Gyges, The primeval one

There was a wish, held by many and as-well by a spirit.

A wish to create, to enjoy the process of creation and the result of one's labor. To bask in the results, holding dear the flaws and perfections.

For many it manifests itself as a desire for a simple life. An attraction the the mundane and the appreciation of the artistic.

And many hold it as a grander desire, to mold worlds and people into something better, worse, or just different.

This spirit held such a wish, in both forms it wished to enjoy creation as both verb and noun.

It wished to enjoy story's of epics, adventure and strife, alongside the simple stories of living life.

In the nothing, which is where this spirit resides, there is no thoughts, no comprehension of time or space. No questions asked nor answered. All that the spirit held were its last wishes. Running through its consciousness, the desire to create and the capability to do so.

And as the infinite instant of non existent time elapsed in between creations, the only influence on the spirit was its very own desire, frozen in it's consciousness.

And so through this infinite instant it moved through the not-space towards a seemingly boundless potential. The potential swirled and convulsed until it made a reality.

The spirit entered creation, at its heart. And as it flew into it time's great concept began to take hold. Light and dark swirled by faster than it could think. Stars were born, died, and born again. While the spirits thoughts continued once again. And in a stars decaying field, another chunk of molten rock began to spin itself together.

And while the spirit had barely a conscious thought as creation flew by it. The drowsy soul had one thought, born from its last great wish.

" I have to go there!"

And so the spirit pulled itself to the ball of stone cooling itself once again. It witnessed as a time-lapse slowing down. The formation of the earth, the sky, mountains and sea. And deeper deeper into the earth, with an almost 4-dimensional depth, a pit within the earth, deeper than the earth was large. Within the pit it felt the formation of darkness and night, and in the skies light and day.

It felt the sky and earth meet together twelve times, and twelve times the concepts of the world became further defined, born into existence.

Once more the heavens and earth came together and the spirit lunged at the opportunity, for it realized in order to achieve its wish, to not only witness creation but participate in it. It must itself be created.

When the sky and earth parted it rushed into the depths of the earth, for its opportunity. And it waited as time flew by.

But when three sons of the earth were born, and they were not one of them, he began to feel worry.

"The earth and sky won't make children forever, if I fail to be born, I might never become more than a mere spectator to this world."

The spirit wracked its psyche for the key.

Months flew by on the earth as minutes passed for the spirit. The earth and sky met once more and it knew that it had to try everything it had.

When it went down to the depths of the earth, hoping for success, it made a silent scream. Imperceptible by all but the one who made it. It was a cry to Chaos, to submit itself to the laws of its creation, so long as it could become a part of it themself.

In the womb of the earth, three beings were born, massive in scale, and grotesque in form. The three siblings were the size of hills. Sporting a hundred arms and fifty heads upon their shoulders. But one of these unborn giants held within them a small difference. Atop their shoulders grew a fifty first head.

Months passed and from the earth grew a fissure, a great tear of earth and stone, and out of the tear three beings pulled themselves out.

New to the world, granted prodigious strength and numerous limbs, the hecatoncheires were the most physically gifted of the earth's spawn. But while they were mighty and imposing, they were the furthest from graceful.

A hundred eyes and a hundred arms would be confusing for anyone. Making it near impossible to keep track of oneself, let alone one's environment. And for newborn brutes, who had not even a day of life experience, they hadn't a hope at control.

A day went by, as the hundred handed ones tried over and over to climb their way out, when ever one would get close, their own arms would disturb their grip, and if not that, their strength would destroy the stones beneath their fingers, causing them to fall.

Soon a week passed, as me and my brothers threw ourselves at the cliff face. Leaving great gouges into the stone, hundreds of meters deep. They would likely dig themselves out before they manage to climb out.

I won't stop them if they want to go that rout, for a while I held a similar notion, if I can't rely on control, I will rely on strength, to tear instead of climbing my way out.

But a voice among the dozens of voices that were me, said that it was wrong, illogical to neglect something so important.

Each head of mine laughed at that.

"What makes you so smart?"

"You're as young as we are."

"You haven't seen anything that we haven't."

And more heads chorused disapproval to the 51st heads confidence.

But the head spoke all the same.

" If we all keep trying to use all the arms at the same time, we will only get in each others way."

"What's your suggestion then smartass?"

"I say we take turns, each head gets a go at giving commands for an hour until each of us has had a go. The one that gets us the furthest up gets to be in charge."

"Seems fair."

"Sure."

"I'm down."

"Whats an hour?"

And so we went, over two days passes with me trying again and again to get higher and higher. Some of me tried digging a tunnel, building stairs, running up the wall very fast or even using our arms to jump really high.

Finally it was 51's turn, as soon as he began instead of giving commands, he took the legs and began running to the edge of the crevasse to it's narrowest point. Figuring out that no matter the technique, a stone wall wouldn't support their immense weight, no matter how they gripped it, they would always end up ripping out the stone and falling.

So 51 came up with an idea. One rock face couldn't hold them because they would end up pulling on it, but if he used two rock faces, they could press on them instead, keeping them from being ripped out beneath us.

And so the hour went, the only commands that number 51 gave, were to hold the arms in the position that he placed them. And so the hour passed, where the giant rose meter by meter.

"Time's up!"

"Jump down!"

"We need to measure it."

And so I let go of all arms to my left, I slid down the cliff leaving a several meter deep gouge to my right.

"So, how far did we get?"

Number 51 looked up with confidence while the other 50 looked up in scrutiny. Upon my shoulders was a menagerie of expressions. Sizing up the gouge, with squinting, frames made from fingers and tongues sticking out.

"It's gotta be-"

"At least five-"

"Maybe even seven-"

"Me's tall"

"And what was the tallest?"

"Two I think?"

"It was two and a half"

"So that settles it, 51 is in charge."

"Let's get to it!"

And so another three hours passed, and as i climbed I got faster and faster. There may have been some slips here and there, but my coordination only got better, the more I tried the easier it was for my heads to work together.

When I finally reached the top, a beautiful sight was before me. Mountains, oceans, rivers and trees.

I turned back to the gorge, from which I came. And saw my brothers still, slamming away at the cliff face. I took a deep breath, preparing to get their attention, when the earth shook behind me.

When I turned to look, earth morphed into a face as wide as I was tall. It was a beautiful face, or faces?

My head began to spin as with each pair of eyes I saw a different face.

"Hello my child"

And with each pair of ears I heard a different voice.

"My name is ̶G̶a̶i̶a̶,̶ ̶N̶u̶t̶,̶ ̶B̶h̶u̶m̶i̶,̶ ̶H̶o̶u̶t̶u̶ ̶ and I am your mother."

The confusion was immense, I had to make a choice. If I focused on each version of her I wouldn't be able to function, not with how I am now. So I settled on the first one. All but one of layers of the woman in front of me fell away, showing me the face of Gaia.

"You sure took your time getting out, but but you're far ahead of your brothers in that regard."

A head on my back looked down at them, they made little progress in doing anything besides turning stone to dust.

"I will name your Gyges, the one before the others, and the largest of my children."