In the beginning, there were only monsters.
The one world, earth itself, was composed of monsters. These primordial beings fought in a constant struggle to survive, consuming one another in perpetuity.
In the air above, the spirits of deceased monsters permeated the wind in a conduit of life and death reaching into space.
Beyond them, in ceaseless torrents, the sea was filled to bursting with serpents who slithered past one another in a tangled mass, spanning the circumference of the one world.
In all these places, there was never a moment's rest for any of these monsters.
Chaos was transcendent. There was only consumption and the consumed.
In this world, amidst the tumult of the fighting on the earth, the first human came into existence: The Forerunner. Despite being one of the weakest of all the monsters with no sharp claws or piercing teeth, the Forerunner had but one power allowing it to survive, a voice that could mimic the cries of any other monster. The Forerunner could deceive any monster of the realm with its voice. The Forerunner could lie.
Every bark, every growl, and every snarl the Forerunner could mimic. It lied about its strength to monsters that were stronger. It lied about its size to other monsters that were bigger. It lied about everything. Soon, the truth was forgotten to the Forerunner, and it could only speak lies as it pitted the other monsters against one another.
Not soon after forgetting the truth, the Forerunner hatched a plan. It decided to challenge the king of all monsters. The king of monsters was a great leviathan serpent that controlled an unquenchable fire in its belly. The only monster who dared to challenge the awesome might of the king was a leviathan serpent scaled in mirrors, the queen and mother of all monsters. Together, the two ruled and danced over the earth and all its monsters as the only two never to be consumed in the endless cycle of consumption and consumed. The fire serpent bestowed light upon the earth from its breath, and from the kings reflection in the scales of the queen serpent, new monsters were born.
Having grown jealous of the King and Queen's power and their freedom from the cycle of consumption, the Forerunner called to the the hordes of monsters composing the earth, air, and sea. It told the monsters that one day the mirror serpent would cross the path of the fire serpent and make a great shadow where no monster could see.
The Forerunner barked, snarled, and shrieked in the many tongues of the gathered horde. Each monster listened in rapture. As they listened, some monsters grew sharper claws, others grew in size, while some metamorphosed into unspeakable forms. Not one to be content, the Forerunner gave word to its own form and appeared as a new king before all the gathered monsters. All the monsters of earth and sea roared in approval, eager to kill the sun serpent and feed on its corpse.
They sought to end the cycle of consumption with one grand feast.
As the horde approached the King of Serpents, their new forms flickered in the King's brilliant light, but they pressed on assured by the Forerunner of their new powers. Meanwhile, as the march reached a fevered pitch, the Forerunner slipped off somewhere unseen as the King of Serpents turned his fiery gaze towards the usurpers.
Witness to everything in the realm upon her scales, the Queen understood the horde's intentions far before her King. She parted way and reflected the light of the King upon all the monsters, magnifying his blinding gaze. The earth burned, the sea boiled, every monster burst into blackened forms. Completely immolated, their facades created by the Forerunner's voice burned away into nothing.
During the battle, the Forerunner approached from the shadow left by the twin serpents as King and Queen directed their ire at sterilizing every last member of the horde. The Forerunner reached out to steal the source of the King's fire, giddy with excitement. Just then the King turned around and spoke to the Forerunner, one eye blazing white hot and the other black as night. Its words echoed throughout the realm.
"Was it you who sent this horde? Was it you who tricked them? Is it you, now, who challenges my rule, Forerunner?"
The Forerunner, now shrunken before the gaze of the King, stuttered back. Attempting to weave together a lie, the Forerunner grunted, hissed, and squealed. But with each word, the Forerunner grew smaller and smaller before the gaze of the King.
The fire serpent called out to the mirror serpent to direct her gaze at the Forerunner to burn it with the rest. But as she circled in her approach, she began to move erratically. Fear echoed through the Forerunner, still frozen in place as the King moved his gaze to the Queen. The realm, once loud with a cacophony of monster cries, was nearly silent. Only one sound echoed throughout the dead realm now. Fear.
The Forerunner's heartbeat echoed the oldest emotion known to all living things.
As the Forerunner's heartbeat thumped, the serpents began to move in pattern to match the beat of the Forerunner's heart. A dance emerged, and the two circled around one another, creating the cycle of day and night. Below them, the mound of dead monsters that became the world.
The Forerunner's heartbeat increased its tempo: Excitement overcame fear, as the Forerunner witnessed a single mirrored scale fall from the Queen during her dance with the King.
In the shadow cast by the Queen, the Forerunner dashed forth picking up the mirrored scale. In a great sprint, the Forerunner dashed forth along the shadowed length of the mirror serpent, scale in hand. Then, in a great leap, the Forerunner shielded itself with the scale as the King threw his fiery gaze upon the upstart.
In sudden terror, the King screamed as his fire was reflected back upon him. His form shriveled inwards dimming from his once brilliant glow in death.
His decimated corpse became the Sun.
As the Forerunner fell, it grabbed the last whips of fire left in the wake of the King's final attack.
The Queen broke her rhythm, enraged by the Forerunner. Filled with blind hate, she beset upon the Forerunner. In her pursuit, she shook the entire length of her body. Mirrored scales fell to the world and became new monsters upon the land.
