The Arcade Series

In the beginning, there were the stars. They shone around me in every corner of my vision as I looked into the blackness of space. ‘Where am I?’ I wondered to myself, my mind drawing a blank as I tried to figure out what was going on. Then I was hit by a realization that struck me in an instant. “I am at the beginning.” I said to myself, my voice sounding strange in the eternal quiet that was space and knowing what was happening. As I said those words, a light bloomed. A sun was born, illuminating everything around me. There were great chunks of stone, gas clouds and more that I couldn't quite see.

It was peaceful and still as I looked out upon the bright expanse of space. Then the universe was not so still any longer, as the rocks, dust and gasses all around me started to move swiftly, colliding and drawing everything inside the expanse of space that I was inside towards the biggest rock that grew bigger by the second as I watched. Eventually there was nothing but a sphere of gas and rock hanging in space, starting its first orbit around the newborn sun.

Then it spun faster and faster, becoming a blur to my eyes as I could barely make out the new planet start to be shaped and changed as time passed, an ocean of blue formed along its surface alongside the singular landmass that was just turning from grey to yellow to the brown of dirt and the white mass that was growing bigger by the second, forming the poles of this world.

This process was not to go undisturbed however, as I felt my eyes turn to look out into space once more. There was something coming. A large hunk of rock was hurtling through space, heading right towards the new planet. Then in a flash of light, it collided and the planet was torn, splitting the continent I had seen being born and sending chunks flying into space into the very edge of the planet's gravitational field. Then those chunks of the planet started colliding with each other and they formed a moon that orbited around the baby planet.

Then in the next instant I found myself drawn into the world itself, the planet slowing down and growing bigger in my eyes as I drew near to look upon the new world. I entered the atmosphere, inhaling with joy in my eyes as I looked across the barren world from the sky and at the sunrise across the other end of the world. Then I drew even closer, and my body went inside the deep and dark ocean.

Then my eyes adjusted and I could see everything around me as if the day itself pierced through the water and lit up everything around me. Cliffs of rock and other strange shaped underwater landscapes made up the ocean floor and stretched into the distance as far as I could see in the blue world of the deep ocean. Yet, everything was still despite the rush of the current of water around me. It was empty, not yet full of the life I could feel should fill the sea.

Then as I looked about the underwater landscape, my feet finally hit the bottom of this landscape and I found myself on the bottom of the ocean floor itself. Things were more lively here than in the higher levels of the sea, as I could see large bumps of rock like huge chimneys sticking up from the ocean floor and spewing trails of bubbles everywhere from the hot magma that was coming into contact with the water. I could feel something strange was about to happen inside this magma vent, and my vision telescoped as I drew nearer to it, like I was getting smaller. The vent was soon all I could see.

Then I saw a miracle happen. A cell was forming. Things collided and over time some things stuck together and some did not, but through the end of this process, the tiniest thing moved on its own as it ate more and more of its surroundings growing and multiplying so fast in my eyes that I could barely make out what was happening. My vision returned to normal in the next instant, and though I could no longer see the cells that had formed, I knew they were there and growing in number by the second.

Then I felt something stranger yet and my eyes turned to look up to the surface of the water where I felt something was coming. Then I saw a trail of light and heat enter the water, a trail of bubbles following it down to the bottom of the sea. It was a meteorite. But not just any old meteorite, as I could feel my vision telescoping once more as my eyes were drawn closer to the hunk of space rock. This rock had life inside.

Hundreds of types of cells in a war with each other as they tried to survive in the new environment. How these cells had survived in the heart of this meteorite was anyone's guess, but these cells were here now. These alien lifeforms spread across the sea in the hundreds of billions as I felt centuries pass. They grouped together and formed the first multicellular organisms. Those formed bigger things yet as they formed the first tiniest of crustaceans and even underwater plants. Then on and on they formed billions and billions of forms of life.

Those original cells were not going to be stopped by these alien cells however, as they joined in on this process as well, eventually forming thousands of native forms of life including the very first mammal, a squid-like creature that made its home near the surface of the ocean as it fed on all the other forms of life that stayed beneath it in the depths.

Every other creature formed under its rule, everything growing and changing as time passed until nothing was recognizable as what it was before. There were gargantuan sharks and thin coiling things that looked like the first sea snakes, but the most pronounced changes happened to the various plants and algae as they spread up the surface of the ocean to the land where they started to live and thrive, forming the first plants of the land.

Then when that had taken place, other things made their way onto land. The first of the animals was the descendants of the large squid-like creatures. They haven't changed much over time, but the differences were there. For one, they were giant now. But the main differences lay in their upper body. I could see that they were forming arm-like tentacles and I could see the beginnings of a humanoid upper body with the beginnings of a head and shoulders with the bottom half of a squid. They waded into land, using their lower body to push themselves along the shoreline.

Then came others. Lizards and scaled creatures of all types, tiny insects and long limbed fish crawled onto the land over thousands of years and the land became an extension of the battle ground that was nature and survival. The animals grew big while I watched, some huge like a gigantic shark or what I was pretty sure was a T-rex. But other animals changed to survive in other ways through the time that I spent watching. The giant squid-like people became different from what they were, but also in a way that I hadn't even known was possible.

