As a demigod, Ardex falsely believed his life to be one of comfort. Sit back and gently nudge the world with his magical powers. Allow the universe to slowly blossom into something beautiful. Father called it “Zyme”.

The same Father who furiously sent him away.

Just now he stood before His throne in the Heavenly Palace. Then the room turned into a whirlpool and his world faded to empty darkness. His stomach turned upside down, his vision grew hazy, flashes of light followed—until he slammed into this ground.

Ground was a grand word. The planet was a liquid fireball and the floor was lava. For every gigantic flame that lashed out, a large rock crashed down from space, only to be swallowed by the magma.

Ardex was glad he was a god. The enormous heat would have incinerated any other creature within a second, and there was no shelter from it. In fact, there was nothing else at all. No sound, no smell, no grass, certainly no food.

Very funny, Father, he thought. Now I get to search for my brothers and sisters and take the long road back to the Heavenly Palace. You have punished me—happy now?

But that didn’t bother a god. He had no body like living beings, he could float carefree over—

“Aaaaah!”

A scream escaped his large mouth. His body tumbled through the air, but precisely so that he landed on his paws. His vision was no longer hazy; he wished it still was.

For he was no longer floating.

His own back was replaced with an orange fur decorated with black stripes. His belly was now a circle of white fur.

He felt his head. Soft curved ears stood sideways and from his mouth protruded two gigantic saber teeth.

He studied his hands. Four black dots ran across the bottom, one for each toe. These soles allowed him to leap back and forth between the rare solid lumps of ground.

A second roar escaped him. He slowly gained control over his body—and his powers. When his front paw stomped, steaming lava bubbles sprang from the holes in the ground, floating through the air without his touch.

He didn’t understand. Had Father only banished him? No, he was angry with everyone, they went along in the whirlpool. Was he the only one transformed into an animal? Was this really a prank by Father?

The lava bubble burst apart. As it flowed back into the cracks, pebbles danced like grains of sand across the floor.

The planet rumbled, as if she were hungry. The pebbles rolled away and the sun suddenly stood much lower on the horizon.

Ardex’ new body lost all its strength. He felt nauseous. Weak, dizzy, vulnerable. This must be how living beings felt when they were sick—and he no longer understood why his parents had invented diseases.

This looks like that hell Mother talked about so often, he thought. Father has banished us to hell! But why do I still have my powers?

No, not all his powers. No matter how hard he tried, no flames burst from his mouth. No matter how his ears perked, they didn’t work. The planet was a bomb that kept going off over and over, but he heard nothing.

They had to return to the Heavenly Palace. He would take revenge on Father! But for that he needed his family members. For that, the planet—

His world rumbled and quaked again. Streams of lava scraped past his paws, interspersed with streams of pebbles.

“Darus!” he called out.

You may think now, dear reader, that this cannot be. In a world without sound, how does he shout his little brother’s name?

But you must understand that I translate everything into words you can grasp. In the end, it is the same. You know something as a spoken word, another being as a gesture, a scent, a signal, or an electric shock. But I translate everything for you. My greatest love, my greatest mistake.

No response. Or wait …

A paw stuck up behind a tall black rock, followed by a soft playful voice. “Shush shush, keep it down. Some beings are trying to sleep over here.”

“Kept your power of laziness, I say,” said Ardex with a smile.

“Love you too.”

Ardex shuffled towards the rock, curious what form Darus had taken. For a moment he thought Darus was the rock itself, until a tail and snout appeared. “No time for jokes. What is this place? Why does the sun keep moving?”

“The planet is unstable. All this rock has only just come together.”

“How? Did Father make this? Is this my punishment?”

“No silly, due to gravity. Heavy particles attract each other. So, stardust forms larger and larger clumps, until they become planets and moons. But we need a good core if we want to spin steadily.”

Their snouts bumped each other. “If this continues, we’ll be sucked into the sun soon.”

He looked at Ardex for the first time. His voice sounded like a little kid who received a magnificent present.

“Super cool!”

“That’s not cool at all!” Ardex grumbled. “I already feel awful. Hot. Sticky. That’ll be much worse in the sun.”

“No, look, you are … you are a saber-toothed tiger! And I … what am I?”

Darus examined himself as if a terrifying spider crawled on his belly. Ardex surpassed that by staring at him as if he saw a spider for the first time.

A grayish-white fur covered Darus’ muscular body. Two pointed ears stood straight up. His nose jutted far forward and he dragged a broad tail far behind.

“A labrador wolf,” Ardex concluded. “Father’s lessons will prove their worth now. But you wouldn’t know that, of course.”

“Shush shush, don’t like that tone mister. This is fun, isn’t it? I’m so soft. Let’s see what animals the others have become!”

Ardex hooked his tusk around Darus’ paw and prevented him from leaving.

A rock from space struck his back. He felt the blow but had no pain. Yet the fact that he felt it at all was frightening enough.

“Not important. Make the planet calm down! I tried to pull pebbles from the ground—”

“Stop that! They need to stay in the ground.”

“Darus! Show some respect for the eldest son of God.”

Ardex showed who was tallest. His tusks pressed lightly on the head of his little brother, who didn’t even notice. He studied the ground, examined all the rocks carefully, squeezed them together, and threw them back down the hole.

“Lots of iron and nickel. If we just wait, gravity will pull them down. With such a large magnet in the core, the planet should become stable.”

“How long will that take?”

“Hmm … a few million years.”

“We don’t have that time.”

“Why not? We’re gods, brother dear. Gods! According to Father we have eternal life.”

“In the palace, yes. Not on this dead planet, I’m afraid.”

“Ugh, you too? You also believe Bella’s vague story about life force and thingies?”

“How else have our powers grown? Father only gave us a tiny pebble of his full might. Now you alter entire planets. Do you have a better theory? Come on, you know what you must do.”

The sun suddenly changed position, again, and now set definitively.

The holes in the ground were barely distinguishable from the rock. Darus sighed. His front paw made a graceful arc, which magically pulled the rocks upward—so he could lean against them comfortably. He staggered on his paws and studied Ardex with tired eyes.

“Could you shine some light here?”

“I can’t do that anymore.”

“A bit disappointing, eldest son of God.”

Darus tapped as if knocking on the planet’s door. Again and again he shifted his paw to a different spot and laid his ear against the rocks.

The rumbling grew louder. Everything inside the planet was changing. The rocks shook more and more violently, as if they were cold.

Until the sun inexplicably rose again.

“The planet no longer spins randomly,” Darus said with satisfaction. “You’ll have to fix those lava and explosion thingies yourself. Too bad the night’s this short. Sleep well, Ardex.”

He hadn’t even closed his eyes before his big brother pulled him upright.

“Why do you think Father sent us here? He could have taken our powers. Turned us into a piece of rock. Maybe even killed us! But instead he banishes us to God knows where.”

“No idea. Maybe he was grumpy. Maybe he was disappointed in us. Maybe this is his idea of a prank. We all know he doesn’t understand humor.”

“Ah, so you got your sense of humor from him.”

“Love you too.”

Darus turned around and fell asleep.

Specks drifted through Ardex’ vision. His front paws slowly transformed into tiny red shreds that orbited around him like stars.

This isn’t right, he thought calmly, until he could no longer restrain himself. I’m dying. I’m dying. I have to find the others, quick, quick, quick.

With each footstep, lava shot up like a fountain. For hours he ran, tirelessly, all that time finding nothing. Absolutely nothing. No hill, no river, no plants, no insects.

The sun already set when something appeared in the distance: a round swelling in the rock.

He feared he’d accidentally looped around and was back at his brother—until the swelling grew into something on two legs.

A raccoon, taller than him, stood on her hind legs and stuck out a flat paw. She looked magnificent: her black-and-white fur gleamed in the evening sun and her large bead-like eyes glistened.

“Bella?” Ardex’ panting made him incomprehensible.

“Stop! Who art thou?”

“It’s me. Your brother.” She remained silent. “Ardex, the fire god. At least, that’s who I was.”

