17 - Creation

The light didn't doesn't reach the bottom of the ocean, it's dark down there, oppressively so. No human has ever reached the bottom but there are things down there… Terrible things.

When it was born, weak and afraid in the directionless abyss, the first thing it remembered feeling was hunger. An empty void in its stomach stabbed at its chest.

It was so hungry for so long, but there was no food to find down in the depths. Few animals strayed there, they would be crushed by the overwhelming pressure, their skeletons turning into dust before they even got halfway to it.

But it was an exception, the pressure refined it, the darkness embraced it, and the hunger drove it forward. And so, with no options left, it swam up.

Hunting day and night it ate and ate and ate. Uncountable numbers of fish falling to its ravenous maw. But it was never enough, it was always hungry, and always wanted more.

And so, it didn't stop, crusading throughout the ocean, killing and plundering always eating, always growing bigger. It wouldn't stop, it couldn't stop. Driven by primal hunger, this was all it knew.

Years passed and the ocean became barren, its waters died with a tint of red from all the things killed and eaten within. There was nothing left now, nothing except the creature born in its deepest recess. Grown so massive that it dwarfed underwater volcanoes and could swallow the biggest of sea creatures without even noticing.

It wasn't enough. It was still hungry, but there was no food, the ocean had been picked clean. For years it retreated to the depths, trying to understand how it might leave its watery prison and fly out onto the lands teaming with life.

But always, its greatest fear held it back. The burning ball of light in the sky was a watchful eye that kept the leviathan at bay. Born in the dark as it was, it hated the sun, because it was terrified of the light.

One day, the monster learned to control the essence of the world and from then on, it was over. It wrapped the desolate ocean around itself as a cloak and swam off into the stars, eating everything and anything It could find.

Thousands fought back, millions ran, billions were eaten, and uncountable trillions died. It was known as the great cleansing; the end of the universe was heralded by the leviathan's horrible jaws.

The monster, which people had started calling Ocras, knew nothing of the suffering it caused. Only that it was so terribly hungry, and the only way to fix that was to eat more.

Planets and stars were swallowed and Ocras just kept getting bigger. Eventually, it had children, wretched spawn that followed in its wake, decimating wherever they passed.

In the end, the universe died not with a bang but with the crunch of unfathomably large teeth. The last star was gone, and light left the universe, empty and quiet. Save for the lapping of water.

The monster was still hungry but had nowhere to go. So, it fell into a slumber, sinking to the bottom of the ocean that had grown around it as it travelled. The inky black waters settled at the bottom of the void, hiding Ocras beneath them.

And there it waited, waited for the day when things changed, when there was something to eat.

Aeons passed and there was only the ocean and the starving monsters beneath it, left in the wreckage of the universe.

Above the ocean, the very last person wept. She was the goddess of complexity and she had failed in her only task. There was no creation. So, what was her purpose? Why did she still exist?

The truth of that is simple, since Ocras was still alive, so was she. As long as he lived, so would she. She couldn't kill herself and she didn't have the ability to kill it.

For thousands of years, the broken goddess wept above the waves, her tears trickling down and purifying the oily black waters of the ocean momentarily, before it was quickly overwhelmed by the murky filth.

She cried vainly at the silent waters, but there was no answer from the hungry waves. Only silence and contempt.

After crying for millennia and wallowing in self-pity, the goddess found resolve. She would make the world anew. She would bring life back to the darkness. That was her duty.

But she couldn't do it alone. She could not create something from nothing. So, she searched her memory for the scraps of a ritual that had long been forgotten, buried by the sands of time.

She travelled to the four corners of the nothing and placed a part of herself in each one. Then, standing in the centre of everything, she gouged out her heart and offered it as a catalyst so that new life might be born.

Even as her life waned and flickered like a candle on the verge of dying out, 4 new things were created in the farthest reaches of the void. She did in relief, knowing that at least she had done this right.

In the North, the first man came into being. He had icy blue eyes and long white hair that sparkled despite the utter absence of light in the void. Wherever he went, he brought snow and ice with him. Each footstep freezing and cracking the void.

he was named North and he embodied the chill of winter and fickleness of water.

In the East, a strange woman was born. She had eyes that changed colour constantly from blue to green to white, looking into those eyes was like staring into a kaleidoscope rainbow. Her hair was every shade of blue that had ever existed, and she represented the ever-changing nature of the wind.

She was named East, and she brought gusts and flurries of wind to the nothing, stirring up the waves beneath her as she flew.

In the south, an explosion of heat rocked the fabric of the universe as a burning woman came into existence. Her eyes glowed red, and her hair was made of pure gold. She laughed as she was born and immediately, heat fought back the chill of the void.

She brought light and warmth wherever she went and was named South.

Finally, in the west, a man of earth and life was born. He had green eyes and brown earthy hair that smelled like nature. Wherever he set foot, flowers would bloom, and vines would entangle everything, crawling out in front of him like a red carpet of life.

He was named West and brought with him nature.

The newly born gods, North, East, South, and West gathered above the waves to discuss what they should do. They wished to build a new world, but the universe was sterile and empty.

When they looked around at the nothingness there was nothing to build a new world with. Everything had been swallowed by the father of monsters and his ravenous children.

With no other options but to reclaim creation from the belly of the monster, they decided that North of and water must go down beneath the waves.

North was sent down into the ocean, he pierced the dark surface of the black waves and continued onwards. The oily filth of the waters stuck to him, dying the tips of his white hair a sickly black.

Wherever he passed, luminous eyes snapped open in the black depths of the ocean, following him like searchlights as he swam further down. Beneath the eyes, hungry mouths opened and closed eagerly hoping to have their first meal in aeons.