Hundreds of thousands of these animals stayed inside the sea, and so they grew bigger and there form changed into the button half of an octopus with everything from the waist up looking extremely similar to a human head, chest and a few dozen tentacle arms without the suckers the tentacles on the bottom of the body had coming from its back and from the shoulders.

It still had nothing similar to human skin however, and its body was a uniform pale grey with lines and splotches of red here and there. Its face and head was also distinctly non-human as it was close to what pictures of Cthulhu made his head and face out to be with tentacles around its mouth and a more bumpy sphere shaped head. That's not even mentioning their size, which varied while they grew up but I saw one of the oldest of their species wrestling with the giant shark that reminded me of the Megalodon and winning.

But by the shore there were also hundreds of thousands of the animals that made their home. These changed until they were only vaguely similar to the water dwelling ones. They were amphibious for starters and looked much more human than the Cthulhu-esc monsters on the depths, gaining a more human upper body, where you couldn't even tell that they were not human unless you looked below the creatures waistline where there was a more streamlined red octopus body along with their tentacles. They were also coincidentally human sized along with their shape. They were as if merpeople were half octopus instead of fish. There was probably a name for these people, but I could not remember it.

These creatures had evolved into two separate species following two different evolutionary paths.

But while there were now humanoid creatures roaming the sea and coast, there were not yet any animals even resembling humans in the land itself. The land was controlled by the dinosaurs and the giant cats alongside a bunch of other species that had formed during this period, but nothing resembling humans except for the odd monkey species wandering about.

I watched as years and years passed, before I saw the first spark of intelligence in these two species. The deep sea Cthulhu people had started using tools and weapons to fight back against the other alpha species of the deep ocean. I could see them carving pictures into gargantuan underwater cave walls that they made their homes in. Of course verbal language is not possible under the water, but then time seemed to slow to around normal speed and I saw a family of these gargantuan beasts sitting inside a cave around the eldest of the family, a cloud of blood around him as he lay back.

“My dearest wife… my children…” I heard spoken, though no move was made by any of the creatures present. “I am afraid my time has come. These many centuries have been all that I have ever asked for.” I heard again, though this time I realized the source. This speech was coming into my mind, as if it was transmitted into my brain. These creatures communicated through telepathy. “My son.” I heard called out from the father in the next moment, and I could see the struggle for breath that this family's father was going through as I watched.

“Gather up the people. We must teach them the ways of family. We were strong together, and weak apart. We must have strength to survive. Gather the people, create a strong family.” He told the boy, and my breath caught as I saw the beginnings of civilization start before my eyes. “Gather the people. We must unite, against the mindless beasts of the great blue. Tell them this, teach them the way my son, my dearest Romulus.” He told his son in his last moments, before his eyes shut and his body stilled. My mind was filled with the grief of the family, and my head bowed in respect.

Then my vision was replaced by a great sight that unfolded before me. I could see the dying man's son, standing before a legion of these people, floating in groups as they looked to the man who had taken upon him the dying wish of his father. I could see time speeding up, rough but gargantuan buildings were constructed from the rock around the underwater valley, then more and more rose up.

While I watched this however, I found my attention drawn somewhere else and I felt myself rise closer to the surface once more. I was looking out at a reef, where I saw merpeople swimming through the bright morning water or walking on their tentacle legs on the ground among each other with bright smiles on their faces as if they did not have a care in the world.

Then a scream ripped through my mind just in the same fashion that the cthulhu people, and everything stopped while the merpeople started to bolt into homes made of coral and rock pursued by… other merpeople? This… this was an attack by another group of merpeople…

Through the entirety of the massacre that followed, my attention was drawn to one family that was making their escape, pursued by a gruff looking merperson with murder in his eyes. He threw his wooden spear, and I saw the entire family's eyes widen as the mother was killed as she was speared through the heart.

The father roared with anger, not even able to think straight as I could feel his rage through the mental communication that their species uses before he came to his senses and looked to his daughter with determination. “Swim, Cecelia. Leave this place, and quickly. I may die here, but this is not your time.” He commanded his daughter with a steely determination as the murderer approached him, before turning to face the killer of his wife with the fire in his eyes that only a father can possess.

So the little girl propelled herself and began to swim. She swam and swam again into the depths of the ocean, never looking back. Then she came across the crest of a large underwater valley and she stopped. Though it was not from the exhaustion that she felt in her, it was the sight that was laid out before her. That sight was the city that was created by the man who I had watched unite the people. Except I was also surprised, bordering on shocked at the city before me. It was not some village made from stones slapped together, no. It was a proper city carved from white rock. But it was the style of architecture and the people inside the city that was what shocked me. It was roman. This was the city of Rome.

The young girl did not know what to make of this either, but unlike me this girl was scared and was afraid of what was happening to her people even now. So she swam to the gargantuan city of marble, calling out to anyone that might be around for help. So the people came. The cthulhu-like people walked out of their homes and into the street to see who was making all the noise, only to stop and whisper among themselves as they saw a tiny strange creature swimming in the streets, so like themselves yet far from them and speaking words into their minds just like themselves.

I watched as she was brought from the streets into the largest building, one that I identified as a palace. The armies of Rome bearing iron weapons and armour, brought the girl in front of the Emperor God of Rome, Romulus, who had unified their people centuries and centuries ago and brought the modern age of prosperity and safety that was the Roman Empire. And so, the first meeting between the Romans and the Merpeople had begun.