“Proof?”

“Is that really necessary?”

Bella stamped and lifted her chin. “Proof?”

“Alright, alright! Let me think. When you were only three, you pushed me out of the playroom because my playtime was over. A deal’s a deal, you even said.”

Her hand lowered. Her ears shot up and her nose twitched, as if she smelled delicious food. “Oh Ardex! I’m so glad you’re here too, brother!”

She hugged him. With her hands around his neck, she swung onto his back. That made her realize how heavy she was now, so she jumped off of him immediately.

“Seen any of my brothers or sisters?” Bella asked while inspecting his tusks.

“I saw Darus. He’s sleeping somewhere now.”

“… you left him behind again, didn’t you?”

“Ah. Hadn’t thought of that. He was being annoying.”

“You may be the oldest and strongest, but you still have much to learn.”

“It’s difficult enough to lead all of you. I can’t be everyone’s best friend.”

“Funny. We never asked you to be our leader,” she said with a wink. Oh, dear reader, if only Bella knew what influence these words would have for the rest of their lives …

“Well, we could really use one now: a strong leader. Any idea where we are?”

Bella pointed to a bright constellation in the pitch black sky. Ten stars formed a shape that resembled a raccoon with an extremely long tail.

“The Big Dipper. A star system on the other side of the universe. As far from the palace as can be. With our mediocre powers, it’s impossible to journey back to the palace, even if we had millions of seconds.”

“So we’re stuck here?”

“It certainly seems that way.”

They ambled across the planet, so close together they seemed glued. They regularly had to dodge the next chunk of rock that crashed down, or nimbly jump over the lava streams.

The sun came up and went down an hour later.

Bella slowed down. “Did I just hear you correctly? You’re no longer the fire god? When you ran, though, your paws still hurled lava into the air.”

“I still have most of my powers, except fire. Do you think he took that away?”

“Why? You’re the god of destruction, of fire and explosions, of fighting and death, of the—”

“Yes, yes, that’s enough. I can only destroy things.” Ardex hung his head. Bella gave him a little kiss on the cheek.

“Sorry. But if Father wanted someone to keep their powers, it would be you.”

Ardex sighed and moved his head back and forth, as if weighing her words on a scale. After a short silence they resumed their journey.

“This place is missing something important. You all laugh at me, but I stand by my life force theory. Even we need to eat—but our food is living beings in our surroundings.”

“Then we must create life.”

“I can’t do that.”

I know life exists and what it looks like, Bella thought. But that’s very different from knowing how to make it yourself. I can draw a tiger for you, I can’t build one.

“I see your powers are gone too.”

“My powers have not left me! I still have my wisdom. Knowledge is something else—I don’t have that. At least, not about this planet. The others must judge if I still have my beauty.”

“Then you must have a clever way to find the others.”

Bella smiled and scratched her nail into the rockface. She drew a large circle and pricked a dot in the middle.

“Father sent us all away in the same vortex, which means we all landed in the same place. But then we were flung apart by the impact, and the wobbling of the planet.”

Ardex sighed. His front paws started crumbling again. The same happened to Bella, whose frightened eyes curiously studied the red snowflakes around them. “So the rest could be anywhere? We’re doomed to die here.”

“No, no, no. Don’t be like that. The lighter you are, the further you’ve been flung. You and I, we’re heavy. Our little brothers and sisters aren’t.”

She scratched larger and larger circles, farther and farther away from the dot. “If we walk around the dot in a growing spiral, we have to find everyone.”

“If you say so.” He followed the spiral in the rock with his claw. After doing so several times, he nodded. “Yes, now I understand. So we should go that way.”

“No, exactly the other way. But good try.”

“Clever how you always find new ways to make me feel stupid.”

A spluttering laugh sounded, as if someone had heard this remark. A short travel was enough to find the gigantic being.

A bird, almost as large as Ardex, tried in vain to take off. Bella’s black-ringed tail wagged. She pulled her little paws to her chest, as if holding a warm cup of tea.

“Time for a bet! I think that bird is Cosmo.”

“No way. Just look how graceful. How … "

“Majestic? Exalted?”

Ardex frowned. “That’s not a word. You just made that up. Either way, that’s definitely one of the sisters.”

“You’re betting on two horses? That won’t help you I’m afraid.”

They approached carefully. The being suddenly accelerated to lightning speeds and smacked Ardex in the face.

“Pardon!” said a melodious voice. “Wanted to greet you, brother, but have no control yet. Oh, and I’m afraid you lost the bet.”

Bella stroked his colorful feathers. “A bird suits you, my Cosmo. And you’re lucky: fly away from here if you want.”

“Something’s missing here. Taking off is impossible.” He wiped sweat from his forehead and shook his feathers. “It might help to know what kind of bird I am.”

“You’re a great bustard.”

“Are you insulting me now?”

“No. That’s what these creatures are called. Be happy, they’re beautiful and powerful animals.”

Cosmo looked over their heads. If you ignored the explosions and lava streams for a moment —which Cosmo tried very hard to do—you were treated to a magnificent view. The other planets orbiting the same sun were visible. That red planet on one side and the even redder planet on the other. Mares, he thought. Why do I know that name?

His magical, enhanced eyes could even see the planets orbiting other stars in the distance.

But there was another reason he could see so far. That’s why I can’t fly, he thought, relieved.

“The planet is still missing an atmosphere!”

“A what? Are we all just making up words now?”

“A shield. Something around the planet that holds in all the right particles. All the life we know had this.”

Cosmo managed to gently place his wing on Ardex’ shoulder this time. “Let me guess brother, you can no longer make fire?”

Ardex growled in response.

“I can’t fly because there’s nothing for my wings to push against. You can’t make fire because there’s no air to help it burn.”

His beak dropped when the tip of his wing started to crumble, the same red shreds that already followed Ardex and Bella around like ghosts.

“If we don’t hurry,” Ardex said, “we will be the atmosphere soon!”

Cosmo stroked his beak, deep in thought. “We were flung apart, and the lighter you were, the further you went. The sun does the same. It constantly sends out storms of particles, and the lighter the particle, the further it goes.”

“Great. What do we do with this? You’re more useless than Darus.”

Cosmo ignored the insult, even though it was a major insult, because everyone knew how little Darus did.

“Oxygen is pretty heavy. This planet must have a lot of that. Hydrogen on the other hand … "

He tried to see the planets behind them: the ones even further from the sun. “We should get that from farther away.”

Cosmo scratched his beak with his feathers. “Can’t forget carbon. Sticks to everything and—”

“Do something! Try something!”

Father could have been so kind as to take away Ardex’ impatience, Cosmo thought. But even Bella paced back and forth nervously, so he didn’t dare say anything more about how awful he felt. The slow loss of powers and feathers was a mystery he couldn’t solve. He almost hoped it would just go away on its own.

“I can’t.”

Ardex looked like he was about to explode. All the lava streams around his paws shot upward.

“This is Darus’ power. I’m of the air, atmosphere, stars, and space. But he has to extract the right particles from the ground first.”

“Darus is lying around somewhere, snoring. Do you really think he’s going to do anything?”

“Uh—are you sure Darus is snoring?”

A wolf appeared in the distance. Every footstep grew a small hill or deep in the planet. He didn’t blink and ran faster than ever, dust clouds at his heels.

He shouted something. Bella and Ardex turned their ears forward and wanted to run over to him. Cosmo held them back. “He says great dangers are coming.”

Cosmo flapped his wings, but was still unable to fly, even a tiny bit. He locked eyes with Darus.

“What kind of danger?” he asked.

Darus pointed upward with his tail.

“Oh oh. I think I know why Father sent us here.”

Despite sunset not arriving for a while, the world grew dark. A shadow fell over the four godchildren and half the planet. The temperature rose even further.

A colossal chunk of rock roared through the air. It grew and grew. The darkness held them captive.

“How lovely! A real meteor!” Cosmo curled his wings around his eyes, like binoculars.

