Talan remained even after the end had come.
At the centre of everything, at the beginning of all things and the end. It wasn't his first time in such a place, but he sincerely hoped it would be his last.
---
Talen loved questions, he loved rhetorical questions even more.
It took a long time to answer a question that isn't supposed to have an answer, some would search for an entire lifetime with the answer forever illuding their reach.
But in Talen's case, lifetimes would be the correct term for he had lived so many different lives already.
The question this time was one that he'd heard spoken of in every life of his.
It was a philosophical question so many learned scholars would ponder on for years on end, in their search for answers to the meaning of life.
And so the question went; Does a circle have a beginning? Does a circle have an end? If so then where can it be found?
The impossible question; for the beginning is also the end, and the end is the beginning so how can one ever know.
What might the beginning of a circle have to do with the truth of life?- you might ask.
The answer will vary depending on whomever you should ask, but if you ask Talen, the god who reigned supreme over all other gods, he'd tell you just one word.
'Everything.'
He'd proceed to look at you pitifully for your ignorance and walk away.
---
Talen had learned the answer so very long ago, at least he thought he did.
Time had a way of making him look at things differently it always annoyed him that no answer was absolute.
One day you are so certain that you have the answer and learned the truth of all things, but a few days go by and you come to realize how wrong you were when you look at things from a different angle.
Talen had grown tired of time always proving him wrong, it was an unfortunate truth that the more you learn, the more you come to understand how very little you truly know.
For one Telan who had lived for so many trillions of years one would have assumed that there were very few unknowns left for him, after all, he lived 33 lives and by now he was so many trillions of years old that he stopped counting.
Talen sat, no stood, or rather float at the centre of the 7 universes that made the current heaven/plain and watched them crumble.
Centuries passed maybe millennia or even eons, Talan didn't count anymore, he stopped caring about anything, or rather it could be said that he was cursed to never have the chance to care about anything other than himself.
All things slowly withered away for their time had come.
The dark suns that lit up the heaven/plain soon lost their light as time encroached upon them snuffing them out, and after that, the unseen black holes that sucked and destroyed all things met their end.
Then he saw it everything had turned into nothing and began to converge on the centre of everything, you see that was the secret, a circle has a beginning and that beginning was at the centre from the centre it expands outward forever until it stops and collapses upon itself.
The answer stared all those that were looking for it in the face, yet it remained hidden.
Such is the eternal cycle, such are the truths we all hope to learn, they are so obvious but remain hidden in plain sight.
Talan watched the shattering with joy as it took everything with it, he could easily survive the collapse of this heaven and watch as it would reconstruct and become greater than it was before, but that would be beside the point for he wanted death he desired it with all his being,
His 33 lives were pure misery, it was the curse that made it so...
It was the curse that subjected him to the unjust hatred of all beings.
It was the curse that forced him to live on the icy edge of solitude, he had grown used to it, but it was like a wound that could never heal.
His greatest desire as a person was to be able to spend just a few moments with someone and share a glass of wine, without them trying to jam a knife in his throat, but the world always denied him, and he had made it his eternal quest to die a permanent death.
The solution to breaking the curse illuded him and left him a broken man, a broken god, even as the self-proclaimed greatest god of all he was unable to break a single curse that had been with him from time immemorial.
He was so very tired of it all and so he began to pool all the decay and destruction energy from the crumbling heaven onto his very being to bring about his end.
It wasn't his body that needed to go but rather his soul, it was so troublesome to have an indestructible soul that even gods couldn't hope to scratch.
A smile soon came to Talan's face as he felt the life draining from him, he had forgotten what it was like to smile though in truth the only times he felt enough joy to smile was when he stood over a hated enemy's body.
There were still a few that he wished to kill, others similar to him, that could never die a true death, and so they reincarnated throughout the 33 Neather Heavens/Plains, but if he could die and face oblivion it was the better option.
The light quickly faded from his being and his body began to fade as Talan felt himself fading into nothing, that was when he panicked. "DAMN IT, NOOOOO...", one last scream slipped from his being, resonating in the very fabric of the nothingness that would soon form a new heaven.