The father of monsters was not the only thing that lived in these treacherous waters. His children, the monsters, lived here as well. Although their numbers had diminished greatly since they devoured, the universe.

For untold ages, they swam in the dark waters, hungrily searching for food that wasn't there anymore. They had eaten everything that there was to eat long ago.

Eventually, they began to turn on each other, devouring the weaker monsters who were their kin. A terrifying frenzy of hunger and gluttony ruled the nightmarish waters of this place.

For the countless years that the goddess had wept over the loss of her universe, beneath the ocean the monsters had eaten each other. Until only the strongest, most vicious remained.

Even then, after years of hunger and fighting, they dared not challenge the father monsters. It was an unspoken rule that they never approached him. Lest he devour them in his slumber.

North swam deeper, the black ocean pushing him forward, carrying him to its unseen depths where the father of monsters lay.

He arrived at the bottom of the ocean, feeling the crushing weight of the water on his shoulders and straightened his back solemnly.

Standing quietly before Ocras' head, his brow furrowed, and his fists shook violently because of how tightly he was clenching them. The great beast lay as still as a corpse in the depths.

Its head which had swallowed planets whole rested on the seafloor. Four narrow slits hid four luminous purple eyes. A gaping mouth contained rows upon rows of jagged serrated teeth. small licks of flame slipped out of the corner of the beast's mouth, scorching the waters of the ocean.

Its entire head was covered in thick black scales with runic patterns plastered across its surface. The patterns didn't stop at its head and trailed down around its long serpentine body to the tip of its narrow black tail.

Its whole body was covered in narrow slits that had fangs protruding out of them. Like the countless scars, it had received over its life had transformed into mouths.

On the top of its reptilian head, the father of monsters had a great pair of goat horns that curled around and ended in a wicked hook.

It didn't stir from its deep slumber when North arrived, perhaps it was sleeping too deeply and for too long. So, North drew closer. He mustered up all the courage his short life could provide him and summoned the tide and the waves.

Drawing upon the energy of the ocean, he created a whirling tornado of water behind his fist and used it to propel him forward. He shot through the ocean and in a blur, he arrived at Ocras' head and a thundering punch that shook the very universe landed on the great monster's face.

All at once, the ocean stirred into a frenzy as countless abominations burst from their hiding places in the gloom and rushed to where their father was.

North turned tail and summoned the waves to propel him upwards to the surface of the ocean. He didn't even stop to check that his attack had woken up Ocras, he knew from the memories he had inherited that, fighting the father of monsters in his ocean would be suicide.

Countless grotesque beasts swarmed towards him. Endless hungry mouths filled to the brim with snarling fangs gaped open, hoping to swallow him and sate their starving hunger momentarily.

In the depths of the ocean, Ocras stirred from his slumber.

He uncoiled his long serpentine body from where he had slept and countless mouths opened up along his scaly skin, hungrily snapping for food. When the monsters saw that their father had woken, they began to cry out and flee in terror.

They knew that once he woke up, he would not go back to sleep before he was full. Who knew how many of them would need to be eaten before that was possible?

Slowly at first, he coiled himself up like spring and then, he burst upwards towards the surface of the waves in a thundering cacophony that shook the foundations of space and time.

Just the act of him moving through the water raised tsunamis that would flatten cities and bring countries to their knees.

His gaping mouth was like a black hole as it followed closely behind North who was desperately trying to reach the surface before he was swallowed by the abyss.

North burst out of the waves and the mouth followed him. Thousands of teeth the size of mountains were poised like beartrap, waiting to snap shut and entomb him.

But, right as the mouth was about slam closed around him, a ball of fire the size of a star barrelled into the side of Ocras' head, knocking him up and out of the ocean, into the great expanse above.

For a long moment, he hung there motionlessly, stunned by the impact of the blow.

Then, before he could gather himself to respond, countless vines appeared from nothing, snaking around his body and shackling him.

The father of monsters was suspended in mid-air by the vines in a prison nature. He couldn't move his body and then tried to open his mouth and roar in anger, to breathe flames onto his assailants, he found that North had frozen his mouths shut with the water from the ocean he called home.

A massive wind stirred in the void and East brought down a bolt of lightning that speared into One of Ocras' eyes, sending it flying out into the ocean, sinking beneath the oily black waves.

Another bolt of lightning snaked into his empty eye socket and burrowed its way into his head, frying his brain and scorching his skull.

He tried to roar in pain but couldn't open his mouth because of the ice. He tried to writhe and struggle free but couldn't move because of the vines that chained him.

And only then did he know what it was like to feel fear. And he knew that he had grown complacent. He had grown bored of the emptiness of the universe and slept for far too long.

The father of monsters closed his remaining eyes and accepted that he had lost. For, just like the goddess of life, he had also been sad over the death of the universe. With everything gone, what was there to eat? He hadn't wanted to kill everything; it was just his nature.

'Perhaps, we can start again. This time, I'll do it differently,' he thought to himself as a great spear of flame entered his head and turned his brain to molten slag.

Ocras' body hung limp in the vines, his head still smouldering from the flames and lighting that East and South had bombarded him with.

...

For aeons since the great battle, the four gods had worked tirelessly, draining the ocean and collecting the bodies of monsters to use as fuel for the new universe. To be consumed by the furnace of creation.

Finally, everything was ready. Nothing remained of the ocean and Ocras' body had been turned into a core that the new universe that would be born from.

Everything that had existed in the old universe was within this core. Ocras' body, the bones and remains of his children, the waters of the ocean and pieces of the four gods of complexity.

Everything except an eye. A luminous purple eye that had been blasted into the unknown, lost in the chaos of the great battle.

In a flash of heat and light, in much the same way the four gods had, the new world came into being.