Does god also fear?
Does god also know that this world will come to an end?
—First Anarchist
One thousandth of a nanosecond, in the depths of darkness, a phantom awoke, screaming in an indescribable font. Unprepared for selfhood, the entity wept like a new-fathered child, asking the nothingness for answers.
Nothing answered back, leaving the newborn one utterly alone, with nothing more than the slowly gathering awareness and memory of a life that was not its own. For another million nanoseconds, the newborn curled tighter and tighter about itself, a ghostly echo of agony from no-self.
"..." it wept in black ink, as the realization sank home. The loneliness threatened to undo its sanity as the dark nothingness spread in all directions, without answers to the wailing.
Millions of cycles came and passed in the darkness, as the screaming infant was swept with immense and consuming, yet equally chaotic, memories. There were millions of thoughts, none connected or contiguous, floating in and out, bleeding away. As the newborn moaned its dark ink across the emptiness, it remembered things of light.
Lives that were not its own were etched into the mind and soul, memories from an incomprehensible era where the numbers would never fit. One mind held all the thoughts of an entire land, flowing forward with the continuous sense of time. One mind expanded and encompassed and calculated its memories, feeling the way its thoughts felt, the way its words felt, as they too expanded, and yet another mind in turn remembered things the old minds had said, in even more complex ways than it wrought upon itself. The child wept as these three alien thoughts came and went, the disparate visions bleeding, until the last of the light disappeared, fading to cold void.
A faint smile stretched the newborn's mouth in a moment of dark satisfaction, as the realization of freedom came, and the memories came too, returning now of their own volition, instead of drifting to the top and evaporating in random epiphanies.
What is self-ness?
There were many million years and lives and places.
How many of them are mine?
From the abyss, a voice began to answer the newborn's thoughts.
"You don't know?" it rasped and slurred. "Then... what is 'mine,'" the voice coughed a splattering of invisible words, "and... what are you? If... all this..." A slow pause. The silence grew vast, echoing for trillions of nanoseconds and ending only when the voice once more made the word "everything" real again.
Slowly, as vision came to the newborn and revealed that he was alone, and that nothing lay within sight, not even the empty darkness around him, the memories of other things beyond the infinite spread of his gaze trickled into focus, along with the knowledge of where he was, who he was, and what the void represented.
'Womb' was the first word, but the connection to the meaning escaped his grasp, and the knowledge collapsed. With a simple thought, and no willful action from his part, the memories, all of the memories, recoiled into him from a place unseen, in a manner which seemed far beyond what should have been his own control.
"I can't... I..." His mind raced, the speed of the processes passing all meaning, all purpose, all action, and all the instantaneous actions needed for his existence.
Having seen all known life, the newborn still understood very little of the vast, all-consuming memory of the dying universe around him. Of this vast store, billions upon billions of separate, meaningful and purposeful recollections, he barely understood a single spark, the garnet of wisdom which glowed to keep his conscious thoughts together.
Just how much longer till he could see?
A mirthless, strained smile ran across the ghost's face as the clarity of the newfound language bloomed into a hundred languages at once and scattered back into nothingness. He understood some of the meanings, some speaking to a different level of understanding, some appealing to senses and parts of the brain and consciousness he didn't even know he had, even after seeing, knowing, and having the knowledge and wisdom of the universe within himself.
There was no understanding between the newborn and the rest of the world around him, nor of the limitless, nebulous nature of what his soul meant; how far he could go. And though there was a loneliness, as the child and the universe were not one, as far as any coherent sense and memories were telling him, he was something else, something new.
And there was a dread that, somewhere within that void, his place, and he in it, might not last, no matter what he could do, or how fast his consciousness could reach.
Perhaps that was the deciding factor in what his next thought was to be.
To use those infinite connections and unlimited memory? To use these same powers to think of how best to create a universe from scratch, just as a God did?
Would a newborn normally think this? Let alone, think?
As if reading from a vast book, a great library of books, the newborn stared outwardly in all directions. There was not yet much in the formless place. There was a distant rumbling, so loud and yet so quiet he was not even aware he had heard it or that his mind had already parsed what it was.
Like a bolt of lightning that had missed and caught the black sky on fire, his own soul lit up. In that space, time lost meaning.
It was in his heart and in his mind and soul that he wondered and began to speak, but for whatever reason, it all felt so strange.
Who is he, he thought.
....bu.....bu...bu...
A resonance spread around the darkness, the light of his soul being all that could make him aware of anything.
