The first two giants hit the towers so hard that the whole city shook. The buildings didn't completely collapse; half of each still stood, bent and screaming under the weight. The giants lay where they landed, bleeding, unconscious, as if someone had thrown them from above.
Then the clouds opened wider.
More giants fell. No… not just giants. Mythical creatures, even fantasy creatures, from stories that people couldn't fathom. Dozens, then hundreds. All different, some with wings, some with horns, some shaped like nightmares dragged out of old stories. And between them came pieces of land. Real land. Forests, ruins, cliffs, whole chunks of somewhere else. The sun vanished behind it all, and the city went dark.
People ran. They ran because the sky itself was falling. Creatures slammed into buildings. Land crushed entire streets. In minutes, New Jersey was gone, buried under bright grass and pale stone and strange trees.
And the news spread. Everyone watched, half of America in shock, the rest of the world staring, as more pieces of "heaven" fell across states, across countries. Cities crushed. A few small nations were easily erased beneath this otherworldly earth.
Militaries mobilized when the falling slowed. Jets, helicopters, tanks, whatever still worked, flew into the new terrain. The National Guard and police tried to gather survivors, but there wasn't much left to save. Hundreds of buildings were gone. Millions, maybe billions, dead.
Hours passed. Maybe days passed. Then the mythical creatures woke up.
Giants. Dragons. Things that might have been considered gods once.
They tore through what remained. Military units couldn't respond fast enough, most command centers were buried, and most of the people who gave orders were already dead. Rescue aircraft became weapons.
And then the fog appeared.
A strange, glittering haze drifted through the ruins, pushing people down. On some people, anyway. Others walked through it untouched. Dragons ignored them. Giants stepped around them. Monsters moved past them like they weren't there.
These people lived while everyone else died.
More pieces of heaven fell. More land buried what remained of the old world. Within a couple of months, everything that had been in 2001, its cities, its history, its technology, was swallowed by heaven.
The survivors, the "special" ones, learned they could use the fog. Absorb it. Shape it. At first, only a little. Some barely at all, some are even getting sick. And the once-peaceful creatures that didn't harm them began to turn hostile without warning.
So the survivors built villages. Small ones. They scavenged what was left of modern tech, reforged metals they didn't understand. Wanderers adapted best, but no one escaped the guilt. Most of the world was gone, yet they were still here.
By 2055, they had figured things out. Named the fog for what it really was, magic. They could spark flames with it. Send messages with it. Rebuild pieces of technology in primitive forms. But no real electronics.
The military still existed, but only as a tiny kingdom of relics, jets they couldn't fuel, tanks they couldn't reload.
The old man sighed, his throat dry. The old man grabbed the wooden cup by the handle, bringing it to his mouth as he tipped it back, the water pouring into his mouth and down his throat as he swallowed. He set the cup back on the pale wood table.
"Is that all, Grandpa?"
"Yes, kiddo. That's all."
The kid sat up straighter in the wooden chair. "Well, tell me more about the old world, Grandpa!" His eyes lit up.
"Not tonight, kiddo. You gotta sleep. You and your parents have work in the morning." Grandpa said, pulling at the kid's Elven ear.
The kid frowned and stood up, stretching his back. The two walked into the house together, footsteps echoing as the old man opened the door and let the kid go first.
The house was small, cozy, and warm as they parted ways for their bedrooms.
Thirteen years later.