It is often romanticised, life before the fall. Scholars examine texts of prosperity and peace, and governments preach that everything they do is an attempt to return to life as it was in the old days, but for those who remember, those aging monsters sitting in the shadows, they know it is all a farce. Life before the fall was akin to life as it is now. Back then, common folk had it alright, with a roof over their head, plenty of food, and moderately-advanced technology. First world countries struggled with mental disorders and feelings of inequality, third world countries struggled with obtaining clean water, food, and cowering from wars. The world was steadily advancing towards utopia, with mighty efforts to help the misfortunate and a global economy on the rise. In all, everything was alright. It was in this blooming economy that a startling scientific discovery was made. It was at the sister site to the Hadron Collider, a rather new particle accelerator built somewhere in North America (in an undisclosed location for good reason). During one of the sister site’s experiments, an unexpected phenomenon happened: a new element was created. By itself this was nothing new; elements were created all the time, but their nuclei were usually too unstable to stay together for long periods of time. But at this site, it happened. The news spread rapidly throughout the scientific community, and this new element was thought to be a savior to the environment—no more dredging up forests or scouring the oceans. And so, it started to be used widely in all types of manufacturing as a power source for many machines.

The element’s rapid induction into the realm of industry allowed it to bypass much of the preliminary research it should’ve undergone. With business leaders jumping into bidding wars with one another for their share of the element, it was hard for scientists to voice their opinions above the din. Instead, a compromise was made: the element could be used in manufacturing, as long as the world’s top scientists were given grants and enough leeway to expedite their thorough research on this new miracle energy source. Within months, the element was acting as a core component for a number of industries: automotive, construction, and electronics, to name a few. A few years into the element’s usage, a problem was spotted: there was waste, and a lot of it. At first it was championed as clean energy, with the element’s waste being nothing more than harmless water to be released into the world’s oceans, rivers, and streams, but as time passed, this notion was crushed. Governments and industry leaders rushed to contain what waste they could, and scrub as much of the loose waste from the environment as possible. It was a catastrophic failure. The cleanup attempts were televised, and the public was told the efforts were successful. In reality, the world’s authorities were frantically trying to figure out how to contain and undo this massive error. Waste was spreading at an uncontrollable pace, almost as if it were sentient, soaking through every inch of soil and contaminating water sources worldwide.

The element’s dissemination throughout the world was viewed as something akin to a massive oil spill: something that was bad for the environment, but would not change the world forever. However, a strange phenomenon began to occur all over the globe: mutated acid rain. Water containing the element evaporated, and wherever it fell in the form of rain, the element was spread. Unfortunately, this ensured that even remote desert civilizations were touched by the element. With roughly ten percent of the world’s water contaminated, it was unsurprising that people began unwittingly imbibing the element. At first the change was unnoticeable, usually taking years to show any signs of physical change. The build-up of the element caused changes - sometimes a different skin pigment, sometimes hair began to grow thick, all over the body. Calcium growths began to sprout from skulls, and in some places, gills and fins. Over the course of two decades, humanity morphed into four ‘species’, all akin to the amount of element inside the body, and lifestyle choices of the individual.