Broken Gods and Lost Children

**The Bold Burgundian** · January 19, 2014, 12:52 AM

Hey guys sorry for spamming updates I just got some critique and changed it up a bit, if you have any suggestions I am glad to hear them. At first I didn't want to make this into something too big but I like where it is going but I don't want to ruin it by taking it in a direction which would suit it.

I was here when the cosmos was born, and I watched it die. I saw the stars shimmer into the void and the planets collect together like spheres of magma flung to all corners of existence. It happened all at once and before I knew what was happening I was surrounded by everything. But before my prison became my playground I waited, I waited for eons. I hung still in the midst of the universe and watched the galaxies and all contained within dance around me. The stars would brighten in a furious blaze and burn out if I set my eyes on them, and the nebulae would swirl around my arms if I moved them. “It must be a mistake” I thought as I played with the constellations of stars that danced between my fingers. I held my breath, half expecting it all to vanish before my eyes just like it had appeared. I hoped that it would not, but in my mind it seemed like the dreaded inevitable.
But it never did, and even now I still wonder what happened to my captor. Despite his benevolence and great sense of justice even he is victim to bouts of fickleness. Maybe he was testing me, or even taunting me with this display. He would never say it outright, but I felt for a time like he was dangling a prize it right before my face. “This is my power” I imagined him saying. He had always known of my jealousy, I am not so reluctant to admit my faults as he is. His hands shaped what was, and what would always be. But I have powers of my own, not nearly as grandiose as his, but I am much less reserved with them.

My boredom overcame suspicion which itself had earlier conquered hatred, and I began to meld things around me to my whim. But as I reforged the universe around me something out of the corner of my vision glittered. All alone in the expanse of the black void hung a tiny blue pearl, shrouds of wispy white clouds fluttered around it. I am not easily amazed or amused, after all I have seen everything that could ever happen. But for a brief moment in a realm where time doesn’t exist, my omniscience eluded me.
Jagged land rose from the waves and as the water rushed down back into the oceans, bright and emerald forests twisted their way around the forming mountains. I was focused entirely on the unfolding work of beauty before me, becoming more enthralled with each passing century. I could almost hear the tides crashing against the rocky cliffs, and the coastal birds crying to each other. I wanted to go down and soar in the sky with them, and then swoop down to the ground and run with the multitudes of tiny creatures speeding through the fields of grass. I'd jump into the forests and climb up the towering trees and then launch myself back into the air.

But these visions of harmony and bliss were underscored with something else, a dark and low-pitch throb in the back of my mind. I knew this feeling all too well, I knew what it wanted me to see. As I looked down at the verdant splendor of the world, this shadow projected another realm before me and no amount of effort I could summon would make it go away.

The skies darkened with brooding clouds that lashed out with enraged lightning and howled thunder. The land beneath them withered away in the darkness, the tiny creatures which sang and frolicked moments earlier fled in terror, and were struck dead as the shade reached them. The flesh would sizzle and burst from their bodies and their charred bones would settle onto the ground. Death swept across my pearl, the oceans began to boil and the sweltered winds began to form a massive cyclone around me. My forests were uprooted and ripped away from me in the hateful, spinning gale. I was impervious to the violence around me, but I felt the pain of it all as my own. The agony of seeing my creations destroyed forced me to my knees.

My eyes were drawn up into the eye of the cyclone, and I was seized in terror at the sight of a dark figure wreathed in fire. He looked over my pearl and directed hurricanes across the landscape with simple waves of his hands, as if he was directing a symphony. Ancient forests were reduced to crackling splinters and entire mountains were shattered under his unflinching gaze. I screamed up to him and a furious heat was caste down on me, my skin began to blister and melt as he looked at me. His eyes were beaming with an alien, and almost unnatural sense of malice. I could hear his thoughts bubbling and churning in him, I tried to untangle the amalgamation of sounds and ideas as they were hurled at me but I was soon overwhelmed. I felt as if I was being buried under his onslaught, even though he was merely looking down on me.

