Sitting peacefully in the centre of the Australian wasteland sat, what was fondly called a research facility. Although that wasn’t quiet accurate, it was an interesting little building, but it was more of an outpost then anything. From the outside it looked like a large shack, which was dwarfed by the mass of power producing devices in the compound. Fortunately the inside was a different story. On the floor was a carpet of cords, and the walls were lined with the multitude of machines that the cords connected. The hum of all the machines running was a surprisingly soothing sound, especially when combined with all the cooling systems to keep the place from combusting. All the systems feed their data to various printers, and to the main computer. That’s where all the real work was done, monitoring data, scanning read-outs, playing games, it’s not like he was on vacation. Off that main room was his bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen. His room had a desk where he did all his non computer work, and the kitchen had a table where he continued that work and ate when he got bored. The kitchen was exactly where he was this morning, still grumbling about his rude awakening and lost dream, Nathaniel picks away at his cereal. “What is with that dream!” he thinks, “There’s more and more of it every time… but I can remember so little. Maybe I’m having a vision or something?”

Leaning back he dismissed that train of thought with a chuckle, “As if… man, maybe I have been here too long. Come to think of it, it has been rather quiet lately, my focus is wandering, but the break’s nice.”

His train of though never got any further, as all the machines in his outpost went off, and their collective beeping crashed all its cars. “Oh for Pete’s sake… me and my big mouth.” Dismissing the remains of his meal he pushes himself back from the table and grabbed a print-out coming from a nearby machine, scanning it to see what all the who-ha was about, and his eyes went wide. “No way, this can’t be right… this can’t all happen at once.” Tossing the paper aside he rushed to the central computer. Pulling up the individual results he checked them over to verify what the read-out had said. Seismic activity was off the charts, wind pressure was erratic, it was as if the whole continent had gone haywire. In disbelief he went and did one thing that he would remember for the rest of his life. Stepping away from the computer he went to his front door and stepped outside. Words failed him and everything seemed to freeze in awe of the sight.

Pure white clouds blanketed the sky, spiralling inwards into a descending tornado-like cone to touch down on what seemed to be an impossibly tall mountain that hadn’t been there last time he looked. The earth and sky touched together to form an almost perfect symmetry, a union of opposites, the joining of two separate worlds. He stepped back into his outpost, grabbed what gear was handy and headed for his jeep. Starting it up he pressed down on the gas and, in defiance of all urges of self-preservation, sped off towards the event. This was what he’d been waiting for his whole life, this was his opportunity and he was going to seize it.

As he drove towards the centre, he noted how shattered the ground was, as though something underneath was pushing up. The shattered ground did not provide the most favourable of driving terrain, but that’s why he was in his jeep. Then things got bad, the wind picked up sharply, and the ground began to shift and flow. Flying projectiles, and earthen ocean, sharp winds, it all hindered him, but the mountain almost seemed to call to him. If he could just make it there… but he never did. A big shift sent the ground before him swelling up into the air. He hit the brakes, swerved, but it came crashing down onto him and seemed to swallow him whole. And then the earth was quiet and still, not a trace of the scientist left. But the wind shrieked around the mountain, breaking the picturesque joining and descending into chaos.