I tightly held onto my ethereal arms as I walked across a sea of smog.

The air was still filled with cooling ash from the time when I was pelted with rocks and crystals.

I was still trying to figure out how any of this was even possible but...

There was no use thinking about it.

I was here, alone in a world which had a form which mirrored my own. Just as craters littered its surface, so too was my form covered in dark spots.

I wondered if this meant my soul had somehow been transferred into a world or if had I just joined a cosmic cycle where things died and went on to live another life as something else.

But, if that was the case, then how could planets have souls?

Did other planets have souls or some semblance of sentience?

I...

I shook my head and chose instead to focus on the present.

What little I knew about the way planets formed suggested that, at some point, all the smog would settle.

The winds on my world- my winds were gentle and wouldn’t be enough to keep the smog up forever and so I took comfort in knowing that my surface would, at some point, become clearer.

I had since learnt the ability to shift my perspective from a narrow, more human-like one, which allowed me to walk on my surface, to a planetary one that allowed me to look out into the cosmos around me.

This allowed me to see that I was the second planet in a solar system of three.

The first was small, rocky and orbited our sun at a dizzyingly high speed.

The third was gigantic and gaseous. It spun slowly and orbited the sun at an incredibly slow rate. Its surface was made of vivid shades of orange, red and yellow which swirled in and out of each other.

The sun we shared was a gargantuan ball of heat and light but I wondered just how long it would burn for.

Time had become strange for me in the sense that I had gone from what I assumed was a gas cloud to a solid celestial body in what felt like a few days.

This puzzled me since I had learnt in my previous life that these processes took billions of years.

Maybe this is what it felt like for the earth.

Maybe the aeons it experienced were nothing but flickers in time.

I sighed after reaching the top of a mountain that overlooked swathes of smog-covered terrain.

This was the perfect spot to sit while everything settled but my hopes for peace and quiet were interrupted by a low drone.

I shifted my perspective to the planetary one and gasped upon seeing countless dark ovoid structures approaching me from beyond the solar system. They eerily flew past the larger planet and made their way towards me. Protruding from what I assume was their fronts were long tendrils which flailed about as they got closer.

My thoughts raced.

I was about to make contact with aliens of some sort, something I had never even dared dream about.

I found myself unthinkingly smiling as they approached.

I wondered what they would do on my surface and I wondered for how long they would stay.

Maybe were going to use me as a temporary outpost on their cosmic journey or maybe they were going to stay here for as long as possible.

I didn’t know but the possibilities excited me.

It was such a pure, and innocent feeling that I felt a little ashamed as they got closer and so I reeled in my jubilation.

I was a being of seemingly pure thought and will so my form reflected how I felt.

I had gone from a small wisp of light to a taller and brighter figure of light although my features were noticeably different.

I now stood one hundred and fifty centimetres tall, my limbs were far thinner and my figure could be best described as dainty.

I returned my focus to the space above me and watched as the first of the ovoid structures reached my surface.

Its tendrils dug into my surface and it landed close to one of the many gigantic white crystals that littered my surface.

Mmm... are they here to harvest resources? I wondered.

Maybe they needed the crystals, whatever they were.

I watched as the ovoid’s side peeled open, revealing a space that was lined with large, hulking creatures that appeared to be made out of metal. They each had varying designs, some of which vaguely resembled insects and crustaceans.

I noticed that there were two main types. The first type was the larger kind which had large arms and small legs. They led the march to the crystal and the second type followed closely behind.

These ones were smaller and had more legs.

Although their head shapes and number of eyes varied, one thing that was common among them was that all of their eyes glowed so brightly white, they pierced the darkness of my atmosphere.

The bulky ones eventually reached the crystal and without wasting a moment, they began breaking it by striking it with their arms and pincers.

I thought I would feel something upon seeing them break off pieces of the crystal, which was no shorter than three hundred meters but...

I didn’t feel anything.

Maybe it was because the crystals weren’t originally a part of me.

I accepted this conclusion and watched as the smaller creatures carried the crystals back to the ovoid.

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All this happened while more ovoids landed on my surface.

They released more creatures who made quick work of the largest crystals.

One thing I really liked about the creatures was their skin.

It was segmented in such a way that they could move freely but their most striking feature was the patterns on the skin itself.

It was a mixture of varying metallic shades which swirled in all manner of ways creating countless unique patterns.

My moment of appreciation was then suddenly interrupted as I felt something digging into my chest.

I looked down and saw the stands of light that made up my chest were getting a little darker.

I turned to the point on my surface that corresponded with my chest and saw that some of the bulkier creatures were digging into my surface next to the largest crystal I had.

I rushed my perspective to that location all while wondering what they could possibly be doing.

Their harvesting of the crystals did not affect my being so I wondered just what was causing my light to dim.

Dread filled my thoughts as I wondered what would happen if they started harvesting me along with the crystals.

What would happen if they stripped me of all my minerals or my core?

Would I die again?

What would happen after?

I assumed a more limited perspective and this revealed to me just how big the metallic creatures were.

The hulking ones stood at an average of fifty meters tall while the smaller ones ranged from fifty to twenty meters tall.

Each step any of them took shook the ground and I watched as they gouged out chunks of my surface.

I was... Uncertain.

Afraid.

The smaller ones took the excavated rock and pushed it aside, allowing the bigger ones to dig deeper along the side of the mega crystal.

My fear turned into confusion as, after digging about two hundred meters deep, the big ones left the hole allowing the smaller ones to enter.

I then watched as they started meticulously carving the hole into what resembled a... Foundation.

I watched, with furrowed brows, as the creatures built a building made from a metal which looked eerily similar to the one on their skin. They had brought this metal from within their ships and it closely resembled something resembling a Damascus metal pattern like the ones I’d seen back on Earth.

