In the beginning, the hand of God took the dust to form man, and it was good. He took the man's rib to make woman, and it was good. He took the woman's pain to make the serpent, and it was good. He took the serpent's advice to flood mankind, and it was good. God tried to close his eyes to sleep, but they were already shut.
In the beginning there is the dust, and the dust brings life. In the end there is the flood, and the flood brings death.
In the beginning, a serpent told the dust that it was man.
And the dust believed it.
Can you hear it? There is a hole shining in the holes between your eyelids. There is a serpent coiling around a nothingness that is somethingness.
***
'…I am dying.'
Magicks had rended his garment, flesh, bone. For all his might, for all his tricks and knowledge, he was still only just one being. There was only so much he could do.
And now, he knew the end was coming soon.
'Those ignorant bastards.'
He dragged himself deeper into the woods. Away from the fire, away from the screeching of metal, of man. The forest was a quiet place. The forest was home. It was where all things came from, and thus it made itself a fitting place to come here to end.
Each breath rattled his bleeding body, it sent a deep ache into his bones. His body was tattered, his muscles sore and whining.
"I have seen kingdoms fall," he croaks, "I have seen gods weep as their followers fall." His voice is a low, pained growling. But the trees cared naught for what tongue is spoken. The trees know many. The trees know the tongue of the crafty squirrel, of the birdsong, of the clever rabbit, of the nimble deer, of the stalwart wolf.
'I was not merely a mortaI—I was something more. They were lesser, and I was higher. But, now? I am nobody, I suppose. Perhaps, I was always a nobody all along, since the beginning.'
'Who am I, really?'
He had long forgotten. That was the cost of knowledge, after all.
The feeling of being watched permeated all throughout, but again he did not fear this. Why fear your place of birth? Why fear where you belong?
He let out a pitiful chuckle, gradually settling against a tree of ancient bark… of course, it wasn't as old and wise as he. Slowly, his hand traced through the long strands of bloodied blonde hair that cascaded down his torn robes, almost reaching the blades of grass he rested on. His sword, nigh broken, is stabbed into the soil beside him.
The fatal wounds that bewitched his being failed to heal. "Curses," he mutters. The cold soil begins to grow warm with blood.
That was alright. The woods won't mind. The soil will soak it eagerly. The roots will take the nutrients. Their leaves will grow bright and they will grow healthy.
The leaves rustle softly. There is no wind to blow them.
His long elven ears twitch, perk up at the faint sound. One eye, avulsed through vertically, stagnant—the other, blue and gleaming, narrowing slightly over to the sound.
His ears droop down. A low, mourning sound rumbles forth from his throat.
A woman stood only but a few feet away, right beside the brush. Her skin, pale as the moonlight, her hair long and white. A white dress cascades down her slender form.
"You did good," whispers the woman, "it is okay to rest now. Your end is nigh, â–Żâ–Ż."
He shook his head as blood slowly careen and drip off the side of his cheek, staining his robes further. Overbearing static had replaced the final words she uttered.
"...Is it?" he rasps past thick blood, eye flicking upwards to her visage as she approached him.
"Of course. You fought well. You did what you could. But change is brought on by hundreds, and do not fret, for there will be change. You are not dying in vain," she said.
No sort of comfort came from her words. It was difficult to accept that this was the conclusion of his story. He was so close to reaching beyond that wall. Had his body been capable, his face would've worn an expression of disgust in response to the woman's façade.
There was silence, for a time. Long consideration. Branches creak. A bird somewhere chitters. A squirrel scampers up a tree, it pauses for a moment to stare at the lone man, before continuing up and away into the dark. He continues to bleed onto the dirt.
The woman lowered down and extended her right hand to caress the side of his cheek.
"You…" she whispers, her eyes boring into his very mind, "how do you know that?"
He blinks. A slow, tired movement.
"Ah… that?"
A broken chuckle escapes him.
The woman's hand immediately retreats from his face.
"You of all people should know. You're a goddess, after all."Â
Her expression was that of shock and bewilderment.
"I never…"
He interrupts her suddenly: "I know, I made sure of that."
His time was near. His breath grew desperate. He could hardly hold on any longer.
