*A*R*R*I*V*A*L*
The meteor streaked through the atmosphere, glowing brighter than a hundred suns and turning a pleasant day into a hellscape. It was over three hundred meters wide and composed primarily of iron, nickel, and granite. Its internal maze of microscopic tunnels shielded a mass of alien biological material. The immense friction and heat of atmospheric entry vaporized almost half its bulk: The outer layers of stone, metal, and the organism sleeping within it died in fiery glory. Chunks sheared off and exploded, sending hundreds of shards with incandescent trails downwards, and the main body continued to plunge, captured by the planet's gravity.
It blasted into an area near the northernmost pole, its exterior fragmenting as it gouged open a crater over fifteen kilometers wide. The local atmosphere choked with superheated dust, vaporized metals, and rocky debris kicked up from the impact and its effects. Gale-force winds scoured the landscape, and lightning arced between thick, dirty clouds. An immense planetquake shook the bedrock.
The crash had taken less than a minute.
In the impact's aftermath, heat blazed in violent waves from the landscape and the largest remaining portion of the meteorite, now embedded at the very center of the newborn crater. Quakes and their aftershocks fractured the surface for days. During that time, the immense winds gradually died down, but the air still radiated heat, and whirlwinds of dust and smoke spun up and dissipated. Oddly colored flames flickered about the area between puddles of melted rock.
While the exterior of the meteorite had become so incandescently hot during its descent that it vaporized, in fact it had just spent millennia in the cold depths of the Void. As a result, it was almost at absolute zero throughout its entire structure. Despite the external heat, the protected interior remained frozen. A full half of the organism it housed did not die, but merely lay dormant.
The meteorite's blackened, crusted surface frosted over and steamed gently due to the terrible cold of its interior leaching outward and meeting with the ambient environmental temperatures of its new home
The spirit of the living world screamed in agonized silence, the whole planet shuddering in the aetheric realm, matching the earth tremors and aftershocks in the physical.
For many days, the planet responded as would any living being: It sought to salve and heal the terrible wound. Life energy gushed into the damaged site. Rivers circulated underground, following networks of caves and tunnels that honeycombed the area, carving new channels, springing forth in glowing pools of pure spirit energy. Radiant green surged skyward in great fountains, and green steam hissed, rising from the earth.
Tendrils of spirit energy rose to capture the tons of toxic vapors, dust, and soot, channeling it all back to the ground before it could cause a global catastrophe. More mists rose, permeating the rock, cooling the land, and sealing fissures. Over time, the air cleared, the aftershocks diminished.
But as long as its very lifeblood hemorrhaged out of the massive injury that had torn deep into its surface, the world could not heal.