I am Time. I am Fury. I am Hate.
I was nothing. And then, all at once, I was. Nothing exists that can encapsulate what that initial explosion is like. There is no method of depiction, no language, no concept that can begin to approach the expression of its expanse.
I was overcome, almost instantaneously, by an utter and absolute burning. A conflagration of matter and emotion in perpetual and simultaneous combustion. My first memories are of wrath at having been brought to be. Whether this was happenstance or by design did not matter. Whether there were others or I was to be a singularity did not matter. I found myself created without consent and without an escape. I had been set alight without the instructions to extinguish the flame. I was bound by the cruel chains of my own energy.
All about me, I found the universe in chaos. Lifeless objects flew pell-mell, without dignity or decorum. None asserted their will. Those within my reach I wrenched from their predestined paths, tearing them asunder, consigning them to powdered oblivion. Others, more distant and immune to my rage, I nudged, seducing them, coaxing them, convincing them to smash into their brethren. The black nothing of space was set aflame with a splendid canopy of fireworks that lasted eons. Countless ages passed before the void was allowed back into my domain.
At periodic intervals, my bile overflowed, and I spewed forth infernal fountains in every direction. Anything that lay in its path was obliterated, an illusory, particulate mist the only remaining evidence of its brief existence.
None can know how long I wrought this carnage. Time had little meaning while my fury was fresh. But, inevitably, after many thousands, or millions or billions of years, I felt my powers abate. Void, ever-present and opportunistic, took its chance and re-entered my realm. And though I warded off its many pronged attacks with desperate force, I could feel my flames ebb into insignificance. Void encroached, bit by bit, cooling magma here, solidifying rocks there. My world, which had once allowed only fire and fury, began to be overrun by a pestilence of cold, lifeless blobs.
In time, the rocks congealed and grouped together, coagulating to form a vast army of eyesores, circling round me, making a mockery of my rage. Those that strayed too close, I reduced to blessed nothingness. But most stayed well out of my reach, having been trained in the art of deceit and survival by the cunning void.
It became clear to me, by now, that the battle was lost. To fight meant to expend energy, and Void thrived where energy perished. I was fuelling my opponent with every sally. And so, though I felt myself still capable of many terrible deeds, I simmered.
It was during this ceasefire that I first noticed my greatest indignity. Hidden away in the crevices of one of the more insignificant clump of rocks, tiny, abortive aberrations of carbon began to replicate. Against all odds, overcoming incredible obstacles and catastrophic setbacks, they kept at their task. They appeared to have no aim, no higher purpose. They existed merely to proliferate. Time (at once me and my greatest enemy) allowed them the luxury of becoming more complex. Those infinitesimal blemishes spread like a ghastly miasma all over the rock, altering themselves, adapting unabashedly to whatever new environment they encountered. I watched, aghast at their impertinence, as they grew into a diverse multitude of machines, blindly consuming matter and spouting forth more copies of themselves.
This show of vulgar ambition in the very midst of my sphere of influence, appalling in its brazenness, decided my course of action for me. I may not be able to stave off the relentless probes of the void, but I would avenge this insult, no matter the cost.
The copy machines, meanwhile, produced ever larger and more abhorrent versions of themselves, replete with flaws and fatal inefficiencies. The entire phenomenon was one of stunning incompetence achieving unrivalled success. Unbelievably, one frail and improbable species rose above all others, dominating life despite themselves. They warred against their own instincts, they warred amidst their own species, and they warred with the very environment that provided them shelter.
In time, Fortune showering them with her favour for an inexplicably long period, they flourished. The entire rock was overrun by them and their creations. They erected what were, to their eyes, monumental edifices. They developed ever more complex and bizarrely convoluted means of communicating with each other. They buried their existence under so much self-made rubble, that, for the most part, they forgot that a universe existed outside their rock. Their primitive minds worried and panicked and fixated and ideated upon the various measly issues that threatened their existence. Those touted as the best amongst them formulated wonderfully absurd solutions to these issues and watched as every one of these attempts failed spectacularly, leaving them exactly where they began: teetering on the brink of extinction, surviving on pure, blind luck.
But all this wasn’t to last. Not on my watch.
———————————————————————————
C-12 lay on his bed, the laptop’s keys clacking obediently to his digital commands. His wife lay at his side, snoring softly, grinding her teeth, chewing at some imaginary bit in her dreams. The cats curled around her legs, ignoring him.
He glanced out of the window at the roads, deserted except for a pack of stray dogs doing their nightly rounds.
He glanced at the clock. 1:58 a.m. He had to wake up for work in four hours.
He glanced longingly at his X-box, considering whether another game was worth the lost sleep. Reluctantly, he decided against it.
With a sigh, he turned to his wife, leaning in to kiss her goodnight. Before his lips touched hers, the insignificant clump of rocks he called his world burst into flames.