Then he spoke with his voice, and although I could not understand the words I flinched as he did. His accusations rent my sizzling flesh like barbed whips. Again and again he would speak, each time I would be forced down and my body was being torn apart. I pushed myself up and struggled to regain my footing and I raised my hands over my eyes to shield them from the furious blaze. My skin was all but burnt away and I could see my muscles and bones.

“Why do you destroy my creation?!” I roared suddenly, “With love and joy I shaped all these things, I even shaped you!” I pointed at him accusingly.

The flames that wreathed around him burst into a white blaze and the figure reeled back as if he was taken off guard at my question. He regained his composure and struck at me again, “You create, but you do not sustain”. My arm was sheared off at the elbow and I was thrown back onto the ground. With my remaining arm I tried to crawl away as he approached me, but my muscles were too damaged. I was sprawled on my back in a field of ashes, I quivered uncontrollably and blood began to pool in my eyes.

“You have birthed the universe with great poise and it is indeed a testament to your love,” he said looking directly over me, my broken body began to cauterize and blacken as his words washed over me, “But the forests you grow wither and die, the oceans you shape recede and dry away, the mountains who stand tall over your dominion erode into sand, and all the brilliant stars you set in the void burn out”.

“But why?” I sobbed, “what harm have I delivered upon you!?”

“You grace the void with bright creations that leave chaos in their wake. They shine like beacons and burn away the darkness. But all you do is light the torch, that is all you have ever done. Then when you grow bored you leave and let the light slowly burn out behind you as you move on to your next spectacle. But the things you shaped don't die alongside the light, they are abandoned to fester in the void”.

I was laid hapless before the fury and whimpered, “I... I did not intend for this pain”

He gave me one last stare, I felt as if he was pulling me into the bottomless pits of his eyes. The sky above us burst open and out of the rifts shot heavenly beams of brilliant light, and the sound of a thousand horns blared on as blinding figures wrapped in ribbons of gold and red. They swept down towards the fury lording over me, he glanced over his shoulder and gave a sigh, as if he was expecting them to come.

“I hope you remember the pain of the wounds I have brought upon you” he said gravely, “Because even if you did not intend to bring pain to the universe, it was created by your hands like everything else”.

The shining ones were upon him now and they wrapped searing blue bonds around the figures wrists, arms and neck. And with a single almost effortless move they ripped him backwards and into the rift behind them.

***

My unbridled anger was my undoing and the destruction I brought upon his domain only scratched the surface, and now I was confined in the void shackled by invisible and unbreakable bonds. I was robbed of the opportunity to snuff him out when the shining legions arrived at the sound of their triumphant horns.

I could not see nor hear anything beyond the chamber he crafted for me, but I sensed the cosmos outside. I summoned my might on several attempts to shatter my prison, but each attempt the shining ones would rush towards the void and strengthen it with their will. Each time I was thrown back exhausted and bitter.

The architect of the void was clever, he always has been, but he has also always overlooked my nature. I know everything, I have seen all that has ever been and all that will ever be. His design was flawed, it was meant to endure great blows such as the ones I had been lashing out with. As soon as an attack began the sentinels outside would strengthen the barrier and force me back. But just as I cannot see anything outside, my wardens cannot see inside to me. I focused my gaze onto a single place in the barrier and I began to bore through it. It slowly began to crack and sizzle and it was clear it would take a great length to make a substantial opening, but I am nothing but patient.

Methodically I whittled it away, light began to shine through it and sound once again reached my ears. Freedom was so tangible, and if my visitor had not arrived when he did I would have broken out then and there.

“He will just have you thrown back in here, you know?” a smooth voiced said.

I spun around and looked at the dark murky blotch shimmering against the wall, “How did you get in here?”

“Use your imagination and think of the wildest method” the shadow shifted across one wall to the next, “and that probably wouldn’t be far off from how I did it”.