The end of the beginning

The days pass by. He looks at the sky. He sees the morning light and knows.

Knows his journey must go on. From deserted city to deserted city, from empty town to empty town. He accepted his fate.

After countless days of walking he finds life. He finds a few people walking about one of the empty cities, a few animals.

He does what must be done. They breathe no more.

He moves on. More towns, more emptyness. Where there was life, there is none as he passes.

He kills as he is meant to. He destroys what life there is left.

After a year of walking and working, he comes to the button. His mission complete as he presses it, to start it anew, this world which was condemned.

The fire engulfs the whole world little by little, magma flows from deep inside the planet. The crust forms. The rains start. After a year there are oceans. But still no life.

After time the machine starts it's work. Changing a molecule here, making a bond there. New changes make new possibilities. The first creatures evolve. Life has started anew.

Time has passed. Millions of years have gone by. There is a species which dominates the planet. It's slowly destroying it.

In the darkness below the crust, a creature awakens. He senses the doom that will be coming soon. He dreads the task ahead. But that is the cycle. That is his purpose. He does not know anything else.