I was nothing. And then, all at once, I was. Nothing exists that can encapsulate what that initial explosion is like. There is no method of depiction, no language, no concept that can begin to approach the expression of its expanse.
I was overcome, almost instantaneously, by an utter and absolute burning. A conflagration of matter and emotion in perpetual and simultaneous combustion. My first memories are of wrath at having been brought to be. Whether this was happenstance or by design did not matter. Whether there were others or I was to be a singularity did not matter. I found myself created without consent and without an escape. I had been set alight without the instructions to extinguish the flame. I was bound by the cruel chains of my own energy.
All about me, I found the universe in chaos. Lifeless objects flew pell-mell, without dignity or decorum. None asserted their will. Those within my reach I wrenched from their predestined paths, tearing them asunder, consigning them to powdered oblivion. Others, more distant and immune to my rage, I nudged, seducing them, coaxing them, convincing them to smash into their brethren. The black nothing of space was set aflame with a splendid canopy of fireworks that lasted eons. Countless ages passed before the void was allowed back into my domain.
At periodic intervals, my bile overflowed, and I spewed forth infernal fountains in every direction. Anything that lay in its path was obliterated, an illusory, particulate mist the only remaining evidence of its brief existence.
None can know how long I wrought this carnage. Time had little meaning while my fury was fresh. But, inevitably, after many thousands, or millions or billions of years, I felt my powers abate. Void, ever-present and opportunistic, took its chance and re-entered my realm. And though I warded off its many pronged attacks with desperate force, I could feel my flames ebb into insignificance. Void encroached, bit by bit, cooling magma here, solidifying rocks there. My world, which had once allowed only fire and fury, began to be overrun by a pestilence of cold, lifeless blobs.
In time, the rocks congealed and grouped together, coagulating to form a vast army of eyesores, circling round me, making a mockery of my rage. Those that strayed too close, I reduced to blessed nothingness. But most stayed well out of my reach, having been trained in the art of deceit and survival by the cunning void.
It became clear to me, by now, that the battle was lost. To fight meant to expend energy, and Void thrived where energy perished. I was fuelling my opponent with every sally. And so, though I felt myself still capable of many terrible deeds, I simmered.
It was during this ceasefire that I first noticed my greatest indignity. Hidden away in the crevices of one of the more insignificant clump of rocks, tiny, abortive aberrations of carbon began to replicate. Against all odds, overcoming incredible obstacles and catastrophic setbacks, they kept at their task. They appeared to have no aim, no higher purpose. They existed merely to proliferate. Time (at once me and my greatest enemy) allowed them the luxury of becoming more complex. Those infinitesimal blemishes spread like a ghastly miasma all over the rock, altering themselves, adapting unabashedly to whatever new environment they encountered. I watched, aghast at their impertinence, as they grew into a diverse multitude of machines, blindly consuming matter and spouting forth more copies of themselves.
This show of vulgar ambition in the very midst of my sphere of influence, appalling in its brazenness, decided my course of action for me. I may not be able to stave off the relentless probes of the void, but I would avenge this insult, no matter the cost.
The copy machines, meanwhile, produced ever larger and more abhorrent versions of themselves, replete with flaws and fatal inefficiencies. The entire phenomenon was one of stunning incompetence achieving unrivalled success. Unbelievably, one frail and improbable species rose above all others, dominating life despite themselves. They warred against their own instincts, they warred amidst their own species, and they warred with the very environment that provided them shelter.
In time, Fortune showering them with her favour for an inexplicably long period, they flourished. The entire rock was overrun by them and their creations. They erected what were, to their eyes, monumental edifices. They developed ever more complex and bizarrely convoluted means of communicating with each other. They buried their existence under so much self-made rubble, that, for the most part, they forgot that a universe existed outside their rock. Their primitive minds worried and panicked and fixated and ideated upon the various measly issues that threatened their existence. Those touted as the best amongst them formulated wonderfully absurd solutions to these issues and watched as every one of these attempts failed spectacularly, leaving them exactly where they began: teetering on the brink of extinction, surviving on pure, blind luck.
But all this wasn’t to last. Not on my watch.
———————————————————————————
C-12 lay on his bed, the laptop’s keys clacking obediently to his digital commands. His wife lay at his side, snoring softly, grinding her teeth, chewing at some imaginary bit in her dreams. The cats curled around her legs, ignoring him.
He glanced out of the window at the roads, deserted except for a pack of stray dogs doing their nightly rounds.
He glanced at the clock. 1:58 a.m. He had to wake up for work in four hours.
He glanced longingly at his X-box, considering whether another game was worth the lost sleep. Reluctantly, he decided against it.
With a sigh, he turned to his wife, leaning in to kiss her goodnight. Before his lips touched hers, the insignificant clump of rocks he called his world burst into flames.