Across his body, beneath his tattered garment, esoteric symbols glowed brighter than ever. Within its presence, her control over unwavering fate… wavered.
The woman could only chuckle, uttering, "How amusing." She grinned maniacally down at him—and it wasn't the smile of a god looking down at its creation in glee, but a god looking down in only disgusting amusement.
"Well, then! It is a shame, truly, that this is the end for you. The sight of your last moments is... exhilarating, to say the least."
The nearly lifeless man stared back at her with pure hatred and disgust.
The woman turned away from him.
She raised her hand to her mouth, and began to laugh. The sounds of her laughter were as cold as the air surrounding them.
"You have no right to speak to me in such a way, you… you…"
The woman continued laughing, pausing to respond: "Oh, dear, I am afraid that's not how this works."
She turned back around and gestured to the body of the man, saying: "You are but a thing to me. I can do with you as I please."
"No... I won't... I won't let you."
Albeit, he was succumbing to his fatal wounds. He couldn't only feed more of his essence into the soil beneath him in his final moments. Darkness slowly replaced the laughing woman in front of him.
[Your story has… your… your story has...]
His body becomes as still as the forest.
[...ended.]
He was a nobody. He didn't even have his name anymore.
He was merely a part of a bigger, unfinished story.
A story that she, a false and twisted god, watched for nothing but entertainment.
Symbols slowly dim across his corpse, yet the forest remains illuminated as ever.
'Fuck fate. I don't care anymore.'
The woman's laughter ceases, her gaze fixed on her lifeless creation, a mixture of disgust and morbid amusement reflected in her eyes. He had served his purpose.
Although, she couldn't help but feel unnerved.
[The story's...]
His lifeless body suddenly rises. The woman's calm expression twitches with uncertainty.
"What?.."
[...fate...]
His eyes open wide, boring into hers. A sinister feeling accompanied his gaze
"How… can this be?"
[...is wavering.]
A minute was all he had, but that was enough.
"You insignificant fuck! How dare you!" she snarled, her once beautiful and angelic expression twisting into a rictus of disgust. She looked less like an angel and more like a demon. The corpse of the man stepped toward her, his teeth bared in a maddening grin. "I... I am your God!"
Hurriedly, the woman raised her hand towards the broken man, stumbling away in caution, only to discover her authority was... non-existent here. Something was blocking it out, or seemingly suppressing it; her eyes widened in realization, her lips parting: "The forest? This whole forest?!"
She was overconfident in her authority, the fact that he was merely another one of her 'creations', and that this entire world was a sandbox of her own. Blinded by her own arrogance, she failed to realize earlier that the entire forest.... was a trap. From the very beginning. Neither of them were going to leave this forest alive.
The woman's eyes glittered with an indescribable horror. Turning on her heel, she attempted to flee, but it was too late.
Grasping his nearly shattered sword by its hilt, he rose it from the blood-soaked earth, flourishing it. Crimson ichor cascaded from its metallic, shining surface.
"Die, you bitch."
A corner of his mouth bent upward in a joyless, dark smile. Although she was already a dozen feet away, he twisted and carved the ancient blade through the air like the blade of a guillotine.Â
Krr-oomf. Susuk!
Around and around, around and around still, her leg, suddenly severed at the thigh, danced in the air. Skin and muscle and bone tear away with a sickening squelch. Her guttural screams rent the forest's air, masking his approaching footfalls, as she fell to the ground.
He halted beside her, glaring down at her with cold indifference to her screams.
"Nobody is coming to save you. Get up."
She turned her head, peering up at her creation... no, this abomination was no longer her own. With a piercing scream, she shrieked, "I will... I will cut you down, I'll break you apart… splay the gore of your profane form across the stars! I'll grind you down piece by piece until only your silver tongue remains for you to speak! My hands shall relish ending you… lesser, disgusting thing!"
With a radiant burst of energy, her missing leg is replaced by a divine construct. Though her authority was suppressed in this place, the inherent abilities of the Goddess remained. He kicked her foot up into his direction.
Just at that moment, the forest in front of the prosthetic construct exploded in a cone of mass destruction which encroached his being. The moisture permeating the humid air instantaneously evaporated in the wake of immense heat. The leaves blanketing the ground turned to ash. The remains of both dead and living trees blackened and caught fire. Hundreds, maybe thousands were erased in an instant.