Darus had reached them. “Don’t care what it’s called, it’s going to crush us!”

With one and the same movement he grabbed Cosmo, flung him onto his back, and ran on. Bella jumped onto Ardex’ back, who barely held her weight.

They shot across the planet like frightened mice. Far ahead they could still see sunlight gracing the stone floor. That’s where they would be safe.

They ran; the shadow grew relentlessly; the patch of sunlight shrunk to a mere suggestion of safety.

Bella shouted over the din of stamping paws and panting animals. “Can’t you steer the meteor?”

“I’m too weak! And it’s too big!”

Cosmo did flap his wings, aimed at the meteor, but couldn’t slow it down.

It even sped up.

The meteor burned at their backs. It crept closer and would meet the planet in a violent collision, any time now.

Darus smacked his tail against the floor. “Come on!”

He smacked it once more. The rock behind him curled upward. It catapulted Ardex, who barely landed on his paws and suddenly ran ahead of Darus.

He slapped his tail again and the rock rose to be so tall he could no longer see the top.

His tail kept going. With every hit, a new mountain tore through the ground and grew into space, like a sword through a sheet of paper.

The meteor slammed into the fresh mountains.

Chunks sprang in all directions like water droplets, streaming across the surface. And there still wasn’t a single sound.

Darus and Ardex dodged lumps of meteorite, which were immediately swallowed by the lava once they reached the ground. The remaining pieces were flung into space, but didn’t get very far either.

Gravity pulled everything together and formed one ball. A gray ball that grew so large it could be mistaken for a planet.

Now they had two large bodies. Their own planet and this ball. So gravity reared its ugly head again and pulled the ball back towards the planet.

While the rest didn’t dare look back, Cosmo stood on Darus’ back. Both stared intently at the ball, flapping and stomping. The gray mass crept closer.

Bella tried to turn him around. “What are you doing? That ball needs to be pushed away!”

“No! We need a moon!”

“What for?”

The planet spun, as if it were a soccer ball rolling across a field. Darus and Ardex stumbled. Everyone fell flat on the ground.

Bella instantly rolled onto her back to look up—but to her amazement, the moon stayed at a safe distance.

The danger had passed. Sunrays lit up her face.

“No thanks necessary, no thanks.” Cosmo was the first to stand up. “This lovely celestial body, my friends, is called a moon. It provides many good things.”

Darus’ tail had almost completely crumbled away. It was hard for him to focus on anything else. Maybe it’s time, he thought, that I start believing Bella’s story of life force.

“Does it also make us immortal gods again?”

Cosmo shook his beak. “But it gives safety. Gravity works both ways. We pull hard on the moon, because we’re bigger, and the moon pulls on us a little more softly.”

Ugh, Cosmo is going to explain things I already know, he thought. I’m the god of all rock and particles, so also moons and gravity. But he likes it, so meh.

“But you know what pulls even harder? The gigantic sun. So we want to go to the sun, the moon wants to come to us, and thus we chase each other without ever colliding.”

His wings spun around wildly, which looked elegant but meant nothing to the rest. “The pulling has tilted us sideways now. Days should be twelve times as long.”

Cosmo stood before his family as if they were on a school trip and he explained why they should find this museum fascinating. Satisfied, he stroked his feathers and stared at his moon with an open beak.

“Oh, yes, it also reflects sunlight. So we have light at night. We don’t need your fire anymore, Ardex!”

“Super. Thanks. Something else I can’t do.” Ardex hung his head and walked away from the others.

“Don’t go! We’ll lose everyone again!” Bella looked at Cosmo angrily and hopped towards her brother.

Darus nudged Cosmo from the side, careful not to ruin his feathers. “Well done, buddy. Don’t mind him, you saved us.”

“You too. Those are some impressive mountains.”

“Thank you! Thank you! A thousand thanks!” said Darus with exaggerated cheer. “At least some appreciation from someone!”

“Oh, Ardex probably thinks this whole malaise is his fault.”

“Which mayonnaise?”

“Pardon! Bella’s been tutoring lately. We’re in trouble. He’s afraid he went too far with what he did and said to Father.”

“He wouldn’t have survived a day on his own. It’s a blessing we’re together. And, obviously, super fun! Have you seen those other four yet?”

Cosmo’s other wing crumbled as well. The red shards hung like mist around them. “No. But it’s important we find them, because without their powers we won’t survive.”

“Survive? I thought we were trying to get back home.”

Darus sighed. “I see. You also believe Bella’s story about life force. Next we’ll theorize that unicorns live in the center of the planet singing lullabies to put us to sleep! My stomach is calling for a nice piece of meat.”

Cosmo shook his head. “You forget you’re a god sometimes, little brother.”

“Something else Ardex probably wishes were different …”

Cosmo squinted, as if looking straight into bright sunlight. “There’s a well-known saying: beings can scour the universe for all its stars, but forget to see the stars around them.”

“Did Bella teach you that?”

“Yup. Never fully understood it. But I think it means we should stick together and make this our home. Instead of looking at the sky longing for the road to the Heavenly Palace.”

“You know,” Darus said with a laugh, “a few more lessons and you’ll suddenly become the goddess of wisdom.”

Ardex lay in the distance. Bella stood next to him stroking his hair and softly speaking. Her other paw made made wild gestures.

“What are they saying?”

“I don’t eavesdrop on our family, little brother. Besides, I have to admit my hearing is worse here. Sound moves through air—and we don’t have air.”

“We have a sort of air. There’s a blanket of carbon dioxide around the planet, that’s why it’s so hot, and stuffy, and I’m choking all the time.”

Together they walked back. By now Darus had grown used to dodging all the falling rocks. He gracefully jumped around the holes that suddenly appeared, the stone burst open to reveal a pool of lava.

Only now did he realize this wasn’t bad, but actually very good.

“That’s it! Those falling rocks come from planets farther away. That means …”

“That there’s hydrogen in them. But … we need the oxygen.”

“If we throw enough rocks into the lava, the hydrogen should merge with the oxygen into water. That’s lighter. It bubbles upward and then we make an atmosphere!”

“Brilliant! Good plan! Do it!” shouted Ardex as if he were a sports team coach.

Darus tried to attract the rocks. He tried breaking them, extracting the water, asking for more rocks from planets farther away.

None of it worked. Like the lava, his powers trickled out of his grasp. He helplessly watched as he could barely control one small rock with great effort.

“Not enough. Work a little harder now!”

“I … I can’t do it anymore.”

Ardex’ tail had fully crumbled away. “It has to be faster! I want a planet that could sustain life within a day!”

Bella calmed him. “And then? Do you think life will just spontaneously appear? That little green men will come visit as soon as we have an atmosphere?”

Darus recalled Father’s story about Zyme. Gods shouldn’t hurry. Gods shouldn’t artificially speed things up. Instead, let the universe sort out itself. Gently guide life along. Allow it to bloom.

Out of all his brothers and sisters, he understood it best.

“And what have you done, eldest son of God? Other than give commands and belittle me?”

Ardex jumped at Darus. A stream of lava appeared between them. “Your family is dying and you’d rather sleep.”

“That was before I knew how bad it was.”

“But you also didn’t make any effort to figure out how bad it was.”

Ardex’ lava stream seeped further than he had intended. In the distance, it was held back for a few seconds. Then, in one heartbeat, it changed from a thin trickle to an explosion of lava as large as a forest.

I’m starting to feel like this planet isn’t so friendly, Darus thought. Even more unfriendly than Ardex.

Fleeing the the explosion, a silhouette bounced into view. It was thin but taller than all the other gods stacked on top of each other. Its shadow was therefore already long enough to tickle Darus’ toes.

“Oh no, not another meteor.”

The explosion didn’t come from the planet itself. Fortunately, there was no second meteorite either, because Darus no longer held the strength to create mountain ranges. The gods stepped over a garden of black leaves, charred by the lava, straight into a storm.