As for the building’s design, it looked like a metallic ant colony.

It had a large, bulbous centre and tall spiralling towers which varied in height.

Dotted around the building, on the ground were statues of a closed string which had four rounded points.

I didn’t understand what it represented but all my focus shifted to one of the building’s many ground floor entrances.

I watched as one of the creatures sat on its knees.

Steam then suddenly rushed out of its head as it split open down the middle.

I rushed towards the creature, which sat a few meters away from the colossal building, and watched as its head further opened, revealing a relatively small crystalline form that glowed slightly white and was clad in a silky purple tunic that covered its petite torso. It sat in the centre of the larger creature’s head and I deduced that the large creatures were some kind of vehicle.

The glowing being had a head, a torso and four limbs which resembled legs and arms only they were made of a crystalline material that allowed me to see structures beneath that resembled muscles and bones.

I inspected the glowing one closely as it exited its vehicle and I came to realise that it was made of the same crystal that its kind was harvesting.

It also had a smooth and translucent head which housed a pair of bright white eyes, a mouth and a glowing brain.

The being floated around as it moved so I really couldn’t say how its species usually lived.

Maybe it and its kind were originally from a watery world or maybe they just normally floated around.

I decided to follow it into the building and it was here that I noticed that it couldn’t see me.

None of its other brethren, some of whom were still in their gigantic vessels, could see me either but I imagined that this was for the best.

I didn’t even want to imagine what they would do to me if they found me.

My focus returned to the building’s interior and I couldn’t help but let out a silent gasp as I beheld something that I struggled to fully comprehend.

The floor within branched out into several paths, some of which went from the ground and spiralled up towards rooms that hung from various parts of the ceiling.

Some paths sunk into the ground and led somewhere deep within the building.

What puzzled me the most was the fact that some of the crystalline creatures were walking along these paths.

As though gravity itself was being tugged and pulled in some parts of the building, keeping the creatures floating.

I shook aside my confusion and followed the crystalline being from before down one of the paths that led below.

My ethereal form wasn't affected by gravity either but for probably different reasons so I made sure to carefully observe the being as it moved through space.

I noticed that, as it moved perpendicular to the ground, its body glowed slightly purple. This was the case for its gravity-defying brethren as well and so I wondered if they were doing something that allowed it to move the way they did.

I followed the being deeper into the building, down several tubular hallways and we eventually reached the entrance of a chamber which sat directly next to the mega crystal.

The crystal bathed the chamber with light allowing me to see the countless stacks of stone tablets which filled the room.

The tablets were lined with inscriptions that I couldn’t read but what caught the most of my attention was the presence of more crystalline beings.

They sat in front of the glowing crystal wall and standing proudly in front of it was the statue of the closed string.

The first being floated up to one of the ones that sat before the crystal and made a sound akin to whispering but I couldn’t understand what it was saying and so I chose instead to watch how the second being reacted.

It held a tablet in its hands and was seemingly in the act of inscribing something into it. It used one of its three fingers to burn symbols or words into the rock.

It stopped writing for a moment and let out what looked like a sigh.

It then whispered something to the first before standing up with a few of its tablets in hand.

It then looked in my direction for the briefest of moments and I felt as though it was looking straight at me but its shoulders drooped and, after seemingly instructing the others to do the same, it promptly followed the first one out of the chamber.

I followed the group out of the building where we were met by smog-covered skies.

The first crystalline being entered its vehicle and carried the others on its back and it’s here that I noticed that the area surrounding the building was now mostly empty.

A few vehicles could be seen here and there but I wondered where the others and gone so I switched to my planetary perspective and saw that the crystalline beings had built several large buildings and even towns across my surface but I also saw that most of them were returning to their ships, some of which were already in the process of leaving.

I wondered what had gotten them so spooked.

It definitely wasn’t me since they couldn’t see me and so I observed them further.

I couldn’t see anything particularly threatening and so I was left to conclude that maybe it was some sort of emergency.

The creatures all hurriedly packed themselves into their ships all while a handful remained to harvest as much of the crystals as they could.

It’s here that I realized that countless days were passing me by but I couldn’t tell because I couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.

The smoggy skies didn’t help either.

The first of the fleeing ships detached themselves from my surface and left all while a handful of others remained to harvest.

They had harvested most of the bigger ones but a few smaller ones remained, not to mention the mega one.

My curiosity eventually reached a boiling point and I shifted my perspective outward.

My thoughts then shook as I realized that the smaller planet wasn’t orbiting our sun extremely quickly, my perception of time was just so skewed that I couldn’t tell that years had been passing as mere moments to me.

It’s also here that I realized that the smaller planet’s orbit was getting dangerously close to mine.

I didn’t know what to do.

That planet was about a fifth of my size.

If it struck me, then we would surely both perish.

I returned my focus downwards and saw that the last of the vehicular creatures were still working hard on harvesting the crystals.

I wondered why they were putting their lives at risk over the crystals.

Just what was it about them that made the creatures venture across the stars in searching?

My inability to slow my perception of time probably led to me missing the reason behind their mission.

I assumed a more limited perspective and walked towards the building next to the mega crystal.

A few smaller creatures could be seen walking about but I paid them little mind as they carried crystals into gigantic storage bays.

Other smaller creatures then took those crystals and loaded them into the last of the ships.

I was scared.

Were these beings, these entities from the beyond, really going to leave me to die?

I didn’t know what to think and so I looked to the sky and beheld a most nightmarish scene.

Approaching from the distance, growing larger with each passing moment, was the planet which once orbited closely to our sun.

It would eventually crash into me but...

I didn’t want to die.

Not again.