Island of Fog and Death

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The ancient forest was uneasy. The birds, the rodents, the insects, all of them sensed that something unnatural was happening. The light was odd. The smell of the air was weird. The forest seemed to crackle with sinister energy. The focus of the phenomenon was a small clearing where an ash tree had toppled to tear a gash in the leafy canopy, and where lush ferns were taking advantage of dappled sunlight reaching the forest floor. Tiny spheres of energy hovered, sparked, repelled and attracted each other in a random dance.

Some hours passed.

The randomness of the dance steadily diminished. Tiny energy packets, attracting each other, were forming larger parcels, and these in turn were overcoming repulsive forces to grow, dance more slowly, and merge into something greater. The pungent smell of ozone filled the clearing, and reactions with nitrogen and carbon compounds caused flickering chemiluminescence and consumed nitrogen and oxygen gases out of the atmosphere, disturbing the balance and blackening leaves.

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