Leaves slapped their eyes and ears. Branches cracked under their paws. Bella used her tail to fend off the debris, until the leaves grew larger and eventually a whole tree came for the animals.

The demigods scattered away screaming. Ardex caught the tree in his teeth; his touch was enough to immediately burn away the danger.

In the middle of the garden, a giraffe impatiently hopped from side to side. A sky rock hit her long neck. To her shock, she noticed it hurt, but she was too angry to think about it.

“What are you doing!? I almost conjured a plant! A whole garden full of plants!”

“Really?” Ardex pushed his snout between the leaves. They crumbled into dust as black as the rocky planet.

“Yes! Yes … no, not really.” Eeris hopped towards her family members. Her long neck pulled all the godchildren together, as if a lasso caught them. “I’m so happy to see you again!”

Bella looked over the mess. “It does look like plants and leaves.”

“I could find enough carbon to make things shaped like plants.” She looked out over her barren garden with sad eyes. She could feel out the right particles for life and stick them together by instinct.

It was, however, a worthless power—goddess of nature—when there was no nature. “But Carbon is happy to work with anything. Which is very different from real plants that work.”

What does that even mean? Eeris thought. When does a plant “work”? I thought I knew these kinds of things. Maybe I should think a little longer from now on.

She wanted to create life just as badly and quickly as the rest. She and her sister, Feria, weren’t called the Green Sisters for nothing. The only problem was that they didn’t know exactly what “life” meant.

“I can help extract even more particles from the ground,” said Darus. “If it’s not too difficult.”

Eeris nodded. Parts of her neck had already turned into yellow snowflakes. “My powers are leaving too. We have to use them while we still can.”

The group fell silent. As if they realized for the first time that they really weren’t going to survive this. That this was the end and they should make these final days as fun as possible.

Something Ardex would never accept. “Life. We all know life, right? Right? We’ve seen it. We’re children of the God who made it. So how do we make life?”

Exhausted and weak, like wrung-out dishrags, the godchildren leaned against each other.

“Life definitely needs water,” Eeris mumbled. “It can dissolve and transport almost anything, while being super light. Hydrogen is the lightest particle in existence! It would be stupid to use anything else.”

“It’s too hot. It would all evaporate,” Ardex grumbled.

“No,” said Cosmo. “The sort-of atmosphere we have now has a super high pressure. So water can be much hotter before evaporating.”

“But the planet will cool down,” said Darus. “I’ve already felt that we mainly have silicon and iron. When that cools, the whole ground hardens. If we wait too long … the ground will seal shut and we can’t reach all the particles underneath anymore.”

Eeris sighed. “We need Gulvi. He’d conjure up water from somewhere.”

Bella jumped away from the group. “That’s what life needs. But what is it?”

“Life does things,” said Eeris. “That’s why it’s so much more fun than boring rocks and lava and everything.”

“Shush shush, can we stop ridiculing my powers for once?”

“Darus, sweetie, your powers are important. But as goddess of nature I do find plants just a little more fun.”

Cosmo was still trying to take flight, without success. The air pressure was too high and they were still missing that atmosphere. “You can only do things if you can move.”

“Move how? Plants are alive but they can’t walk around.” Bella paced around the group. Her left paw had already partially disappeared, turning walking into wobbling.

“Not move. Change.” Eeris’ eyes went wide. “Living beings can change on their own. A rock can’t.”

“Oh come on! Once again, my powers—” Darus was shut up by a giraffe hoof to the face.

“The problem is just … things that can change can also die or break.”

Eeris now understood what Darus meant. The ground beneath her had first been a swimming pool of hot lava with tiny rock islands scattered like a galaxy of stars.

Now it was increasingly the reverse. The lava cooled down and became rock. The ground hardened into a sturdy crust with tiny lava pools like stars. Pieces that crashed down—rocks that could have given them water—sank and never came up again.

“So,” said Cosmo, who now followed Bella in her nervous circles through the barren gardens. “Life has to be able to repair itself. When it breaks down, it has to be able to grow again.”

“It has to be able to have children,” said Ardex. His face brightened. “We’re on the right track, everyone. Come on! We’ll figure out the secret!”

Eeris rolled her eyes. It’s not a secret, she thought. And yet we all don’t know it. What a bunch of loser gods we are. My dear, cute little losers.

She hugged all her family members again. And again. Until Bella stood up straight and stopped Eeris.

“If you have to have children, then you also have to grow. Otherwise you keep dividing yourself in two. And your children keep getting smaller and smaller. Life stops quickly when your fifth child is as small as ants.”

Bella looked at Eeris hopefully.

“So what you’re really asking … "

“Is there a plant that can double itself? Without each copy getting smaller?”

Eeris considered it. All nature she’d ever seen came to mind. But everything started small, grew bigger, and then had children again that were very small.

She shook her head. No plant, she thought. Maybe something else.

No more waiting. Eeris stood before her family and said: “We’re going to look for Gulvi. Everything starts with water and—”

Ardex stamped and pushed her aside. “I decide that Darus and I will keep the cracks open as long as possible. Prevent the crust from closing for as long as we can. After that we’ll look for Feria.”

“But—”

“She’s the goddess of animals! Exactly what we need! It’s decided.”

Bella spat out her words: “Gulvi has surely changed into some kind of water animal. He won’t live long without water here!”

Ardex reared up, also because his front paws had partly vanished. “No time for discussion! I’m the oldest, I decide, we’re going now.”

Darus caught a chunk of rock from the air and threw it at Ardex’ face. “And I decide you’re an idiot. We have to look for Gulvi. And Hanah. The two demigods you always forget about. Hanah is only a few weeks old! How will she take care of herself?”

“Stick together, stick—”

Darus already ran away. There was no tail left for Bella to grab. Eeris could stretch her neck just long enough to lift up the wolf.

With fiery eyes, Darus stared at his family. The energy to resist, however, was completely gone. Eeris was glad about that, because she herself also staggered back and forth as if she were drunk or sleepwalking.

They started the search for Feria.

Searching for Feria, Bella tripped over a bump that was suspiciously round and soft. She immediately felt it had fur. She immediately saw it was a bunny.

She immediately noticed it wasn’t alive.

“Oh. Oh no. Feria, is that you? Feria? Feria?”

She picked up the rabbit. It was cold and could move no more than a lifeless rock. The eyes were open yet unseeing. Bella pressed the soft cute creature against her. She cried.

“Help!”

She had never shouted with such volume. Her cry of despair echoed across the planet, even making her own fur stand on end.

Ardex and Cosmo rushed to help. They kept calling their sister’s name, but it was as if the rabbit …

“Not born yet.” A shadow fell over everyone, as a fox climbed out of the darkness and onto a high rock. The pink and white fur shone beautifully in the evening sun, even though parts had crumbled.

The fox ran towards Bella. Her brothers did the same, but were too late to offer protection.

“Did you do this? Did you kill my sister?”

Bella made herself as large as possible and stuck out a hand, just as she had done with Ardex. She wanted to add her other front paw, but it was already gone.

“Stop! Not one step closer, or, or, I’ll do something to you!”

The fox slowed down, leaving a trail of dust clouds. “Geez Bella, what on earth are you talking about?”

“See that rabbit? You killed it. You—wait—how do you know my name?”

“It’s me! Your sister!”

Bella wrinkled her nose. Her left foot nervously clattered on the ground. “Is that true? Can you prove that? What’s my nickname?”

“Phew, which one do you want to hear? You have many. Also many you don’t want to hear, I think.”

“See! You just don’t know.”

Darus leaned forward and whispered in Bella’s ear. “Is this really necessary? Who else could it be? There’s no life on this planet except us. That’s the whole problem. Or are you admitting your theory of life force is wrong?”

Bella shook her head. “Then who is that rabbit?”

The fox crept closer and overheard them. “I made that rabbit. I just couldn’t bring it to life, no matter how hard I tried. She’s not dead. She’s just not born yet, so to speak.”

“Why should we believe that?”

Darus’ loud sigh caused pebbles to swirl around him. “Bella, knock it off already. You know, I’m taking charge here. Welcome back, Feria!”

