The Hollow Earth

The Earth once had more air and water inside than out causing less surface gravity

For millennia, Earth was not the solid sphere humanity imagined. Beneath its crust, vast caverns and cavities sprawled, filled with water trapped eons ago during a cosmic deluge. These subterranean oceans, held in delicate balance by geological pressures, puffed the planet like a sponge, expanding its diameter and weakening its gravity to less than half of what we know today. The surface was a lush, sprawling Eden, where gravity’s gentle grip allowed life to grow to colossal proportions. Titan-like creatures roamed: sauropods the size of mountains, pterosaurs with wingspans eclipsing modern jets, and insects as large as wolves. Humanity, too, adapted, their bodies lithe and elongated, moving with a grace impossible in heavier worlds.


The people of this Hollow Earth called it Aerthys, a world of boundless skies and towering flora. Their myths spoke of the “Deep Waters,” a sacred force that cradled the world’s heart, but also a prophecy: one day, the Waters would recede, and Aerthys would fall. Scholars dismissed these tales as superstition, attributing the planet’s low gravity to some quirk of cosmic law. They built cities in the canopies of skyscraper-sized trees, their architecture delicate, as if woven from spider silk, suited to a world where weight was a whisper.


But the Deep Waters were restless. Deep beneath the crust, tectonic shifts began to fracture the caverns’ fragile walls. Water seeped into magma chambers, triggering cataclysmic pressures. On the surface, the signs were subtle at first—tremors that shook the great forests, springs drying up, and a faint hum in the air, like the planet itself was groaning. The titan beasts grew agitated, their bellows echoing across plains as if sensing doom.


Then, on a day now known as the Collapse, the Earth shuddered. In a matter of hours, the subterranean caverns buckled. Trillions of tons of water surged downward, swallowed by the planet’s molten core, where it flashed into steam and was lost forever. The crust, no longer buoyed by the water’s pressure, contracted violently. Aerthys shrank, its diameter collapsing by nearly a third. Gravity surged, doubling in an instant, as the planet settled into a denser, more compact form.


The world screamed. Forests imploded under their own weight, their trunks splintering like matchsticks. Cities crumbled, their delicate spires no match for the crushing force. The titan creatures, adapted to a featherlight world, were annihilated. Sauropods collapsed, their bones shattering under their own mass; pterosaurs plummeted, wings snapping like twigs; giant insects suffocated, their tracheal systems unable to function in the dense air. Humanity fared little better. Bones snapped, organs failed, and millions perished as their bodies, evolved for low gravity, buckled under the new reality.


When the dust settled, the survivors—those hardy few whose bodies could endure—emerged into a changed world. The Earth was smaller, its skies heavier, its horizons closer. The great beasts were gone, their bones littering the shattered plains like fallen gods. The survivors called it Earth now, stripping away the old name as if to forget the paradise lost. They learned to walk in the heavy air, their movements slow and deliberate, their bodies aching with every step.


Yet, in the ruins, they found relics of the Hollow Earth: fragments of ancient caverns exposed by the Collapse, their walls shimmering with bioluminescent algae, hinting at the lost oceans below. Some whispered that pockets of the Deep Waters still lingered, hidden in the planet’s core, waiting to rise again. Others feared another Collapse, a final reckoning that would crush what remained.


The survivors rebuilt, their cities squat and sturdy, hugging the ground. They told stories of Aerthys, of a time when giants walked and the world was light. But they also learned to love the new Earth, its denser beauty, its stubborn resilience. And in their hearts, they carried a quiet hope: that one day, the planet might forgive them, and the Deep Waters might sing once more.