In an apartment in lower New York, America, a 27 year old man named Ethan Stokes sat at his computer, in his far too small apartment, the time was 11:05pm. 

*Click*

*Click, Click.*

'Fucking disgusting. Why would someone do that?! I hope they find the sick bitch and put her in prison or something.'

*Click*

Ethan typed in the anonymous chat before closing the tab:

"You're all a bunch of sick fucks for watching this."

'As if. She'll probably just get a fine or something and an unenforcable ban on owning cats, like anyone would even know she had them or had a ban.'

"Sigh, nothing to do with me anyway. Lesser lifeforms."

*Click*

Ethan leaned back and tried to forget about what he just saw and began to read an article discussing metallic hydrogen.

'For all the cruelty and sickness, there are men like these two who spend over twenty years chasing something that might not even exist.'

In awe of the fact someone could be so motivated, driven and experience failure every day for twenty something years without giving up, Ethan had to respect these men as this was something he could never do, he was 27 and had just been fired from his most recent warehouse temp job, an IT graduate with seemingly no ability to get or hold a job for longer than a couple of months, his life was essentially in a dead end, a rut that has always existed for as long as he can remember.

Thinking about his past mistakes, his regrets and opportunities missed and staring at an empty space on his computer monitor, Ethan felt goosebumps, he could feel his hackles raise out of nowhere like something incredibly bad was about to happen. Ethan's heart began to thump loudly in his chest and sweat began to bead on his forehead, the time on his monitor read 11:10pm.

There was no sound but the sound of New York, the blaring sirens in the distance, the pitter patter of the rain on his slightly open window, the honking cars for the never ending NYC traffic and the muffled shouting of people outside walking to wherever they wanted to go. The loudest sound by far was the ticking of his clock, the one that sat above his monitor, the one he never needed to use since he had a phone and a PC.

Then there was silence. The monitor read 11:11pm. The din of New York disappeared and ethan felt his heart stop in his chest. The world shuddered around him, his vision grew watery but he felt no tears and from the edges of his vision he saw darkness swim and cloud his sight. 

Then all the power went out, there hadn't been darkness in his apartment in years.

Ethan began to panic and stood up quickly enough to throw his desk chair backwards, smashing his fish tank containing a collection of one oversized goldfish which promptly spilled out onto the floor, the fish desparately flailing on the wood letting out light slaps and thumps. He felt his body freeze, his muscles all began to cramp at once, his teeth clenching through the pain and the darkness consumed his vision. Now he was unable to hear or see and then he realised, he had blacked out, he was no longer awake.

Outside his own mind, Ethan's body fell to the ground like a wooden board, crashing into the floor and inadvertently creating ready to eat sushi now that his goldfish, Frank, was flattened with his innards shot out of both ends in a macabre multi-coloured line. 

Ethan's body began to contort, twist, and change colour, first it went from it's pale white to a dark red to a neon green and eventually back to pale white before going to a darker yellow-brown tone, like one might see on a plant that looks ill, his flesh undulating into a new form, the sound of his bones snapping and the sound of wet flesh like one might expect to hear from an overfilled water mattress echoed in his apartment, the only sound remaining aside from the rain outside. His form began to shrink, bones broken and pushed out of his body, his skin began to slough away when there was excess and the body itself seemed to pull together by some magical force until it was freakishly spherical like a corpse forced into a suitcase. 

The modifications of Ethan's body continued for hours until eventually what remained was a fleshy mess of gore coating the floor, partially dried in places with bones poking out and in the middle of this crime scene was a mushroom with roots spread throughout the gore and even into the splattered corpse of Frank the Goldfish, seemingly no different than any store bought button mushroom, except for it's large size and earthier colouring, that is of course if you ignored the fact that there was a Human face on it. The water from the fish tank had spread across the floor and began to exit under his apartment door and into the hallway beyond.

During the time that his body had been transformed Ethan was 'aware' within his own mind, an endless darkness that seemed to spread in all directions but oddly not uncomfortable.

'I'm dead. Definitely dead. My heart stopped. I had a heart attack at 27 and died, holy shit. I didn't even drink soda and I couldn't afford fast food. Why the fuck would I die of heart attack out of ever-'

*BEEEEERRRRRNNNGGGG*

The sound of a fog horn scared the ever loving jeebus out of Ethan, and a figure in the distance that could not be made out began to meander closer.

