The Sleeping Giant of Kansas

Previously

…It wasn’t the angry red of molten rock, but a soft, pulsing luminescence, like a heartbeat radiating from the planet’s core. And around it, impossibly, a whisper of green was beginning to emerge. Tiny shoots, impossibly vibrant, were pushing through the ash, reaching for the muted sunlight. The Sleeping Giant was not dead. It was not merely a force of destruction. It was also, in its own terrifying, magnificent way, a source of renewal. The New Dawn had truly begun, and it was far stranger, and perhaps far more hopeful, than they had ever imagined. The world was irrevocably changed, but the earth, in its own indomitable spirit, was beginning to heal. And so, perhaps, could they.