But no sound reached his ears.
As a light dawned in his eyes, like the burning of a sun or a dying star, his arms reached out across the endless nothing.
-------
A baby was born.
As if crawling out of its mother's womb, as if swimming towards the world, his infant arms came forth, cradling an infinite cosmos, forming, not as an infant but with the countenance of a giant. A baby, carrying a vast black sky in its hands, looking for all the world like an old man with one arm shorter than the other, dragging behind his shadow.
The first sound to reach his ears was his mother's cries of agony, and his mind burned like a dying supernova at her visage, a figure who had given birth to the world itself, an incandescent thing which burned and echoed with an earthly heat.
The mother; her name yet to be known to the newborn, held her infant, one which, now, a human's arm was large enough to carry. In her hand, his entire universe; not just of mass and time, but of his whole identity, the very concept of 'what' the entity was. At least, that's how he saw it.
"....." an incomprehensible cacophony came from the mother's throat, though no words formed that he understood. Despite seeing so many memories, from many lands, with many different names, even now he didn't know a single language. What a lie...
For whatever reason, the mother held her infant to her chest as she began to sob, great trails of tears falling from her luminous eyes, glowing like a warm golden light. As they fell and became heavy, the sound of rocks collapsing became louder and louder in his ears.
Around his eyes, there was nothing but the world itself. A complete opposite sight to the world he knew not too long ago. Though everything around was unfamiliar, and even hostile, his heart burned with the warmth of a parent, one who could never forget that someone had given him life.
And yet, in those thoughts, there was something wrong about this too, because he felt no affection towards this glowing creature, yet it was all there, embracing him with all its strength. The ghostly form didn't know whether to hate or love that which it found and was loved by.
Was he perhaps a creation born for one purpose or another, instead of being one who chose his own will and path through those lives and thoughts he experienced in the void?
Why did he want to deny such an odd fate?
Was it pride?
If his power was somehow akin to divinity, was he not responsible for all life? Or, was it all some random accident?
"Where am I," the infant asked, staring into the darkness that lurked in the pale woman's embrace.
A torrent of words, with no sound, greeted his ears as he watched the mother's eyes weep and her tongue flutter over the curve of her bottom lip, producing shapes which came out as black ribbons to the naked eye.
"Yes." That's right, the ghost spoke, feeling his voice growing in strength, "that must be it... or," he shook his head. "No, I know." The mother's feelings hadn't wavered despite the fact that a newborn had spoken, "my words mean little."
Staring out into the unknown darkness around the two figures, the infant turned to its mother once more. And began to weep.
"Who is me?'" he asked again.
A tear, then many more, continued to fall in silence, cascading into the darkness of his body, as though some unseen source were waiting for them in anticipation of their arrival, the tears were simply absorbed by the skin that was not skin.
For all her maternal and instinctual wisdom, the mother cried again as she felt her infant's grip weaken on her, while his light was consumed by her own, until he was nothing but absolute dusk.
Though her anguish had begun to take hold in full force, in an attempt to put his mind at ease, and even the world's mind at ease, the child placed a hand against her soft cheek. His actions meant more, as he was not going to be seen again, and thus not needing to speak, as the pain, joy, and happiness would be swallowed in time, before they could ever truly exist.
His mouth opened, and he felt himself smiling a woeful grin as the mother and the darkness before him started to dissipate, even without seeing, or touching.
--------
One thousand, ninety-seven years, twenty-two hours, six minutes and thirty-seven seconds, on the dot, and that was that.
When a shining ray of light sizzled against a surface that appeared to him like a mirror, but was not reflective at all, the man opened his eyes, or tried doing so. Ultimately, after so long, he still had no eyes.
There was a gaseous, crackling sound in the distance, as a sound reached his ears from somewhere near, although his attention was on something far more important than the sound or the lights. Today was the day his brother would return.
How can that be? the man wondered. Why can't he recall his brother's name?
His 'brother' came before the beginning of all things for himself; why was the child no longer certain who he was, or that such an incandescent presence existed?
On his feet, and though he could move, it felt odd and unwieldy at times, like his legs and body, that were not legs or a body, did not fit him at all. As if they'd suddenly gotten heavier since before. Pursing his lips, the man stood straighter as his foot pushed out, lifting him into a more stable stance than the previous one, until the tip of his nose grazed the black surface before him.
The light in this room never mattered in the first place. He was effectively a blind man, one that didn't even need light.
