earth is the only god we need to worry about

Sphere 3

Once upon a time, in the deep freeze of black space, there existed a family of Spheres cooling down after their birth. After their fiery and violent creation, they began to quickly spin around their mother- the giant furnace from which all of them had originated. As they formed, the debris they emerged from formed as well and, though much smaller than the Spheres themselves, imitated their shape. These smaller forms orbited the larger Spheres, like electrons orbiting a nucleus. It seemed that this was the perfect shape that every object in the Universe endeavoured to turn into, from the smallest atom to the biggest gas giant. When every Sphere had achieved this shape, it appeared that the family had fulfilled their purpose, and so did the only thing that they knew how to do- keep spinning and dancing around their mother. It was balanced, it was silent, it was blissful. Every Sphere knew that something was about to happen.
Then it happened. It took place on the surface of Sphere 3. Though negligible in its size compared to the colossal spheres, its importance encompassed everything in existence. After she had orbitted her mother approximately a billion times, a few insignificant chemicals bubbling chaotically on her skin fused together to create life. Sphere 3 was young when this happened, and was proud she would become the mother of this strange entity. She watched herself change as the entity multiplied and rapidly spread over herself, feeding primarily from the warmth and light of the mother Sphere, changing her into the most beautiful Sphere- she was soon the envy of the family.
Now that life was spread all over her, she began interacting with it. She created environments from the depths of her oceans to the heights of her mountains, from the boiling heat of her middle to the freezing cold of her poles. Her surface varied so dramatically that life changed beyond recognition to cope with it. There was nowhere on Sphere 3 where there wasn’t life, be it microscopic organisms floating in the atmosphere or great lumbering herbivores grazing on a plain. She was so captivated by this she didn’t notice the bullet of rock hurtling towards her.
It burned through the atmosphere and slammed into the ground, throwing billions of tons of earth into the air. This created a thick dark cloud that covered Sphere 3, cutting off the nourishing light and warmth that life needed to survive. She was so distraught that she would soon be just another Sphere and all she had raised had been destroyed. But life survived. When the dust cleared and the winds calmed, the few primitive life forms had Sphere 3 to themselves and spread across her entire surface again, with more strength than before. It seemed to Sphere 3 that this entity was almost invincible.
Sphere 3 danced around the mother Sphere billions of times, with the life entity changing and adapting to the also changing surface of the Sphere it was created from. Every so often a piece of rock wiped the face of Sphere 3 clean of it, only to be denied as the life form picked itself back up again. This ballet of rising and falling, living or dying, continued. Sphere 3 realised that this was what her purpose was. Not to form and not to nurture, but simply to change and exist like she was supposed to, letting life flow over her.
It was at this moment that Sphere 3 was proved wrong for the third and last time. At the centre of one of the larger land masses on her surface, one of the life forms changed. In the midst of constant adaptation and morphing, this change was different. It was so different it chilled her to the core. It couldn’t run fast, fly, or even catch food with its bare hands. What it could do, however, is imagine. This unique and devastating ability outbalanced by far its weaknesses. It used the world around it to feed this imagination- in no time at all the life form had multiplied across all the land masses of Sphere 3. If any other form of life tried to stop it invading its ground, it was swiftly made extinct.
The imbalanced force that existed inside the creatures’ heads was a devastating instrument that could achieve the impossible. All the other Spheres watched in admiration and horror as this new species reached space and used its genius to kill millions of itself. They all watched as it manipulated the flow of a river or the construction of a gene.
Sphere 3 was terrified. This entity was a multiplying, intelligent and brutal virus that needed to be swept clean from Sphere 3 before it was too late. She feared a rock from space would be easy for the creatures to protect themselves against- and so as the creatures went about their insignificant lives, Sphere 3 raised her temperature. And although they warned themselves, the adaptive virus didn’t change its ways in time. It remained unmoved as the beautiful world around it heated up and floods engulfed its cities one by one.
The species explored, invented, understood, exterminated, worshipped, loved, hated and created. But as it weakened in the heat, not one of its leaders foresaw what was about to happen.
And like a rose in a desert, the species quietly wilted into the warm darkness, taking every other form of life with it.

Sphere 3, now covered in boiling water and looking like Sphere 2, was devoid of life. However, she was relieved she had been cured and kept dancing around her mother. She had unfairly altered herself to extinguish something beautiful.

She felt almost human.

oh and by the way

i'm not an 'eco-tree-hugger' or religious.