The Metallic Earth

• Kurt Smith, Grade 7, Bowen State High School
• Short Story
• 2019

Excellence Award in the 'Inspired 2019' competition

Gloomy clouds lingered over the vast land on the wakening world. The clouds moved like giants in slow motion, close enough to the ground that the atmosphere was suffocating. People scurried like ants in anticipation of what was about to happen...
Wind swept across the earth creating a huge dust storm that restricted visibility around the world. It was not until that moment that people realised something was terribly wrong. The ground seemed to wobble like jelly, chaos spreading through the crowded streets sending people fleeing for their safety. Dust and wind ruptured kilometres into the air, in unison with the silvery substance that wriggled free from the Earth’s core. The world as they knew it was dramatically about to change. Silver liquid flowed like mercury contaminating the oceans and seeping through cracks and crevices created by the tremors. The mercury ocean boiled, sending waves of crashing hot liquid into coastal cities, evaporating everything in its wake.
Steam shot up out of the mercury, spinning into a tornado, before collapsing in the path of the blue figure. The figure glided up into the air in one swift motion. “I am Quicksilver” the superhero announced as he flew through the skyscrapers, earning cheers from the distressed crowds. “I grant the power of electricity and ice and I will save your planet and your people from this mercury.” Quicksilver froze the metallic oceans, creating sculptures of ice in the huge waves. All was right, until... New York’s Empire State Building blasted into the sky, immense pressure acting like a rocket letting the earth spew gallons of mercury over the city below. Quicksilver pushed himself to the fragmented building leaving the earth behind by miles. As he crashed inside the building, he saved the people suffocating in claustrophobic space. As he turned around, he saw the mercury spreading over New York. Quicksilver returned to the earth and placed the people down, announcing with an evil smirk, “I am not here to save your world but destroy it!” He blasted ice into the mercury freezing the whole Earth including the core. He raised his hands into the air conducting lightning to his hand, then striking the ground with concentrated electricity zapping the core. The earth shook violently, bulging outward like a balloon on edge. The world was silent forever as a light flashed in everybody’s eyes and a high-pitched ringing sound echoed into the universe. The Earth exploded!
The blast pushed mercury closer to the sun, tilted Saturn on an angle, forced weather onto Jupiter’s atmosphere, pushed Neptune away from the sun and transferred life and water to Mars. The helium and nitrogen left from the sun’s creation formed with the saltwater and dirt to create Earth as we know it today with dinosaurs billions of years ago to evolved humans roaming Earth skimming the top of the water how earth was created.