As the Forerunner ran, it clasped the fire it had stolen in its hands. Hiding now amongst the dead horde left in the wake of the King's fire, the Forerunner caught its breath and stared into the flames in its hands. When the Queen's new children soon found the Forerunner, it hid itself behind its hands accidentally releasing the fire. A wave a heat engulfed the Queen's new brood burning them all to cinders.
Seeing her children die, the mirror serpent smirked, pearl white fangs shimmering and her reflective length. Then, she dove to the ground in search of the Forerunner. Screaming and howling in half-mad fear, the Forerunner attempted to sooth the Queen's ire but to no avail. The Queen, who knew the tongue of every monster she had birthed upon the land, heard right through the Forerunner's ruse.
Endless battles between the two raged in the sea, earth, and air. The realm, once populated, was now sterilized with fire in another cycle of chaos.
Soon realizing the battle would never end, the Forerunner ran away from the Queen as fast as it could. After tripping over a skull of one of the dead children of the Queen, the Forerunner hatched a duplicitous plan. Setting to work immediately hiding amongst the corpses, the Forerunner fashioned a mask. The first mask.
The Queen eventually found the Forerunner, but not before the Forerunner had turned around in fear but with mask affixed. The Queen's snarling rage gave way to a contrite remorse. "My child," spoke the Queen in a hushed tone, "I did not mean to scare you. How did you manage to survive, my child? Don't you worry now, mother is here. How sickly you look. Come, my baby, come to mother and let me mend your wounds."
When the Queen approached, she gained the scent of the Forerunner. As her visage of remorse metamorphosed into hate, the Forerunner seized its opportunity and landed a mortal blow with its stolen fire. The Queen began contort, burning and screaming in agony.
Creation and Destruction.
The Forerunner's heartbeat tempo changed again: Calm content.
Time slowed with the tempo of the Forerunner's heartbeat.
As the mirror serpent burned, she uttered a curse upon the Forerunner. "As you watch my body burn, may you be cursed with a fear that rages as white-hot as the fires that consumes me!"
The Forerunner, in arrogant pride, approached the writhing form of the burning mirror serpent.
The Queen screamed as the Forerunner approached, "As you watch my body burn, may you be cursed with an undying rage driving you to madness as I feel now!"
The mirror serpent cackled in death as she became ash. With one final breath, she uttered her last curse. "As you watch my body turn to ash, may you grow weary of speech… as I grow weary… now…"
Her burnt corpse became the Moon.
Time passed as Sun and Moon orbited one another as they did before in the endless dance. The Forerunner stumbled about for eons on the now dead world. Soon, the Forerunner alone took off the mask of the Queen's child and peered into its empty sockets.
It began to speak.
The heartbeat of the Forerunner slowed as it stared into the eyeless pits. Speech flowed, but the pace of the Forerunner's heart slowed, slower: Dying.
Thoughts within the mind of the Forerunner rotted. Where speech was once produced only gurgling devoid of will spoke. The body of the Forerunner withered void of sustenance. It continued to look into the eyes of the mask, and the mask peered back. Its thoughts ebbed and flowed in forms unconstrained by thought. With each heartbeat, fur turned to scale, scale to shell, and back again. A hideous amalgam of body parts arrayed themselves beyond control by the Forerunner along its body. The discordant rot of its body gave rise to something new in its mind. With an all-consuming fear, the Forerunner looked at its hand still burning with the great white-hot flame of the fire serpent's stolen power. The Forerunner scratched and clawed at its hand with the other, trying to rid itself of the flame.
Consumed now by madness, the Forerunner changed form and flew high into the heavens to escape the King's fire that clung to it. In its other hand, the Forerunner clutched the one mask.
Then, in complete exhaustion, the Forerunner fell from the heavens and shattered upon the ashen world with its burnt land and boiled seas.
The Breaking.
During the breaking, all aspects of the Forerunner broke: Fire, Body, Mask, and Heart.
The perfect union of form now became humans, male and female, spread throughout all the lands across the world. While some still retain the speech of the Forerunner, others could hardly bark. These remnants of the Forerunner's heart, scattered as they are, will be doomed to strife amongst one another as the monsters before them. This was the breaking of the Forerunner's heart.
The cursed body of the Forerunner shattered upon the land and became the monsters of the world repopulated. Their forms inhabit all the lands, sea, air, and earth of the world. Their borders know no bounds. This was the breaking of the Forerunner's body.
The first mask used to beguile the mirror serpent broke, too, and spread across the world. Its form interlaced with the curse of the Forerunner. Those who use its power now succumb to the Curse of the Forerunner. This was the breaking of the Forerunner's mask.
The King's fire broke loose upon the world and created the last firestorm. Those shattered humans who found its power and harnessed it survived against the monsters broken from the Forerunner's body. Those monsters that survived the firestorm were the strongest and most wicked to roam the realm. This was the breaking of the Forerunner's fire.
What we inhabit is the shattered world of the Forerunner and the Twin Serpents.
We pray for the final sealing and the release from the strife amongst humans.
The mask ceased speaking.