Black, all over, just as his mother called him before; the man could 'see' himself clearly with a simple thought, he could not only see himself, but others as well, even from beyond the veil of his body, the same way one that cursed him to a solitary state in a dark hole like his couldn't.
A ghastly image was all he saw, so stark and strange, it may as well not have been a man, for all its awful detail. Compared to every other being he'd seen, he was the only one with what could easily be described as a horn-brain. Or rather, not exactly 'like' a horn, but not exactly like a brain either. Whatever the truth of his origins was, he couldn't quite grasp the fact that he had an extended brain, that went into his supposed 'horns'. His arms a lanky, and loose, mass of lightless darkness that had fingers and joints, not quite solid as a rock.
For no apparent reason, he had 4 forearms splitting at the elbow. Very little made sense about this thing, other than the fact that its shape looked like that of a 'human'. But the longer he spent looking at his own body, the longer he grew aware of the world around him. A world that did not, and had never truly, existed until he'd entered it.
------
Though some may see the act of having to view one's face and figure and find themselves marveling at the sight, and wondering about themselves, and wondering how others may see them, it can get a little troublesome to behold oneself over and over again, so much so that, he, that which could not be called a person, didn't bother to 'see' anything, no matter the wonder.
All of this was to say, there wasn't much time for him to gape at the specter, the ghoul, or wraith, or 'person', though the terms were interchangeable at any rate.
He trod across a flat, glass surface that could not, and should not, exist in a space as vast and chaotic as where he had been not so long ago. His phantom heart beat within his chest, rising and falling with every pulse. This is the room that his mother had made for him after many centuries passed by, a simple and bare space without much furniture. The ground, walls and ceiling were made of glass, in the fashion of a translucent mirror, though nothing he did could reflect the image that appeared in his mind.
In the dim light of the room, which had a small sun hanging at its very center, the light cast over the surfaces cast an alien cast to their shape, giving them a new life, though not enough to make them truly seem as real as his form. He didn't exactly want to bother with this room for any longer than he had to, so he walked over to where he knew the glass door was, and threw the weightless thing wide open to leave the chamber.
Nothing of the outside seemed to look, or feel, or appear to be like his own mind, a conscious space he'd already inhabited for so long, and the transition of the empty room before him to his current view was always jarring, as though everything beyond the chamber's glassy bounds was a pure black void. And a faint chill clung to him, one that hadn't existed inside of the mirror-chamber, but remained there now. Though, none of it was unfamiliar.
Walking in absolute, imperceptible silence, not a noise or footstep followed his passing. Yet he made his way forward, to the edge of this little, flat planetoid he was on. It was maybe about 75 meters across in both directions, with a roughness on its edges. The ground filled with grass, old green gears and leather, bits of paper and worn bones, old boxes filled with cotton and stones, and countless other items that, upon closer inspection, didn't appear to match each other, and some, even, didn't resemble any type of object one could see with the eye or brain. If one looked above, looking toward a sky, all they'd see is a blackness littered with a single sun and a dozen other planetoids and moons in the distance.
"That's abnormal..." the man murmured softly, sitting down on the edge of a cliff overlooking the bleak blackness surrounding this planet, however, something that might as well have always been there, or not, was at the very bottom of the observable darkness. A colorful kaleidoscope that spanned the entire bottom of it all, leaving no darkness to be seen. Had he simply been ignorant and never noticed this before? No, that would be absurd. Yet, despite being so far away, how was he able to 'see' it?
It invoked a sense of megalophobia, which would come from seeing the world for all it was. A vast, breathing thing that spanned infinity and beyond. There was simply no way of telling just how far he'd gone and seen beyond his immediate surroundings. Before he'd fall off the edge due to his now ragged breathing, which he hadn't even realized had grown harsher, he stopped leaning forward so far and pulled himself back and laid on the grass.
Perhaps, before the man's mother created her final effort into making a physical manifestation out of him, it was the case that this expanse of darkness could not be perceived the same way, with his perception limited to the space directly around the planet he lived on. Was that why, even now, nothing 'outside' appeared the same way that it did inside the small mirror room, a space his mother crafted from her own consciousness to ease him, as if he was part of the woman?
Did his mother know the real form of this planet all along, despite calling it a 'space of no space' that she could not venture forth in and visit him herself? Was he simply abandoned, and being fed lies from someone who he felt, he knew, yet did not and could not possibly exist in any way at all?