He walked over to the fox and bumped his nose against hers. Feria did the same.

Ardex growled. “Come back! Nobody put you in charge. I’m in charge.”

“A good leader doesn’t need to tell everyone they’re the leader.”

“No, a good leader doesn’t take stupid actions! You just do whatever you feel like. You have zero responsibility for your family.”

Darus laughed. “Says the god who made Father so angry that he banished all of us to this planet. Or was he scared? Was Father scared of you?”

Ardex sunk his tusks into the ground and a fiery wall rose between the brothers. Darus fell flat on his belly. A deep crack opened up and safely sucked in the fire.

Feria’s eyes went wide open. “Let me prove it’s me! Please, before something serious happens. I’ve already lost my little brother and sister too.”

All mouths fell open. “That rabbit is Hanah?”

“No, I just don’t know where they are. At first Gulvi was still with me. He’s a dolphin, but easy to overlook.”

“How can you possibly overlook a dolphin?”

“He’s a very tiny dolphin.” Feria had to smile again, remembering the cute sight. “I think the size of your animal depends on how old you are.”

“Then Hanah might have turned into an ant, or a bug, or—we might be standing on top of her right now.”

“No, no, she’s not an ant. Did you guys see that explosion by the way? I was just calmly sunbathing, when suddenly it was evening. And there was this grey, glowing thing hanging in the sky. It was sort of banana-shaped. Let me see if it’s still—”

“Okay, I believe you’re my sister.”

“But I haven’t—”

“Trust me, only you can calmly sunbathe as the world is ending.”

Bella jumped over the crack in the ground. She tried to mimic Darus’ greeting, but standing upright she was too big, and on four paws too small. Eventually she gave Feria a kiss on the forehead.

“I made multiple bunnies. They all look like the real animal. But they’re not alive.”

“I had that problem too,” said Eeris. Her smile disappeared. “We were hoping you had an answer.”

By now the gods were faded to such an extent that they could barely walk or move their heads. Darus did his best to keep the cracks in the ground open. Cosmo tried changing the air. But the planet was cooling down and increasingly becoming one dead lump of rock—with no chance of life.

We just can’t give up, Feria thought. It looks bad. I don’t know the solution either right now. But we have to keep thinking, keep trying. That’s what you always do.

“Maybe I do have an answer,” she said suddenly. Ears perked up, from the gods who still had them. “All animals run on energy. Maybe if we generate enough, something will start moving, something will happen.”

It was enough to get her family off the ground one more time. Every now and then something shot out of the holes, like a volcano, but filled with gas.

It was hot. It went fast. It felt like it could contain energy.

Ardex brought Feria’s rabbit over to the air geysers and held the creature above the fastest ones.

Cosmo and Darus faced the sun. It was a ball of energy, but it was also far away. Deep inside themselves, where some divine power still remained, they tried sending the sun’s energy to the rabbits.

Feria and Eeris felt their own power. Plants and animals. Different, but also always connected. Sometimes Feria thought she could feel the rabbits’ presence. A small point of light in an otherwise black world devoid of life force.

But when one god after another collapsed onto the ground, exhausted, her own energy also wavered.

“Don’t give up!” Ardex kept shouting everyone awake, over and over. “Darus, you’re picking your nose again. Work harder! We can do this!”

“No,” Darus shouted, “we can’t do this.”

His voice was wild, cracking, out of control. “You ruined everything! You just had to get soooo angry at Father. You thought your own power better than our powers. You didn’t want to look for Gulvi. And now we’re dying here in this hell.”

Darus stomped the earth with the only paw he had left. A crack followed. Not just any crack, a deep, wide, pitch black line that wound through the planet.

One crack became multiple cracks.

Ardex growled and leaped at Darus like a fireball. Before they collided, Darus had already expanded the crack into a deep spiderweb across the ground.

The brothers shouted at the same time, as if that would enhance their final breath, as if that would summon the ultimate might of their power.

The planet broke into pieces.

Wherever cracks slithered, the crust broke into hundreds of islands. Stone plates drifting apart. The hot magma underneath was finally free and shot upward like millions of volcanoes erupting simultaneously.

The flowing lava picked up all the broken-off pieces. The plates of stone drifted back and forth. Some collided with each other at high speed. When that happened, the edges could go nowhere but up, forming even more mountains.

Others drifted apart, like Darus and the gods on one side, and Ardex on another plate across from them. The chasm between the brothers grew wider, even though they both tried to stop it. The speed of the plates lessened, but they never came to a complete stop.

Ardex was only a silhouette in the distance. Bella saw him turn and walk away. The distance was impossible to cross: any leap would mean a dive into the lava. And she no longer trusted that her godly body would protect her from that hazardous material.

Bella expected Darus to storm off, just as angry. But he tapped Feria and laughed merrily. “I made tectonic plates! Who would have thought? Who’s still making jokes about my—”

A thick raccoon paw slapped his face. “This is no game, Darus.”

“No, this is our answer!”

Eeris and Feria slid their legless body to the edge of their plate. It now moved agonizingly slowly, like a raft on a still ocean. “Look what’s happening.”

The two plates had split from each other perfectly. You could slide them back together and they would fit like two pieces of a puzzle. Their edges were mirror images of one another.

And in the space between them all kinds of material bubbled up. The gap was filled with new particles who were finally able to rise. Once exposed to the surface, they hardened and refilled the rough edges.

“This is how you double yet stay yourself,” Eeris murmured. “By making life out of two things that fit each other precisely. Pull them apart and let particles—food—refill the openings.”

The Green Sisters immediately started conjuring the particles, with the help of an exhausted Darus.

Hot air currents, even faster and fiercer than before, could also finally escape through the large opening. The crust was open again. They had bought themselves more time.

The fragments from space fell into the lava. They immediately melted into small particles, like the hydrogen they had brought. Darus no longer had the strength to manipulate it.

Fortunately, the hydrogen merged with the oxygen underground by itself, which was a light gas that rose up and escaped into the sky.

All the while, the atmosphere had been a thick oppressive blanket. Bella had constantly felt that she suffocated.

Now it filled with other things. The right things, it seemed. It grew lighter and more livable.

But there is still no liquid water, Bella thought. Gulvi, please, I hope you’re still alive. You have to take the final step.

“We have all the ingredients,” said Eeris. “This has to work.”

All Bella saw were specks shooting toward the air current. She didn’t know how or why.

She often felt like she didn’t belong. The others had these immensely useful powers with clear applications, and they knew what they were doing. She had vague things like wisdom and beauty. If the planet collapsed, at least she could explain why it happened.

But it mostly cultivated respect and love for her dear family members. For they had sent exactly the right specks.

It started as an almost invisible pile of dust, even to the amazing senses of the gods. Anything alive was bigger and more colorful to their eyes—to gods, an ant could look tall as a tree—and connected like one glowing spiderweb. But Bella could barely make out what was happening here.

The airstream contained exactly the particles that belonged on the other side. They bonded to each other like puzzle pieces, like hands shaking, as if they were only complete when together.

Judging this to be too slow, the gods focused all their powers on the particles to speed them up.

The same violence, however, split them apart again. They became two particles. The stream added more particles that belonged with those on the other side, completing the handshake again.

This repeated and repeated until the first particle had become about four particles, all exactly the same as the first.

For the first time, Bella felt better. The gods stopped dissipating into grains of sand; the shreds flew back to their bodies and rebuilt them. The headache was gone. It was as if she could finally think again, as if she was stronger and could handle the world.

And then the stream stopped.

It only came every so often. There was no pattern. Cosmo could sense the air currents but they came so suddenly that even he couldn’t predict it.

Now that the gods knew how it felt not to die, the blow landed even harder. One step forward, two steps back.

“Do it again!” Darus yelled. “Do it again!”

He ran to where an air current had just been. They saw enough air currents in the distance, including on Ardex’s plate, but by the time they reached them, they had surely already stopped.

