Here be mountains; here be valleys; and here, a vast and stormy ocean.
For as long as he could remember, Alex had been fascinated by maps—any maps. Real or imaginary, of a single city or an entire continent. He wanted them to be as detailed as possible. The more details a map had, the more easily he could lose himself in it: exploring every nook and cranny, discovering curious places, and vividly imagining the landscapes and the people who lived there.
As a child, Alex invented a game in which he imagined explorers—Magellans, Polos, and Columbuses—traversing imaginary worlds from end to end. He pictured where they would spend the night, how many supplies they would have at each waypoint, which towns and villages they would visit to replenish their rations, and so on.
For example, a village on the edge of a forest, with no fields nearby, was likely sustained by hunting and gathering. So, if a traveler happened to pass through, the peasants would sell him mushrooms and meat.
All he needed was a map, and the story would unfold on its own.
With this in mind, Alex began sketching his first real world.
At first, it was nothing more than a vast green plain, resembling a flat Minecraft map.
Little by little, Alex began shaping it into something more. In the process, he relied heavily on a tool called the Biological Processor, which calculated corrosion, determined where minerals and salts should be distributed according to the landscape Alex had drawn, and gradually transformed his creation into a living, breathing ecological system with a flawless geological history.
Because of that, he did not need to concern himself with any of those details while he worked. Yet the absence of limitations can become a limitation in itself. Sometimes, dissatisfied with the shape of a mountain, Alex would redo it, only to find the new version even less inspired than the original—one he could no longer recreate, since any creative process was partly a matter of luck and chance. Thus, with a bitterness akin to Flaubert's after the flames consumed the first draft of his Carthage, he could only press forward.
It was around midnight when Alex, swaying with fatigue, finally stepped out of the silver plate. The house lay silent. Michael, tired of waiting for his owner to take him out for a walk, had left a mess near the radiator.
Alex sighed, cleaned up after his dog, leashed Michael, and finally led him out into a frosty winter night. Exhausted, he hadn't planned on more than a short walk and was about to turn back when a casual glance at the sky made him freeze.
Freeze and stare.
Countless shining dots illuminated the deep blackness of the night—a sight impossible to witness in a city, where the stars are drowned by light pollution.
Alex smiled and led Michael back into the warmth of the house. Afterward, he prepared a simple dinner and, shortly after, went to bed.
The next morning, he went straight to the attic. There he briefly checked on Purple and, seeing the jellyfish peacefully drifting in the aquarium, began inspecting the fruits of his previous day's labor.
Alex was surprised to discover that, despite a few imperfections, the work had turned out remarkably well. After all, it passed the most important test: a single glance at the map was enough to spark his imagination.
The western part of the world was covered by a vast ocean, occupying nearly a third of its surface, with green islands scattered across it like drops of paint fallen from a brush. To the east lay a continent, its coastline stretching from the far north—where rocky cliffs broke the line here and there—down to the southern edge of the map.
The southern coast would have been a vast desert were it not for the delta of a wide, Nile-like river, which gave birth to a broad halo of fertile land around it.
That river, still nameless, stretched eastward into a vast green plain at the heart of the continent, then turned north and split into several streams that flowed beneath the shade of a dense forest covering the entire northeastern part of the world.
A mountain range cut straight through the forest. Beyond it lay uneven lands, and at the very edge of the world, a great blue lake gleamed like a single round gem.
And that was it—the very first world Alex created. Small, yet pleasant and beautiful. Its landmass, apart from the ocean, was nearly twice the size of Greece.
Alex spent about twenty minutes simply examining it. Then he made a few small adjustments and turned toward the glowing line on the plate.
[Enter World's Name]