'The fuck is that.'

'What the fuck is that.'

'Oh god, is this the grim reaper party boat, come to take me to Hell? Oh maybe this is the ferryman, shit I didn't have any money on me what if he doesn't let me cross.'

As it grew closer, Ethan realised it was not a boat at all. But an enormous screen with esoteric shapes coming off the rectangular edges. It hurt to look at the non-screen part of the screen and came with overwhelming nausea.

The screen was black with white text that read:

"Humans, judgement has come and you have all been judged. Many of you will find yourselves with abilities. Powers. New forms. These are my final gift. You wasted your potential, you wasted my efforts. Now pay it back. When you awaken the world as you knew it will no longer exist and instead what awaits you is a changed world with new rules. All received gifts, but not all gifts are equal. Good luck."

'What in the seven hells is this..'

Before he could continue his ruminations having read to the end of the screen, he was kicked out of the darkness and back into his body.

'This feels really fuckin' weird.'

All across the world, the same or rather similar scenes happened to every person, the time with which they remained unconscious remained the same regardless of their Judgement transformations, none woke until the final one was complete.

During the same time that Humanity was being altered, so too were the flora and fauna of the world. 

Chickens exploded into a feathery mist before growing in size and becoming what one would call a dinosaur. 

Whales and other aquatic creatures, grew limbs and took the land, whales in particular with deadly lashing tongues the length of a two engine private jet along with, for some reason, a single large eye capable of firing lasers now sitting centrally on it's previously empty front.

Some squid grew additional tentacles and grew to the size of the Eiffel Tower, had there been anyone around they would likely have shouted "Release the Kraken!" before being dragged into a gaping toothy maw.

In the Amazon, the previously docile trees of the Jungle changed, some trees turned red, their roots pulling from the ground becoming like legs as hooked barbs erupted from the bark whilst others turned any number of rainbow colours with freakish features that were clearly not friendly. Conversely elsewhere in the world, some trees changed specifically to look friendly, though the smiling faces with squinting eyes were likely a facade to an as of yet unknown terror.

In a Zoo in New Orleans, their prime exhibit of a white tiger grew two extra limbs on it's sides and suckers out of the pads on it's paws, it also gained the ability to go invisible with the only potential visibile 'tell' being a shimmer like heat on a distant hot road.

Extinct species reappeared and the existing ones changed, but it would have been better if it had stopped here, but the changes did not and continued in yet more bizarre directions. Fantasy creatures became real.

Thousands of Horses across the world grew horns and changed to white, whilst growing to be seven feet tall with a slight glow and silver blood.

Somewhere in Guadalupe a blood sucking bat turned into a naked feral man with fangs and ran around wild eyed and in panic of the sudden increase to mental capacity.

Dogs turned into lycanthropes and Humans with fewer animal traits.

Koi fish turned into Asiatic dragons, leaving their ponds and taking to the skies.

Demons and ghosts appeared also, the Demons finding joy only in destruction and feasting, whilst the Ghosts came in many forms, some possessed inert objects waiting for prey, others found haunts from which to feed on fear from their victims.

During all this, many Humans who were in the wrong place at the wrong time were made into low preparation meals.

The two greatest changes by far however were not so easily felt or observed, though one could perhaps get lucky and observe both.

The first of the two Great Changes was the introduction of a new energy, to replace the old including form and function, this energy was Mana and it made existing forms of energy inert, from combustion to electricity none of it no longer worked how it used to, though the effects could be emulated the process was different and unknown. As the creatures on Earth changed they grew new organs that allowed them to sense and manipulate this energy to form physical phenomena almost entirely based on one's will and mental image. Non-living matter became a target of Mana also, being changed by it's presence new ores appeared along with new types of stone and other materials, oil began to glow in the deep and natural gas became visible.

The second Great Change was concentrated Mana. When Mana concentrated in a location, the Mana would take form and become a creature though the rates of this happening were much rarer it did allow the creation of entirely new creatures over time. Additionally concentrated mana was able to be condensed into liquid and solid forms of energy.

When all the changes were complete, twelve hours had passed and in New York City, it was almost noon and people were waking up.