These particles have to find their other side themselves, Bella thought. They have to be able to move on their own, in a place where everything can be.

The lava was fluid, but also deadly to everything. The ground cooled down and became unbreakably hard, as Darus had predicted. So there was only one place left.

These particles needed to end up in a particle soup. A huge ocean of water, filled with everything this planet had to offer.

“Gulvi,” said Bella. “We need Gulvi now, that’s our only chance.”

Darus slapped their stone plate with his tail that had regrown. A smaller raft broke off and everyone jumped on. The Green Sisters gathered all the specks they had and took them along in their mouths.

Eeris called it DNA: Divination of Nature and Animals. They tried sticking the loose parts together until it took an animal shape, but it didn’t work.

Cosmo didn’t need to come along. He could finally fly small distances, although his other wing hadn’t regrown yet. His gusts of wind, however, helped propel the raft to high speeds.

Gulvi was small and light. He must have been flung far from the landing spot.

But which way? Bella thought.

Cosmo shared that thought. After propelling the raft, he himself flew the exact opposite direction, as fast as he could with his half wings covered in thick air.

They raced over the lava, calling for Gulvi. They almost crashed into another plate again, so Darus growled and conjured an angled rock. They slid over it like a ramp, flew through the air, and landed on another patch of lava.

“He can’t be allowed to dry out,” Bella murmured, having to cling to Darus’s neck with all her might during the wild turns. “It has to stay cold. Gulvi will have gone north, where it’s colder.”

Only Darus could sense which way was north; after all, he had placed the magnet in the core. More and more rocks appeared, steering the raft. The Green Sisters kept trying to repeat their DNA magic—doubling their particles—especially now that the gods crumbled once more.

They reached the slightly colder north just as weak and exhausted as before they invented DNA. And there, flailing on the horizon: a dolphin on his back.

He tried to roll onto his belly. His fin was smashed flat and both eyes were nearly shut. He squeaked incessantly, although more and more softly.

“Gulvi!” Bella exclaimed. “We’re coming to rescue you! Hang in there!”

She was ready to leap from the raft. Darus pulled the emergency brake: a massive block of stone rose from the ground, broke off the raft, and flung all the gods forward and into the air.

Bella tumbled and reached Gulvi first. She wanted to pick him up, but his skin was searing hot. All these sensations confused her. First they could float, felt no pain, couldn’t touch anything. And now she could finally feel her own little brother, but had to let go because he was in too much pain.

“… you have to …”

Gulvi coughed. He couldn’t get another word past his raw throat.

“Yes? What is it? What do we have to do?”

Bella tried to keep him in the shade. She licked his dry skin but didn’t know if it helped. Darus came over and took over, also licking though he didn’t understand why.

“Gulvi. Talk to me, please.”

Now that Gulvi was finally turned around, Bella saw thick holes in his body. Rocks had cut into him, but he couldn’t move without water.

“Oh, dear Gulvi. There’s water in the air. How do we get it onto the ground for you?”

Bella looked up. Earlier, she could see every star, but now the sky was hazy. It filled with water in gas form, until one gray cloud hung around them like a shield.

The lava crept toward them, like a fiery monster with an appetite for dolphins. Water and fire, Bella thought, that can’t be a good combination.

“… up …”

It was Gulvi’s last word. His eyes fell shut and he stopped moving.

Ardex didn’t know to where he was walking, or for how much longer he could walk. He wanted to stop the lava. He didn’t want to leave his family, the only thing he had. But his power was nearly gone. It wouldn’t be long before his head crumbled away too.

He’d never had to think about it before: dying. He had seen other living creatures to whom it happened. As the god of destruction he had often been the cause! And now he was nearly a victim himself.

Later they will tell stories about me, he thought. To emphasize how stupid I was and how I got what I deserved.

At first he didn’t know how to feel. Now he knew was sure about what he had to do with his final hours.

He had found the center of his tectonic plate, with no edge in sight. Here, the rocks were the tallest, the ground at its most solid.

So he started building.

With his final pebble of strength, he built a staircase to this highest point. He pulled magma from the earth until it cooled and became rough black stone. That’s how he built one wall. And another wall.

And another, the front wall, which received a gaping hole that was meant to be a gate.

A shock went through him. His front paws, his tail, everything grew back. He felt strong, mighty, like the fire god he was meant to be.

That feeling disappeared immediately when a teeny tiny red panda climbed over the walls and stood before him. He knew right away who she was.

“Hanah! You’re safe. And you’re here.” Ardex walked toward her, but she leapt away and scampered diagonally up the new wall.

“Great, you hate me too.”

“We still can’t touch each other,” she said. “It surprises me you even remember my name. You didn’t search for me, not even a heartbeat, because my powers aren’t useful enough, right?”

“We were busy not dying. Still are, actually.”

Hanah rolled her eyes. “You’re never going to say sorry, are you?”

Ardex sighed deeply and tried his most innocent face. “Sorry. How can I help you?”

“Not at all. I’ll manage by myself. I’m coming to help you all.”

The red panda didn’t seem affected at all. No parts were crumbled or weakened. Or maybe she was so small and so young that there wasn’t much to crumble yet.

“I mean,” she continued. “I don’t want to help you, but I have to if we want to survive this.”

“You don’t want to help us? You’ve only lived a few weeks and you already hate us?”

“No. I love you. That’s the problem.”

Ardex didn’t understand any of it. It seemed like he was always the last to understand. He didn’t get what anyone wanted from him anymore.

“Why did you come to me? I’m useless. My powers are gone and I can’t lead this family. I tried being their friend and cheering them on—didn’t work. I tried commanding and taking charge—didn’t work.”

Hanah’s tail curled over her head. Everywhere she walked she, left a panda print from pebbles and grains of sand. “I know you want to go back. I know you want revenge on Father, but you can’t do that all alone.”

“I can’t do it with my family either. Everyone ignores my commands and does their own thing.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to be! Not them ignoring you, of course, but everyone doing their own thing. Father made us less dangerous by giving each a small power. We can only defeat Father if we get all those powers to work together and trust each other. Not if one of us shouts orders from a high tower.”

“Well then,” Ardex yelled, “I’m a failure even at that.”

“You did just fine.”

“They hate me. Darus literally broke the planet!”

“And still you did fine. How boring would it be if everything worked perfectly the first try?” Hanah smiled. It was cute enough to melt most of Ardex’ anger.

“Boring, but nice.”

Hanah shook her whole fur coat. “You all want to go too fast. Zyme, remember? Look at this house you’re building. Those walls over there are crooked and have uneven heights. You could never put a roof on top. The slightest gust of wind would blow it away. Some of the steps on your staircase are so far apart I can’t take them.”

Ardex fully understood how Darus felt when everyone told him he was useless, over and over. But he held it in and let Hanah finish talking. Because every time he yelled at Darus, it only led to more fighting.

“If you want to build a good house, don’t you draw up blueprints first? Don’t you build stairs step by step? Why are you trying to create a planet full of trees, and rabbits, and all life … within a single day?”

“Because we need life force to survive. Fast too.”

“Ah, and that’s why I’m here.”

“You’re the goddess of arts and love,” Ardex said in surprise.

“No, that’s what you all call me.” Hanah came as close to Ardex as she could. “This planet is gigantic … and yet it’s made of teeny tiny particles. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen. What you’ve all been desperately searching for these past days.”

Ardex felt his power fade again. His body had just been repaired—and now it was breaking apart once more.

He was growing frustrated. She had wasted time. He could have finished building the house in that time! But he knew she was right: if he had made the whole house in that time, it would have been shoddy and crooked.

A house built within a day would have collapsed within a day.

Hanah smiled again. “Start small. As small as you can. I think your Green Sisters already invented that DNA. Make sure it works. Because life doubles and grows, those little pieces will stack up. If you just wait long enough, they’ll become more and more like trees and rabbits.”

She glanced upward. Ardex followed her gaze. Cosmo floated through the gray sky.