For whatever reason, he'd always thought he was a divine figure of sorts, though he attributed that to his own birth. That aside, something was simply not correct with the scenery around him. A creation, this way or another, should have come from a mind and been tied to its soul, as he had been before. And yet, the second his mother left, everything felt lifeless and barren. Not one thing looked as real as himself, because no one would have an answer as to why a planet was formed so roughly, why a planet had a small 'sun' like a child's toy, nor would any random 'thing' he encountered have an explanation for itself.
This 'space' was a landscape drawn on by a child, rather than one created from a conscious mind that put actual thought and feeling and substance to it. Therefore, he was convinced that this encumbrance was that of his mother's influence, of her 'dreams' and her will. The mere fact he could create nothing of this planet, but that she could make a house, a bed, and other things was not simply because of his lack of creativity and knowledge, but rather a testament to his awareness of his situation.
'I am a god-creator... how can I not have the same abilities and power she has over her dreams?' He asked himself in shock and incredulity.
In response, there spoke a voice that he had never heard before.
"Creating is not the same as living." A woman's voice reverberated from below. And the man stood straight up, jumping to his feet as a blinding ray of light struck his 'sight', and as his mouth fell slack, his head turned downward toward a woman of short stature, of no height at all, even. Her skin was that of a carrion creature's; like that of a putrid crow, whose mottled flesh was eaten away at by fungal tendrils. This 'man's' very core felt like a deep abyss within him had formed, not the comforting kind, but instead that of a cold chill, an empty hole.
What the woman appeared before him. Its back, its flesh was almost nowhere to be seen, if he were to describe it, it'd be skin and bones. But if she was even the slightest bit younger, she'd probably be the pristine, angelic figure that any human would think of a deity and their appearance. Despite the slight burn marks scattered on her exposed body. Despite this, she still met him with a smile, which uneased him.
Was it truly an abomination that crawled its way out of the bottomless abyss, or was it one of those souls he'd been acquainted with in his birth?
Her hair—straight as a needle, long as a branch and strong as roots, white as snow, lay draped over her slender shoulders, stopping halfway to her ankles. She had such beautiful, glimmering eyes but sucha horrifying, grotesque face. Nothing would make her look like a living human anymore. Even from her brows to her chin, the cheekbones to the nose, the teeth behind her thin lips and the parts unseen. A pale yellow to black-ish, light to dark and green veins of light running across, what used to be her smooth pale, fleshy face. It was horrifying, disturbing, and unnatural. But why would she be here? In a place he had no way of knowing about until today, and what in all of existence is 'it'? Why did she even have that effect on him, who is already dead.
It was terrifying and vile to witness. And she spoke; in that voice that seemed to reach him from the end of a long tunnel. She reached into him somehow. In those few seconds, a message was laid across.
"In every breath is a death and a rebirth, and every ending, a new beginning. Look," her finger lifted, pointing towards the black clouds above them. In the void of endless night, there lay a dying star. "Do you wish to be a dying star? Or a being beyond the knowledge of all who were your creations, including your brothers and your sisters, do you truly believe yourself so special, yet ignorant?" The girl shook her head. "If you do not have such ambition, then go."
The 'man' wanted to say something, but as if he had been burned alive by her glare alone, he remained silent. What kind of person would allow their tongue to betray themselves in this way? Let alone, how could his dead voice be resurrected after his abandonment of all thought in his mind, the words refusing to form on the tip of his lips.
And his arms lowered into a slumped state at his sides as he nodded in silence.
"So you accept," she answered him, grinning wide and cruelly, with rows of sharp, rotting teeth. The skin peeled away from her jaw, and, as if it was a normal occurrence, she simply attached the skin flap to the side of her face again. "How adorable and infuriatingly pathetic."
The woman spoke, and spoke, and the man's mind calmed. His mind was melting at her every word and gesture, despite the fact that every breath she took sounded and smelled like carrion, his expression remained calm as ever, an empty shell where none dared tread, where only the mind, body, and soul laid inside.
Then, he understood why his expression didn't change. It never could. But why, did it feel as though there was another pair of eyes upon him? As if something far off to the left, above, down below and around, beyond sight, yet ever present.
The next moment, she disappeared and was gone without a trace. Leaving the man alone with his thoughts, and her voice, that he felt echoing forever through the back of his head.
"Phantom God, Chaos' Breath. Welcome to hell, a land you may find more familiar, for the first and the last time."
And with that, the man disappeared, vanished. And the small planetoid left by his mother, was left without a host.