I was forced to my knees. I felt as if the word had been stamped upon my very soul, any trace of my former name and identity overwritten completely. To this day I wasn’t sure how much time passed, my body frozen in place amidst the starsand while more visions filled my head.

I had seen the world covered in starsand. The seas turned to beautiful blue crystals and amidst it all a palace the size of a continent where a throne was carved out of the purest black. It would be a new domain, where I would rule.

Whilst the visions coursed through my being, more of the crystal creatures swarmed around me. Once my mind cleared and I felt I could move again, I rose to greet my new subjects and I spoke the word the crystal had given me. My new title, my place in the world, the universe even.

“Sovereign.”