“You did good, Ardex. It’s not your fault we were banished. It’s my fault.”

Cosmo crashed down in the middle of the house. The gust of wind he caused blew all the walls apart.

The red panda was nowhere to be seen.

“Why does this always happen to me?” grumbled Cosmo. “A bird with one wing and a fear of heights.”

His brother said more but Ardex didn’t hear it. It’s not my fault, he kept hearing over and over. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I did good.

With renewed energy, he destroyed the staircase and built the house a second time. He used a lava flow to polish the rock until it was a smooth slope, after which he jumped down and placed the first step.

Not rushed, but calm and satisfied.

Cosmo found it much too calm. “Pardon, Ardex? You’ve been staring at one step for fifteen minutes now?”

“It’s finally perfect.” He started on the next step.

“In what way?”

“Exactly like the Heavenly Palace.”

Cosmo fell quiet. Just for a moment, he could look at the slope and see the beautiful stairs from his home again. Laughter brought wrinkles around his bird eyes.

“A nice gesture, brother, but is this the best time?”

“I have nothing else to offer. You all need to let that one thing you invented grow. I can only give this family a place. A place Father took from us.”

Cosmo laid his wing over Ardex’ broad tiger shoulders. He could see it too. On that high rock, it would fit just right. A shared throne room with a throne for everyone, designed to match their powers. A playroom out of which Bella could shove Ardex. A grand hall where they played Godsball.

“Shouldn’t you fly further?” Ardex asked as he started on the third step.

“No use. Those mountains Darus accidentally made are too high. I call it the Impossible Wall. And something in the south stops me: I’m not allowed past it by some invisible force.”

“Then go back to the others. Tell them what I told you. Don’t try to go too fast. Zyme, remember?”

Ardex scratched a floorplan into the stones with his claws.

“When I get my powers back, I’ll calm the lava. And you’re all invited to my Heavenly Palace.”

Of all the gods, Bella’s body remained the most. While Eeris neck shrank, and Feria and Darus saw their legs crumble away, she still looked like a big raccoon and could lift up Gulvi. With the dolphin in her paws, she jumped from black rock to black rock, to the highest point she could find. Gulvi hadn’t moved in a long time.

“This is madness!” cried Feria. “What if it doesn’t work? Gulvi will fall to his death!”

“It has to work!” Bella called back. “Otherwise we’ll all fall to our deaths.”

Bella stood at the highest point. A flat rough rock so high up that the lava streams below them seemed mere twigs. The other gods crowded around her so as not to fall over.

Feria looked upward. She longed so much for safety. For a blue sky without suffocation, for beautiful oceans she knew animals needed.

Her fox head supported Gulvi from below. Darus did the same. Eeris bowed her neck and gently bit Gulvi’s tail.

Bella counted down. Three, two, one—

They all flung Gulvi into the air.

The little dolphin rocketed towards the gray sky. He was swallowed by the clouds, just like the planet’s lava swallowed everything, until the gods could no longer see him.

He stayed away.

“Did … did we throw him too high?”

“Darus,” said Eeris, by now sized like a toy giraffe whom he could pet over the head. “Do you really think we threw Gulvi so high he went to another planet?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore!”

Feria liked Darus’ jokes. She couldn’t handle the suspense otherwise. Her body seemed to crumble away even faster from the fear that Gulvi wouldn’t make it, while her powers were definitely gone for good.

The air changed. Or, rather, the little wisp through which Gulvi had shot. It turned bluish. All the gods stared straight upward, mouths agape.

Until they couldn’t anymore, because fat raindrops splashed in their eyes. They all reacted identically: they shook their heads dry. That mostly led to soaking each other.

Feria felt more and more rain on her snout. Cold. Her ears seemed to freeze. The rock she stood on became slippery.

Those first drops turned a curtain of wetness, one that hung precisely beneath where Gulvi must be. The curtain became a downpour spreading out, further and further, until it was raining in all directions.

And they heard it.

For the first time there was sound. Finally there was air that could carry sound. In this case, the patter of drops as if a thousand beings knocked on the planet at once.

And this was no drizzle, dear reader. No little drops. It rained on a planet where it had never rained before. Because of the heat, the air could hold more water. Which, thanks to Gulvi, it now dumped onto the planet all at once. It rained hard enough to make seas within a day. But because the air was still gray, these seas were also gray.

“It worked! It worked!”

They tried grabbing each other’s paws to dance, but there was nothing left to grab.

“But we’re not done yet,” Feria said quickly. The next rock that fell from space was very much dolphin-shaped.

Feria looked downward. A puddle formed to her left. A little pond destined to be the First Sea soon.

“To the left, Gulvi! You’ll fall safely!”

“Can’t fly! Can’t steer!”

Gulvi was headed straight for a sharp rock. Eeris threw her paws over her eyes. Darus searched for strength to move the rock but found nothing.

“Yes you can,” said Bella. “You can steer water.”

Gulvi’s tail nearly hit the rock. The water from the puddle rose up, grew like a gigantic plant made of water drops, and grabbed Gulvi in its leaves. It softened his fall.

A moment later, Gulvi surfaced, laughing. He did spins and stretched out his fins. His dark blue eyes looked around.

“Water! More water!” he squeaked.

He swam away lightning fast in whichever direction he liked, even though Bella yelled for him to come back. And so it was that Gulvi made the first rivers. He’s still just a little kid, Feria thought with a smile. Hopefully he can find Hanah.

Eeris and Feria didn’t waste a second. They had held the little bit of DNA they created in their mouths. Now the spit all of it into the water.

Under the waves, the hot air currents were now clearly visible. The particles drifted back and forth by themselves. They found other particles with which to match by themselves.

Every so often they happened to pass a white stream: then they grew and doubled faster, as if the planet squirted cream on top of this dessert.

And with each doubling, the gods felt a little better. Their bodies grew back and Feria felt she had more magic and more control over this DNA.

But even after a long wait, the amount of DNA wasn’t even enough to properly see.

Why did this seem to go faster with all other living beings? Feria thought. At this pace we’ll be waiting billions of years!

Eeris pulled the particles toward herself and tried stacking them into a plant again. When that obviously wasn’t working, she tried a tiny blade of grass, also in vain.

Cosmo crashed down between the raindrops. His wing had regrown, yes, but the drops were heavy and the atmosphere was now full enough to make gusts of wind—so crashing was the right word.

“I come from Ardex,” he panted, “and he says: think of Zyme. You’re all going too fast.”

“He’s telling us we’re impatient? The explosive god-of-arguing-instantly?”

“He meant it. Something had changed, though I don’t know what. He’s rebuilding the Heavenly Palace and everyone’s invited.”

“Except Darus, of course?” the wolf said.

“No, you too.”

“Too fast?” Feria said through clenched teeth. “We’re going way too slowly! We need the opposite of Zyme! What do you call that?”

“Enzyme,” Bella mumbled. “If you want the reverse you put en in front.”

“Both could be true,” Eeris suggested. She saw her umpteenth blade of grass fall apart and threw the particles back into the ocean.

Now Feria understood too, even though she didn’t want to. Stupid world, she thought. Stupid planet, stupid rules, who came up with this? Our stupid Father of course.

She hadn’t had time yet to think about the banishment. But now that she paused on it a moment, she felt enormous anger. That he would do something like this to his children. That she had to come along too, even though he obviously wasn’t angry at her, because she had always been the perfect daughter.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “This DNA has to double faster. But after that … we can’t immediately make an animal or plant from it. That can only happen once we have WAY more of this. Once we can make other particles from this little speck, bigger and more special.”

“But that first part …” Eeris looked at Feria with a naughty smile.

The Green Sisters rubbed against each other and focused on the water. They stomped their paws, lashed their tails, rolled their eyes back and forth until they found the powers to grant their wish: enzyme.

It no longer took an eternity before the DNA doubled. It happened almost instantly. The particles doubled, and doubled, until there were so many that even your human eyes could see them. Until they formed a block so large and solid that it stilled parts of the water.