---
I descended into the room once more I can always enter the room if I wish, but there was always the chance that I would enter the other way.
It was when ever I died.
I sighed with a pitiful expression for I failed yet again, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but I knew that it was pointless I quit doing things that couldn't change anything a long time ago, only children threw tantrums.
I opened my eyes in this world of mine, well it is better described as a room, a room with only me, with every me, it stretches beyond the vision of all, but it is still merely a room, with twisting torrents of green light like an aurora spiraling endlessly with a darkness that every me dreads.
I slowly looked around taking it in I don't know why I even got my hopes up after all I always fail when it matters most.
The room was the same as always 33 seats forming a circle around a throne, I call them seats but truly they will make all kings and queens feel shame, by their grandeur, and there I sat it was my turn on the throne.
I got up slowly and let my old bones adjust as I climbed down the steps and made my way down before the first.
I lowered my head in tribute to the first he never had a name he was just a stillborn you see, the first was always quiet, always silent, his eyes never opened in all my lives he just lay there on his seat still as the day he was born, but he was the first.
All the me's know only one thing about our first self, and that was our name, we don't know how we know it, but it's always there staring us in the face.
I walked to the second and lowered my head, he too had no name he starved to death in his third year.
I once more lowered my head before the third he was only nine when he died, he looked up at me with his demented eyes his name was 1079, at least that was the best name he was given, sold by his parents and raised in a cage to fight for entertainment.
He died against two dire wolves and a hound, took out the wolves first it was the smarter option, but he got caught by the dying wolf's jaws, just a little mistake, and the hound ripped his throat.
We all bow a little deeper to the third he thought us how to fight he was the first warrior.
I continued my rounds; some were more tragic than others some only lived a thousand years before they went mad.
It happened frequently amongst the first 17 whenever there was a crisis the others would try to seize the throne, whenever the throne keeper made a bad decision they would whisper in their ear, everyone with a different opinion constantly driving each other to madness and an early grave.
There were only two amongst them that lived properly and free, for some reason those two were cut off from the room during their lives, there was (The Hundred Lives) Lucien Vizsal and (The Risen) Kaladin, their lives are the only haven for us the only lives without being unjustly subjected to the hate of others, the only lives in which we had love without hate and friendship without betrayal, it had its hardships but all did work out in the end.
I finally reached the 18th seat and there I dropped to my knees and kowtowed three times to him Arodil (The Demon of the End) that was the name given to him, his seat was decorated in ruin, he looked down at me and offered me his hand, "Rise Talen Haltz (Chaos Bringer)", his voice was as deep and majestic as when he sat upon the throne.
When I stood back up he looked with his ice-cold blue eyes and met with mine then he settled back down to continue his rest.
His seat was as majestic as the silver throne, only his was as dark as the lightless worlds with the souls of a trillion-trillion mortals, a trillion immortals and a million gods, in his reign upon the throne he erased every cultivator in every world on every planet, in every realm.
Not a single cultivator survived for what they did to him, it was with him that everything changed he was the first to become an equal of the heavens, and he ruined that heavens/plains shattering.
In all of creation only he could destroy that which was already destroyed, he was the shatterer of shatterings.
After Arodil left the throne, he ensured that none would try to take the throne from another, but he let the others continue their whispers, but since then the rest continued to rise against the heavens and reach the peak of all existences all until 28 where we thought that we had finally found love how foolish we were.
I stood before 28 but he showed no sign of noticing me he remained in his seat with his hands wrapped around his legs rocking back and forth like a mad man.
"Oh Ella, my sweet little Ellaβ¦. I failed youβ¦. I failed you.", he sobbed his voice ringing in the room but no one stopped him, the pain resonated in us all we are all one after all, "f-f-f-forgive me, forgive meβ¦." his sobs continued to echo in the room like always but we could never tell him to stop for it was a wound in our very being one that even time could never heal, it was the wound of watching trust turn into betrayal, love turning into hate, of having hope turn into dust.