Deep beneath the earth, in a realm where even light succumbed to the crushing pressure and silence possessed a physical mass that pressed against the skin.
Edward, an archaeologist, stared at the wall just breached by the drill, peering through the visor of his protective suit.
What appeared there was an “anomaly”—something clearly alienated from the geological evolution of Earth.
Piercing through eons of strata, it was not rock, but a crystalline structure of perfect geometric precision. It was inorganic, impossibly smooth, and as orderly as a marble wall polished to a mirror finish.
Edward’s trembling hand touched his recording tablet.
“……Just as I prophesied,” he whispered in a raspy voice.
“Our origins were their ‘discard’.”
The analysis data began to run frantically across the monitor.
Once, this planet existed as a “perfect space,” characterized by extreme order. It was a sanctuary of silence, more inorganic than the modern lunar surface, reaching the pinnacle of mathematical beauty. However, in an age long past, inhabitants of a highly advanced civilization from a distant star had visited this world, treating it as a “playground” or a “temporary stay.”
They did not love this planet. They merely sought a place to reside.
And as they departed, they cast away the byproducts of their civilization—the dregs of life, the residue of consumption—onto this world.
Edward gazed intently at the sediment samples in his hand.
What we call “lush forests” today.
The complex “ecosystems” and the diverse “flora and fauna” that have undergone such profound evolution.
To human eyes, these appear as the “radiance of life.” Yet, on a cosmic scale, they are nothing more than accumulations of “civilizational waste.”
The extraterrestrials had been struck dumb to see how their trash had undergone a chemical reaction with the planet’s gravity, mutating into something “disgustingly abundant.” They had abandoned this planet, left cluttered with their refuse, departing with visible disdain.
The blue planet we inhabit was, on a cosmic scale, a “gigantic junk room” left neglected.
Edward lifted his face, soiled with mud and slick with sweat.
He stared fixedly into the recording camera, and began to speak in a trance-like state, his voice imbued with a conviction bordering on madness.
“Humanity bloomed within the waste they discarded. We planted the flowers of civilization upon the tombstones of their abandoned refuse.”
He pointed a trembling finger at the “trash” within the strata.
“…That is why waste is beautiful. This planet is the most beautiful junk room in existence.”
At that moment, the sky split open.
Deep underground, Edward’s sensors detected an unprecedented gravitational anomaly.
The sky above was “torn” by physical pressure.
A shadow of colossal proportions, vast enough to instantly shroud the sun, engulfed the Earth.
It was neither the arrival of a savior nor the fleet of an invader.
It was a超巨大 (super-gigantic) suction nozzle, brought by the Cosmic Cleaners.
From a cosmic perspective, the “filth” of this planet had reached a level that could no longer be ignored.
In the abyss of the underworld, Edward watched as the “beautiful waste” he had come to love was sucked away into cosmic dust in a single instant.
“Beautiful…”
The moment he uttered his final words, the Earth was mercilessly reset to its “original form”—a world without a single speck of dust.