It did not, however, stop there. This planet was a particle soup from start to finish. It had precisely the particles this DNA needed—and those all moved through the water on their own. So the doubling only sped up. The gods stumbled backward to avoid the growing mass of hungry specks.

Between the DNA carpets, Feria noticed something else rise up from the planet crust, which by now had hardened and closed nearly everywhere. It wasn’t from a gust of wind or gentle quake, because the grains took on the shapes of living beings.

I doubt everything now, Feria thought, but I’m pretty sure sand can’t live.

The sandy beings formed a long line marching through the particles to break them down.

“No! Stop that!”

One sandy being was clearly bigger than the rest. It nearly reached as high as Feria’s snout, but was even longer because of the crown on its head. It looked most like a gingerbread man, with dimples for eyes and bulbous hands and feet.

The Sand King stormed toward the godchildren. None of them wanted to show they were afraid of a being made of sand.

That was their mistake.

He leapt around the gods like a cloud, scattered his grains through their fur and eyes, after which they all fell to the ground within two heartbeats—into a deep sleep.

Only Cosmo rose up quickly. But the Sand King effortlessly changed into a big bustard, just like him, and pulled him down.

The growth of the particles slowed to a crawl.

Now, however, there was enough to provide life force. Enough to survive on this planet.

The Sand King had no problem letting the gods sleep away the rest of the week.

They had searched for Hanah high and wide, but never found her. The only proof of her existence came when they stepped over the Lava Bridge that Ardex had made. An irritated voice had said: “Stop looking for me. I’m not coming. Zyme. Let life bloom slowly.”

Every time a god wanted to hurry again and hastily speed up life, they, oddly enough, fell asleep.

And no matter how often Eeris looked back, indeed Hanah did not come. So they reached Ardex’s Heavenly Palace without her. A zigzagging staircase led to the opening up high. All along it stood flowers and trees, even if not yet alive. At the bottom Darus placed the last diamond on the railing.

A waterslide had been carved alongside the stairs. Gulvi pushed his fin forward and squirted water. To his disappointment, it immediately trickled downward, leaving the slide dry.

Cosmo saw it and blew a raincloud from his beak. Gulvi tried again, and this time the water at the bottom was absorbed by the cloud, which carried it back upward. A consistently flowing waterfall formed, and now everyone could reach the palace.

Ardex waited in the opening. The palace nearly touched the clouds, and at that height the wind blew fiercely, though no one minded. They let their magnificent fur flutter. Gulvi enjoyed the waves. Large fire baskets left and right provided a cozy atmosphere.

“Welcome to our new palace! Without a roof, for now.”

“Did you make all this yourself?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. We’ll have to continue building for a while, together, to finish it. But that’s fun, right?”

Darus polished the staircase by placing two stone tiger head statues at the bottom. He blew on the first step and the stairs transformed into an escalator made from turning stone.

While standing still, he was carried upward.

Feria sighed. “Was that really necessary?”

“Shush shush, I’m tired from all that running around.”

They followed Ardex to the magnificent palace hall, packed together fur to fur.

“Did you talk with Ardex yet,” Cosmo whispered to his little brother.

“Yeah. As long as we sleep in separate bedrooms it should be fine. I really can’t stand his snoring.”

“… that’s the only thing that came out of the conversation?”

“Huh? What else should I talk about?”

“You know. The fact you two can’t be together without him setting things on fire or you throwing boulders at his head.”

“Nah. A difference can remain a difference. He’s still family. I’ll just always do things differently than him.”

Ardex still avoided his little brother. Darus had to push a huge stone throne, decorated with his finest diamonds, against the back wall on his own. I think Darus is taking things too lightly again, Cosmo thought. But we’re safe, for now. So I’ll let it go.

Upon entering the hall, everyone shot off to study their own little corner. Eeris had her own forest of stone trees, which she hoped to someday replace with real trees. Gulvi had a maze of rivers ending in a swimming pool in the corner. Darus made a big throne of shiny emeralds and pushed it against the back wall.

Ardex placed the sleeping Bella upon it.

Bella stretched and yawned with her eyes closed. She let herself fall back to continue sleeping, until she realized she was sitting up instead of lying down. Her forehead and snout were warm, the rest of her cold. She carefully cracked open one eye.

Before her whiskers, her family bustled back and forth carrying objects. Cosmo and Darus held a large oblong rock, while Eeris and Feria tried to find a spot for their DNA carpet. They eventually sneaked it into Gulvi’s swimming pool. Because outside of water, the DNA still couldn’t do anything: nor move nor find other particles to connect with.

“What?” Bella yawned again. “Where am I?”

“Hey, you’re awake!” Cosmo tried to laugh but the weight of the bench pressed on his head.

“What are you doing?”

“Darus insisted we make a guest room, for when our living creations might someday visit. I tried explaining most animals can’t sit on chairs—”

“Nonsense, then they’ll just have to learn!”

Bella noticed she sat on a throne. “… why am I here?”

Ardex walked into the hall. “I didn’t have time yet to make a bed. Besides, the Throne of Tomorrow is the perfect spot for the leader of this world.”

“Leader? Who?” Bella looked behind her. “Oh … me. But I don’t want to be any leader at all.”

“Well, sometimes a leader must do not what she herself wants, but what her citizens most desire of her.”

“You’re not my citizens. You’re my family!”

“Is there a difference, in the eyes of a good leader?”

Bella paused, as she laughed at Gulvi playing with his stone rubber duckie.

She nodded. Her body was whole and she felt stronger, although a feeling of hunger and exhaustion lingered. “So we’re staying here? We have life force?”

“I know finer places,” said Darus, also burdened by the weight of what he’s carrying. “But the planet is cooling rapidly. The ground has nearly sealed shut everywhere. I can’t stop the tectonic plates anymore, but I’ve slowed them way down.”

“There’s still no oxygen in the air,” said Cosmo. “But that’s not needed now, since we can do without.”

Eeris used her long neck to place the first stones of the roof. “And the only life at the moment is some particles in the water that catch other particles.”

The Green Sisters looked at each other. “But we won’t stay here, in the heavenly palace. We want our throne on land, helping nature as much as we can.”

Cosmo clapped his beak. “Me too. I’m a bird. I belong in the air, a sky warden above my own throne—not a bird on a chair.”

“Of course you can all make your own throne. As long as we regularly meet here.” Ardex sighed. “But take it easy. Zyme. Listen to what Hanah said.”

“If Hanah really wanted to help us, she would have come here by now.” Bella was startled by her own harsh voice.

“Sorry, Hanah!” she called upward, in case she was secretly listening in, which Bella figured she probably was.

She stepped down from her throne. “Then I want helpers. Cosmo, you’ll be my messenger. Tell me news from the world and take my messages to the others. Ardex, you’ll be my law enforcer. Make sure nothing gets out of hand and all live together peacefully.”

“What about me?” Darus suddenly stood before her, while Cosmo swung back and forth trying to hold up the bench alone.

Bella laughed. “You guard the mountains. But as long as Hanah stays away, you especially get to bring fun and liveliness.”

“In that case, Bella the Wise—inventor of the Life Force Theory with which I now reluctantly also agree—I have a first problem. How do we prevent our life from leaving this planet? They would die immediately out there … and so would we.”

“I can make the air layered so no life ever passes through?” Cosmo had meanwhile dropped the rock on the floor.

“I can tell creatures the world is flat and they’ll fall off the edge?” Darus said laughing—until he realized everyone took it seriously.

“Good ideas! Your mountain range will hold back life for a while. As will that huge ocean. And that spot Cosmo couldn’t fly past, even though we don’t know why.”

Ardex took his place next to the Throne. He placed his left paw on Bella’s little front paw.

“And Father?” he said softly. “What if he comes to visit us? To permanently … remove us?”

“We have to be stronger. Our magic comes from the life force around us, that much is certain now.”

She smiled. “And believe me, we’ll give this planet more life than anywhere in the whole universe.”

And so it was that life continued …