An attack of that magnitude would surely have annihilated a petty kingdom with eerie ease. However, it did not destroy her creation.
It only took a single step. A mere mirage of his form remains in his former position, now suddenly appearing beside her head, blade held menacingly above.
Her eyes widened, but she wasn't considered the goddess of this realm for nothing. Her fingers dug into the earth beneath, twisting her body as if it a feather; she pushed off, sliding away from the blade that missed her neck by a hair's breadth. To the mundane human, it would've appeared as if the woman had suddenly disappeared and reappeared several feet away.
He was already facing her, but she was quicker. With a clench of her fist, a sinister amalgamation of dark metal rises, twists, and coils; an amalgamation that, like a blooming flower, ascends and unfurls, enveloping and encapsulating: an iron maiden.
"Die! You ungrateful swine!"
Even the weapon of man would not be capable of scratching such an immovable, divine construct. But the thing standing before her was no man. With a twist of his blade, a squall of hurricane wind is sent in all directions.Â
Kwaaaaang!
Twisting and twisting awry.
KARRASCH!
The iron maiden, in a sudden, violent eruption, burst open with a terrible noise as the blade that carved through its divine material, shattered in his hand. But, that was fine. It had served its purpose. Discarding the now bladeless hilt, he went to take a step toward her.
Even with her authority suppressed by unknown, arcanic magic, she could still foresee the imminent future to some extent. But what she saw, it wasn't avoidable. Pressing off his foot, the bloodied man appeared before her, hand gripping around her throat.
She went to open her mouth, to speak: "…T-This is not over!" but with a sudden motion of his free hand, he tore her jaw off with a sickening, stomach-churning sound.
"Yes. Yes, it is."
Her jaw is discarded, her tongue lolled, blood sputtered into his palm. Yet she did not cry out, nor did she scream, for she had no mouth to do so. Of course, she was a goddess. A wound like that would not be enough to fell her. Although that did not mean she felt indescribable dread, fear, and pain.
He holds her above the bloodied soil, much like one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, abhors her, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards her burns like fire; he looks upon her as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the immortal fire; the woman is ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful, venomous serpent is in man's. She had offended him infinitely more than ever a rebel did his prince.
She tried to break free from his grasp, writhing and struggling. The celestial limb that had replaced her non-existent leg had vanished. Her sharp nails clawed into his forearm.
"Look at me. This is the end."
With cold indifference, he reeled his free hand back, clenching it into a bloody fist. She did not deserve anymore of his words.
[The story's fate has changed.]
He suddenly thrusts his fist through her chest, heart, and spine.
With a violent rupture, blood splattered to the ground and viscera coated the soil behind her body. He watched as her eyes slowly dimmed and grew lifeless.
[You have slain the Goddess, the Weaver and Vessel of â–Żâ–Ż, whose hands once shaped worlds and played with fate itself like a fiddle.]
Releasing the woman's corpse, it fell limply onto the ground with a resounding thud. Ichor spilling from his wounds, he stumbled back—he could only quell death for so long, and that time frame was nearing its end.
Coughing, he fell to the ground and gazed up at the dark, star-filled sky.
'Yes, this is fine..'
[The fourth wall is wavering.]
Despite the immense, indescribable pain, he found himself distracted.
That was because he suddenly felt a gaze. Someone was watching him, and from a direction where no one was supposed to be.
With heavy breaths, he turned his head, as he rolled onto his side. Below him, a young, brown-haired man was sitting at a desk within a dark room, gazing upon a vibrant screen of text with an indiscernible expression. He appeared to be no older than eighteen.Â
The dying man's lips trembled, opening to say quietly: "You, it's you again. Yes, I see you there. You were above me at one point, no? But you're below me now."
A pause.
"You're listening right now, aren't you?"
The young man, indifferently sitting at his desk, shifted his head in a vague acknowledgement.
"If that isn't ironic, I don't know what is."
For some reason, he couldn't summon up any hatred for this once higher, but now lesser... individual.Â
[You've amassed power beyond the story's author. Your story will not end, but rather it will continue in new light.]
Slowly, a bright darkness overcame his vision.
[You have died.]
***