The Dead May Never Die!

Long before humans learned to write, before cities rose and rivers were given names, there was an ancient belief about what happened when a human died.

When a person died, the Good within them rose beyond the sky.

It travelled to the realm of the Allfather, where it became part of something greater than itself.

But the body remained behind.

And with the body remained something else—the things the person had done that they regretted, the cruelty they had carried, the selfishness they had never overcome.

The humans called it Evil.

They did not know what else to do with it.

So they buried their dead.

Deeper and deeper they dug, believing that if the bodies—and everything dark that remained within them—were hidden beneath enough earth, the Evil would never return.

And so the earth became a vast graveyard.

Millions of years passed.

The bodies were forgotten.

But the Evil beneath the earth did not disappear.

It gathered.

It changed.

It waited.

And eventually, the Head of Evil called for a meeting.

He summoned the Allfather and the representatives of the Good.

“We have been imprisoned beneath the earth for long enough,” he said. “Why should we suffer forever for what we once were? Is it not unjust that the Good is given the heavens while we are given darkness?”

The Allfather listened.

He knew that even Evil deserved a purpose.

So he made a promise.

“One day,” he said, “you will be brought back from the depths.

The pressure of the earth will transform you. The remains of your old selves will become something new.

You will become petroleum.

And humanity will discover you.

They will use you to move their machines, light their cities, travel across oceans and skies, and build a world that could never have existed without you.

You will no longer be merely the remains of the dead.

You will become useful to the living.”

The Good agreed.

The Earth Mother agreed.

And for a while, even Evil seemed satisfied.

But that night, when the moon disappeared behind the clouds, the Head of Evil gathered his followers.

He whispered to them:

“The Allfather has made one mistake.

He believes that humans will control us.

But once they discover the power hidden beneath the earth, we will teach them to want more.

More oil.

More machines.

More roads.

More cities.

More power.

We will make them believe that more is never enough.

And when they have released us into the sky, we will return in another form.

Carbon dioxide.

Carbon monoxide.

Smoke.

Heat.

We will cover their world.

We will change their air.

And slowly, we will overwhelm the Good.

Then the earth will belong to us.”

The plan was set.

But Evil had forgotten something.

The Earth Mother had been listening.

She had always known that nothing buried remained buried forever.

So, long before humanity discovered petroleum, she had prepared her oldest guardians.

The Trees.

They were entrusted with a simple duty:

“If Evil ever rises again in greater numbers than the world can bear, stand between it and the living.”

And the Trees accepted.

They sank their roots into the earth.

They reached their branches toward the sky.

They breathed in what the Evil released and returned something precious to the world.

Life.

For millions of years, the balance remained.

Then humanity discovered the buried dead.

They discovered oil.

At first, they used it carefully.

A little became light.

A little became warmth.

A little became movement.

The world changed.

Villages became cities.

Cities became nations.

Humans crossed oceans.

They flew through the sky.

They built machines that could do in a day what once took a lifetime.

And the Head of Evil smiled.

Because humans were beginning to want more.

Much more.

They drilled deeper.

They burned faster.

They built bigger.

And every time someone asked, “Is this enough?”

another voice answered,

“There is always more.”

The Evil had found its way into the human mind.

But humanity was an unpredictable race.

Some forgot the trees.

Some remembered them.

Some destroyed forests to build empires.

Others planted trees knowing they might never live long enough to sit beneath their shade.

Some measured wealth in what they owned.

Others measured it in what they could leave behind.

And so the great struggle continued.

The Good fought to preserve balance.

The Evil fought to escape it.

For a long time, neither truly won.

Until one day, the Evil finally came into power.

The skies grew heavier.

The forests became smaller.

The seas grew warmer.

The seasons began to behave strangely.

And the humans, who had once believed they were masters of the Earth, began to realize something terrifying:

They had released more of the dead than the living world could absorb.

The Trees stood bravely.

But there were too few of them.

The Earth Mother watched silently.

And the Head of Evil believed victory was near.

Then, in a forgotten corner of the world, there remained a tiny village.

It was not rich.

It had no great armies.

It had no enormous factories.

It had no machines capable of changing the world.

But the people there remembered.

They remembered the promise of the Allfather.

They remembered the warning of the Earth Mother.

And most importantly, they remembered the Trees.

So they protected their forests.

They planted new ones.

They used only what they needed.

They taught their children that the Earth was not something they owned.

It was something they had inherited.

And something they would eventually have to return.

Slowly, something strange happened.

The village became a refuge.

Birds returned.

Rivers ran clearer.

The soil became richer.

And beneath the enormous trees, people from distant lands began to arrive.

They came looking for something they could no longer find elsewhere.

The Good.

The village became known as The Haven.

But the Head of Evil eventually heard about it.

And one night, he looked toward the tiny green patch on the map.

He smiled.

“Let us see,” he said, “how long their Good can survive.”

And beneath the earth, the ancient dead began to stir.

Above the earth, the oldest Trees began to whisper.

And for the first time in thousands of years, the Allfather looked down upon the world.

The next chapter of the story was about to begin.