Born In Space
A lone boy floats in the cold of space, no older than twenty-five. Their thin, frail form was covered in ice. Rapidly the ice dissolved, life coming back to the boy. As his life returned, he began to suffocate, slowly dying and returning to his limp, frozen form.
Freeze, defrost, repeat.
Freeze, defrost, repeat.
Freeze, defrost, repeat.
As he comes back to life, he clawed at nothing, his fists grabbing nothing, as his lungs filled with nothing. Finally, he died again due to nothing.
Defrost, fight, die, freeze, repeat.
Defrost, fight, die, freeze, repeat.
Defrost, fight, die, freeze, repeat.
Every minute the boy lived his life, cut short by the vacuum of space. Every time he lived, he experienced it in silence. The lack of oxygen not only muted him but clogged his ears from any sound that might find its way to him.
1,2,3,4 million years passed. Eventually, the boy awoke from death to life. One minute passed, then another. The pattern of clawing into space stopped as the boy realized he had gained the ability to breathe. His chest remained still, yet he felt no need to use his lungs. A moment of joy enveloped the boy as he rejoiced in silence, thousands of kilometers from the nearest object. The grin lowered, and panic started to set in. Once again, he clawed at space, doing so until exhaustion halted his actions. Frozen tears carved their way across his face as the reality of his position sunk in.
He was stuck.
He flailed outwards to no avail, nothing to grab and nothing to move him. He slumped over, exhausted from panic. The body now limp, he let himself float stationary in space.
“You are the most pathetic excuse of a deity that I have ever seen.”
The boy looked up, doing his best to survey his surroundings.
“All the others are working with world builders, and I am stuck watching a dying worm.”
“Oh no, I am going mad.” He thought to himself.
“You’re not going mad; I am just invisible.”
Before the boy appeared a perfect human female. Made from light, she illuminated the face of the boy. He attempted to speak to her but found he could not.
“Not even speech; you truly are pathetic.”
“But you can hear my thoughts?” He thought as he gazed upon her visage.
The woman acted as if she were lying down, resting her chin upon her hands.
“Yes, we have a direct link, actually. That means I can always hear your thoughts, not that you have had many over the last few million years. You have been rather dull; that is why I have not been around.”
“Who are you?”
“I am your guardian angel. A better term would be babysitter; you deities are awfully flawed and weak.”
“Gods are not weaker than angels; everyone knows that.”
“Deities are stronger than the angels they create. We were made by something…more than what a deity is.”
“What do you mean more than a deity?”
The angel grinned, rolling over; she floated upside down.
“Do you know your name?”
The boy went to answer but had to stop themselves.
“I don’t.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I don’t.”
“I’m not actually supposed to talk to you; I will leave you to try and remember anything from your past lives.”
With that, the angel disappeared. The boy remained wide-eyed, his eyes darting around as he tried desperately to remember anything before his years of suffocation.
The angel’s face reappeared by the boy’s ear.
“The more you focus on what you want, the quicker it will happen. You want to move, focus on it; you want to create, focus on it. Don’t let natural laws affect what you want.”
With a gentle kiss on his cheek, she disappeared once again.
The boy steadied himself.
“All I need to do is focus?”
The boy focused on moving, attempting to swim through the void. His eyes closed. He was determined to move. Their eyes opened, and he looked around.
“There are no landmarks; I am in a sea of nothingness. Nothing but the distant twinkles of stars; how do I tell if I have moved?”
The boy said, scratching his head.
“If only I had something nearby to use as a way to measure movement.”
The boy heard the creaking of metal; before him, a row of lamp posts appeared. They twisted and turned out of the dark. Their gas lamps ignited in sequence. A lengthy line evenly spaced, disappearing off into the distance.
“Don’t let the laws of nature stand in my way. I think I should start thinking differently.”
The guardian angel watched on with eager eyes. “That was fast.” She said as she examined one of the lamp posts closely. “Maybe he is not as useless as I thought.” She continued.
The boy focused again; this time, he outstretched a leg as if he were to take a step on solid ground. His leg simply went out, around, and back to its place next to the other.
“This is fine; I can do this.”
Days went by, and the boy remained stationary.
“Please, please say I can manage this. I can’t stay still any longer.”
The boy started to cry as he moved his limbs slowly in a forward march fashion.
Years went by, his eyes stared unblinking. His hands shook as he laughed.
“All I have to do is focus, is that it? Because as far as I can tell, I am pretty fucking focused.”
The guardian angel reached out towards the boy, but she stopped as a voice resonated from within her. The voice sounded as if a wheel were to be heavily pressed through gravel.
“Not again; they must learn in their own time.”
The Guardian angel retracted her grasp out of fear of the words that haunted her ears.
“But he will suffer.”
“Then suffer he must; only the strong shall survive.”
The angel remained close to the boy but stayed out of his reaching distance.
Millions of years crawled by, fervently his eyes shook in their socket. His hands ran through his hair, chunks being ripped out as blood poured from the wounds. Freezing as it contacted the cold of space.
“I must be crazy because last time I checked, I had a guardian angel. A guardian angel who does NOTHING.” The boy yelled out as his voice broke in the darkness of space. “What are you guarding me from? Death? Because last time I checked, I have already died, time and time again. All that has changed is I get to experience the years roll by.”
The guardian angel tried to reach out once again, but once again, the gravelly voice sounded in her ears.
“If you touch that child, I shall force you through un-birth until the spark of my eye dwindles and fades.”
“By the spark of my life, I vowed to protect my child, not watch as they burn in their own insanity.”
The Guardian angel stretched out her arm and placed it upon the child’s forehead. A spark of realization jolted through his body as the angel was forced to reveal herself. Her form slowly collapses into the shape of a hard crystal. The boy felt his body vibrate with knowledge. Touching the crystal, he acknowledged her sacrifice. But his attention drew to his newfound abilities.
Taking his first step, he grinned, and with each step, his hair regrew in part. His chest uplifted in a harrowing cackle as he ran down the line of lampposts. Picking up speed, he started to carve his way across the universe. Slowing down as he reached the end of the line, he found himself face to face with the only other object he had observed. A small stone which radiated with a strange energy.
“What makes you special little rock?”
The boy picked it up, a repetitive pulse of energy ran through his arm. With each one, the pain increased. The boy laughed as his eyes stared down with a burning passion. Blood vessels popped in them as his teeth ground upon each other.
“Is that all you have, you little shit. I have suffered for eons in nothing; you are a welcome change.” He said, grasping the stone with his other hand.
His whole body seized as he gripped onto the stone, determined to see how much he could endure. The bones in his hand started to crack as the pulses got faster. Right as his teeth started to crack, the pulses stopped, and the stone became warm.
“I don’t know what you are, but I like you.”
The boy said as he rubbed his fingers across the stone.
“I shall keep you around the strange stone. You can be in the center of my new home. With the knowledge that the angel gave me, it should be simple enough.”
The boy released the stone and floated backward. His eyes turned blue, and he started to create matter. Densely packing substance around the stone, he began the formation of his first planet.
Anodyne’s eyes opened, and Sylum stood next to him with curiosity.
“You okay? You looked like you passed out once those other two left.”
“Oh, I have never been better. I just remembered something very important.”
“Does it help us with your goal?”
“Help us? No, no, this memory lets us complete it.”