Europa

    It's my eighteenth birthday, and as usual no one remembered it. You would think I'd be used to it by now, but some part of me still hurts. I'm not really sure why.

   I'm on the hill that overlooks the remains of the work camp that used to be here. The one run by the world government. My friends and I shut it down. If anyone knew of my involvement, I might have ended up a hero amongst mages, a villain amongst the elite. Or maybe the other way around. 

   Strange that people consider Europa a land of magic. I've been to all of earth's seven continents, and all of them feel about as real as this place. Yet this is the continent everyone abandoned in the chaos a thousand years ago, when we were still dealing with the horrible realization that we were in charge of our future. 

   Not that long ago there were many abandoned cities and towns. Paris, Berlin, London, and so many others. Destroyed not by bombs or plague but by the simple passage of time. Not even ruins remain of them now, only the stones of churches and castles, crumbling against the sky. You can't even visit unless you work for the government. They say it isn't safe. 

   Nothing is safe anymore. Not with them in charge. I used to think they had our best interest at heart, but traveling across the multiverse made it clear to me that they believe in magic, but only so long as they can turn it to their interests. They don't want anyone to know their manipulating the world for their own benefit. No one knows what they're doing, and nobody could fight them if they did know. 

  Only the Europans are safe, for we are the ones with magic on our side. 

  The sun is setting. It's truly magnificent, a reminder that no matter how hard we try, we can't extinguish beauty from the world. They say that, during the twenty-second century, they were so worried about running out of resources that they banned the use of make-up and made it illegal to wear fine clothing. When it became clear that the laws of physics weren't as solid as they thought they were, after they got over the initial shock, they used magic to build a bridge between the earth and other planets, to help with terraforming and resource extraction. People complained of course, said we were going against the natural order of things, but nothing about our world was ever "natural" to begin with. It was always being changed, and it was better that it was in the hands of those who could predict what would happen, should they take the time to look into the future. 

    The earth has mostly healed, or so they say. Mars and Venus are much more polluted, and people worry that they won't recover quickly since life was never established there. Some scientists are using "special technology" (magic, but for laypeople), to establish ecosystems and build more space for us. As they point out, we only have so many billions of years left before our star dies, so we should start working on a backup plan. 

    That Backup Plan can wait. I have to keep us safe, from insiders and outsiders. To do that, I need to overthrow the government.  Not something I thought I'd say when I became Earth's ruler almost ten years ago, but it's more true than ever right now.