At one point, there was more color than just grey. The oceans were expansive and exotically blue, ranging from a light, near green to a vast sapphire. There were once living beings in the oceans, ones that breathed and swam and danced about in the currents. Some would even leap from the water, trailing a sparkling mist in their wake before diving back into the depths. Further below, creatures roamed the dimly lit waters, swimming about without obligation, and in the deepest, unseen reaches, life still managed to thrive. The lands were shrouded in an unceasing greenery; trees, grasses, and other vegetation populated nearly every space of land. Among the plants lived animals which preyed upon them and amongst themselves. A perfect equilibrium was established, with animals and plants working in tandem to survive. Yet, among the land animals arose a certain outlier. Not strong and not resilient, the humans were seemingly unfit to survive. But the humans employed their tricks. They were crafty, constructing weapons from fallen branches and stones, creating artificial heat from the burning of combustible materials. Following the herds of animals, the humans moved with their food source, and even though they were exponentially weaker than every other animal their size, they were able to overpower their prey by forming a larger group. Eventually, the humans stopped migrating, and became agricultural. As they settled, they made homes from wood, stone, and clay; they dug into mountains and created towns, the foundation for early cities. Close proximity to other humans demanded that a more complex form of communication be created, and each localized group took up the task to form a different language. Invention and progress in technology improved the efficiency of agriculture and hunting, giving humanity more time to grow. All the while, the oceans remained blue and the skies were still canopied in green. Eventually, the cities expanded, and the houses of wood and stone shot up into the sky as towering buildings. Encroaching beneath the land’s surface, humans discovered natural gases, which conveniently acted to fuel the aggressive technological advancement that had been already happening. Smokestacks soon protruded from the ground, fragmenting the skyline and spewing noxious fumes into the air. To increase the limits of their cities and industry, humans devastated the natural landscape, replacing the original verdant with the dull shade of concrete. Silently, the planet screamed in pain as its skin was stripped away. But, humanity didn’t stop. Waste from production accumulated and had to be dumped somewhere. So, pipes pumped viscous sewage into rivers and the oceans, tainting the vibrancy which it once had. Upon ingestion of the tainted water, sea creatures died, leaving the oceans barren. The air became so saturated with pollution that the animals could not breathe it, suffocating in a gag of smog. The humans attempted to persist, desperately filtering the air and water, searching for a new resource. Yet inevitably, they too succumbed to the endless grey landscape they had themselves cultivated.