“I have pondered the meaning of the word ‘wonder’ recently. It is usually used in a positive way, describing something beautiful or spectacular. It is also used as a way to express that you are thinking or considering something. But those two things are at odds, I find. We should all stop wondering, if this is what it leads to.”
— Dr. Sirius Trell
Without warning, or rather with warnings heeded far too late, Berlin disappeared in a ball of sickly light. The land scape stretched and warped, buildings convulsing as the streets below them undulated under the strain, before breaking entirely. Like a stone dropped onto the surface of mirror, the continent shattered. On the coast of Denmark, Copenhagen flooded, awash with hundred-foot waves. In Stockholm, the entire city shook and rumbled as quakes rocked its foundations. Citizens in Paris awoke to a new horizon of vertical stone. Great ravines and crevasses snaked their way through the northern edges of Milan, and Warsaw found itself at the edge of a titanic crater. These were the lucky ones. Closer to the blast, entire countries were suddenly cut off from the world, taking their people with them into the heart of the catastrophe, their fates unknown. Dividing them now was stone and rain, towering edifices of nature that scraped the sky with their jagged peaks where there were once blue skies. A great ring of mountains now loomed on every horizon, presiding over the chaos in unfeeling silence. In every city for a thousand miles, smoke and screams intermingled with the blaring of alarms and sirens. Buildings had collapsed atop their inhabitants, while bridges dropped into the water below them. Electrical grids across the continent overloaded, in places cut in half or now lacking the generators that had fueled them. Local emergency services were swiftly overwhelmed and calls for international assistance came flooding out in every direction. These requests, in the crucial early days of the catastrophe, were largely ignored. Indeed, if not for a last minute phone call between the Premier of the Soviet Union and the President of the United States, the mysterious appearance of the new mountain range in the center of Europe may have been only the second largest disaster to befall the human race. Both sides believed the other had attacked the other, though they did not know how or with what, simply that this could only have been the work of their ideological opponent: so as thousands died from starvation and exposure, B-21's launched from their hangars, and Soviet Typhoons churned the Pacific. Missiles were being fueled in their silos before contact was made, and the vast militaries on each side only stood down after several tense weeks. As confusion reigned and the death toll continued to rise, the Long Years began.
Earthquakes and flooding were merely the start of a cascading series of disasters. East and West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands were completely subsumed. Most of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were cut off as well, alongside half of France, Northern Italy, and parts of Yugoslavia. Farther beyond that, for another fifty miles in every direction, destruction reigned as the contortions continued underneath the new ring of crags. Even those not directly under the catastrophe had suffered immensely. When at last the landscape finally stilled, the human cost continued to mount. Hundreds of thousands were without electricity or clean water. Several countries faced an impending water crisis as the upper parts of rivers that originated in Europe were now gone, while others had farms and livestock vanish overnight. Hospitals that remained were pushed beyond capacity to meet the sudden cries for help, and a wave of humanity began to desperately move away from the edge of the disaster zone, placing further strain on an already struggling emergency response. As the weeks passed, the glove continued to shudder. Bizarre and dangerous weather patterns descended, destroying crops and sickening livestock. Great swaths of ocean life were found to have been killed as seismic shifts under the Shattered Continent tore through previously undisturbed ecosystems. Famine gnawed at the nations of the world as food supplies dwindled. As nations struggled to respond to these new realities, unseasonal natural disasters plagued a year already full of them: raging wildfires, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and electrical storms raged incessantly for more than a year. Even sleep became a hazard. Bizarre dreams echoed across the masses of humanity, minds filled with visions of alien lands and technological wonders. For months, tens of millions would awaken exhausted; their rest stolen by the passing wake of the something that passed through Berlin. This did not contribute positively to public order. The Long Year continued, and the world was chaotic, dangerous, and on the brink of collapse. All the while, the mountains loomed at the center of the disaster, implacable in their silence. As chaos descended around the world, few eyes were upon them other than to watch them warily. But already, plans were being made to pierce the veil of stone. Wonderous plans, indeed.