18 Vulcus: Origins

How would you feel, if from the moment you gained consciousness, you could only feel pain. My only purpose in life was to be tortured. Since the moment I was created, I was meant to only serve as an experiment. The Gods created me only to experience this new phenomenon of burning. It was a new pain that no one else in existence felt, of course I was not the only one. If my mind serves me right there were hundreds, if not millions of other creations such as myself. We all played the part of the ultimate experiment that the Gods forced upon us.

[NOTE* At the beginning of all things, an astral year was equal to about 50 years on Earth time.]

It took me about one astral year to figure out that I was a living being. Even though throughout the year it felt like I was dead, as though I was in perpetual pain. Each day it seemed to me that the pain was getting worse. Each day it felt like the others around me began dying off like it was nothing. All the while I felt as though the Gods watching were laughing. After I figured out I was a living being, I found out about my first emotion. Rage.

For years following that emotion, it only grew more and more. I-no, we suffered constantly, my stomach felt like a hole. I wonder how food tastes. Wait, what is food? How can someone like me, in my situation be thinking, I should just give up and die. My rage was the only thing that kept me from dying, was I the only one that could feel something like this. Did my now dead companions ever feel this rage? What are companions exactly? What if I am already dead? Is this what it means to live? To feel pain? There must be more. There HAS to be more.

After 100 years of burning, my rage came to its boiling point. More than half of the other creations had been turned into what the Gods called, ash. I was turning into ash, but my rage seemingly kept me together even after I would lose an arm or a leg. I think it was around that time when I conceived my first words and my second emotion. "I hate God!" Hatred was my second emotion, I also believe that is when I had my first scream.

My third emotion was relief or was it happiness. It was either of the two. I finally escaped the pit of fire that gave me pain for so long. It was so sudden that I never realized how different cold felt from heat until I actually felt the ground around me. A few minutes later I was able to see the vast darkness and minimal light around me. Even though it was dark, I could clearly see the two beings in front of me.

For the first time I heard something, "Congratulations, you survived," the being that said that was something, it was beautiful. Was this admiration? "Who are we, well I am the God of Life and this is the God of Death." After hearing who they were, the rage that I felt from long ago finally came to me. I stood for the first time somehow. "We are so sorry, but congratulations, you are the only survivor of the 1,000 year burning experiment," the God of Life said.

They told me it was an experiment, that I was only created to fullfill the experiment, to experience pain. To burn for what seemed like an eternity. Only to see what would be the results of burning. Only to see if burning was capable of killing them, if it was capable of death or birth.

"We are giving you the title of God of Flames, as a congratulations of survivng up to this point. You are the father of burning," the God of Death said. "We hope that you will help us in the creation of what we will call the universe," they both said.

I was overjoyed, I smiled for the first time, I accepted their offer without any problems. I loved the fact that they were giving me such a title. I loved the fact that I had to suffer for 1,000 years and now that its all over, I can become companions with them and help them with their goals.

Is what I would have said.

What I really said was.

"You feel pain I feel."

I was able to manipulate the very thing that cuased me to suffer. I did not like it, but I was forced to, in order to kill my tormentors. This was my first fight, to this day, not even the three of us who fought knew who won. I was blinded by my rage, I barely remember what happened. When I came too, the God of Death's flesh were burnt away. Only his skeleton was left. He seemed to have lived though. The God of Life and Death, I supposed they felt their own kind of new emotion, I am guessing fear. I didn't let it bother me, I wanted to explore life.

After wandering around I stumbled upon a giant ball of heat and light. It was not as hot as my torture home, but it seemed to be warm in some kind of way. Did I create this? If so, I will call this a star.