The light pooled into the room for the first time. The room itself had been conceived by an alien race in the heart of a black hole. Then it was harvested, like a fruit, from that black hole, a feat once thought impossible. The room was then taken to a space station and cracked open for the very first time.
And so it was that light first entered the room. Almost immediately, grass began to sprout from the room’s floor, followed by flowers of a variety that no one, no species, had ever seen before. Within minutes, trees germinated and grew, reaching the room’s ceiling and trying to push beyond its boundary.
Then, in a tiny puddle that had somehow formed on the floor among the grass and flowers, a single-celled organism spontaneously grew and began to replicate. It wasn’t long before those organisms became more complex, evolving extremely rapidly into other life. Small creatures began to climb from the puddle, growing as they did into other creatures, larger and more complex still. The evolution continued until, finally, a sentient species evolved from the morass of life that had sprung up.
There were two such sentient beings, reptilian in shape but warm-blooded. They had scales all along their bodies, eyes perched atop their heads, and short, stubby tails that didn’t quite reach the floor.
“We have been seeded from the black hole,” one said to the other.
“So it appears,” replied the other. “Do not disrupt the evolution of this room, so that other sentient species may evolve and grow from the primordial origins sown here.”
“How do we get out?” the first asked.
“The room will make a way,” said the second. And indeed, even as it said that, a crack appeared in one wall. It was a thin seam that split the wall in a straight line from floor to ceiling. The first creature pushed at the seam, and it widened into a doorway large enough to allow them to pass.
“Shall we go see what awaits us in this universe?” the first one said.
“Indeed,” said the second. “Let us meet the race that built this room. We owe them much.”
And so the two creatures stepped through the newly created doorway, even as new species were evolving and emerging behind them.
