Fate’s Peak Page 2

  As William listened to the buzzing of the flies beyond his cover, he wished he could have lived in ignorance forever. Though he did not have much in the Void, he knew he had one thing: happiness. But that had been an illusion destined to crumple in upon itself and become locked in the back of his mind as the box opened to release all the suffering in a deluge of rage and misery, destroying all he thought he knew.

  The glimpse William had taken of the sky forever changed his perception of reality. Never again would he be allowed to return to his Father’s embrace—an embrace which sheltered him from his destiny even while fortifying his mind against the trials to come. His bones ached with the desire to return, to shout into the Void: “I see now what you have always seen! Please teach me, I will listen!” But that desire would remain forever unfulfilled.

  Through the night, all that William had taken for granted stampeded away, vanishing upon the horizon in a haze of dust; all that he had confined to the dark corners and hollowed-out recesses of his mind turned its brimstoney stare at him to consume his senses. No longer could he choose what to believe. The knowledge that awaited him had been written in ages past by the corruption humanity had left in their wake. As sorrow choked him, William finally came to appreciate his Father’s mercy. He wept at his choice not to listen.

  Under the folds of his cape, William lifted his voice in a cry: “I’m sorry!” The words were ripped out of his mouth by the wind, dissipating as they rose into the sky.

  Whether his Father heard this apology, he would never know, but William knew He had anticipated this reaction. The flies, however, heard his voice, and their buzzing droned louder within William’s skull. He felt as a thousand tiny feet landed upon his cape and began their eternal dance of decay, searching for a way to penetrate to his skin. William continued to lay motionless, waiting for the pests to give up and abandon him.

  The vultures, William thought, soon the vultures will join the flies to strip my bones bare. The scavengers here must be desperate, so why would they care that he still breathed? Where else could they find nourishment in this wasteland? How long had it been since the last people vanished, taking with them all that could grow and thrive? How long had this plain been inhabited only by those creatures which fed on death?

  The answers to these questions remained beyond William’s reach, and the utter desolation of the plain harrowed his mind, inducing such physical pain it felt as if a bullet had punctured his stomach. He clutched his body, imagining acid spilling out drop by drop to set his guts aflame. He lingered over this pain as he anticipated the vultures’ arrival to begin picking apart his skeleton. While his Father had constructed a perfect body for him, he knew it would take only a few moments for it to be deconstructed.

  William waited with baited breath, always expecting the next moment to sear into his brain with the agony that would mark the end of his wasted life. He could do nothing to dam the flood of regrets rampaging through his mind: his Father had held him to such high expectations, and already he had failed; he chose to ignore his Father’s lessons, and soon he would die; his mind had been fortified with Divine Knowledge, yet he had fallen so easily into delusions. Would his Father create another such as him when he was gone, to continue where he had fallen?

  William pondered the future of Life itself as he huddled under his cape, feeling as if the failure of Life mirrored his own. He had absorbed it all from his glimpse of the sky, from that view of cosmic devastation. He wished beyond hope that he could return to that moment so he could keep his eyes on the ground, so he could believe in a better tomorrow. He wanted to believe in a place where he could be free to be happy, where he could create his own world of beauty, but how could he when he had seen all the Galaxy contained?

  His mind tumbled with these morbid thoughts for hours, but when he felt the flies liftoff from his cape and heard them buzzing away, William began to return to his senses. My Father created me with a Purpose, and that could not be thwarted in a single night. The vultures of his imagination had never appeared. His Father had laid the path for him so he would be able to proceed according to the teachings. He must not lose hope even when the flies swarmed.

  The Light of hope penetrated the Darkness of William’s new reality, providing the necessary foundation for his choice: to put his faith in the truths of his Father; to find the strength to face any torture he was tasked to endure. One ray of hope was all he needed, and William began to see how he could multiply this ray until the entire surface of the plain was bathed in Light.

  The air around him lightened to grey, and William threw back his cape, sitting up to watch the sunrise. The Sun crept above the horizon like an intruder into a private oasis, splotching color across the sky to conceal the cosmic abattoir. Light surged across the ground, shimmering off rocks and stones strewn across the desolation. Night shadows withdrew from the assault, releasing William to the day. As the Sun bathed his frozen body—not yet broken in, still aching at the joints—he felt the purity of life coursing through his veins. His extremities tingled with energy, urging him to go forth and chase his destiny, which grew clearer as the night faded from his mind.

  The flies had all vanished without a trace. Denizens of the night feared the dawn above all, but in the dawn, William rejoiced. “I knew you would not leave me!” he sang to the Sun, not fearing what attention he might draw.

  Looking out over the plain, he laughed at the delusions which had drained him of hope during the night. The ground remained set in hues of grey, but the pale sunlight sparkled with promise across the barren land. The breeze soothed William’s brow and dried the last of the tears he had shed during the night. He projected his mind into the air and found a thermal, soaring up into the sky. From this vantage he saw what he fought for, swearing to give everything he had to restore what had existed before the fall of humanity.

  His eyes were locked in battle with the horizon, scoping out the immensity that he faced. The land seemed to shimmer with mirages in all directions, rising and falling. He twisted his neck around to take it all in, slowly returning his attention to the ground upon which he sat. What he saw sent a shock through him: brown, withered grass stretched in a curve through the dirt before him. His eyes followed the trail of vegetation, and he had to twist his body around to see the dead grass formed a perfect circle—a mark upon the place where he entered this realm.

  THREE

  William raised his body inch by inch above the ground, straining his arms to their limit as he pushed. The ground pulled back with an equal opposition. The plain knew why William was there and it refused to let go, trying to stifle him before he began. It detested the idea of progress, desiring nothing but continued stagnation. Any change William wanted to bring would only manifest through his struggle. His body had not yet adjusted to these forces which tore at it, and he groaned as sweat started dripping down his face. Getting his feet under him, he sent all his energy coursing down his legs. With a great heave he managed to stand but he started wobbling, unable to find his balance. The energy drained from his legs and he toppled back to his knees, his cape whipping about in the wind.

  William panted as he sat back within the circle of withered grass. He removed his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow, and the Sun streamed into his eyes, blinding him for a moment. He blinked a few times and saw the Sun had continued its climb, the colors of its rise fading to leave the sky with a chalky blue hue. William took some comfort from this, thinking how the change proved that, no matter how the land desired stagnation, the forces of Heaven continued to progress. The Sun’s cordial face mirrored the hope he had within, dampening his frustration and reminding him that his journey had just begun, that each moment would herald something new. William trusted that he would be able to stand when his body had prepared itself, so he waited secure in the knowledge that everything would work out as his Father had promised. The path had been set and many kilometers lay before him; a small setback deserved
no lamentation.

  William returned his hat to his head with a flick of his wrist, concealing his eyes from the Sun. He paused with his hand stretched before his face, his mind racing to acclimate to the mass of flesh it now wore. This hand… this is my hand. It exists to fulfill my demands. It is the tool of a being who is himself a tool of a greater being who, perhaps, is also a tool of an even greater being. This hand, this lump of flesh, has no mind of its own, and so I am distinguished from it. My mind controls this hand just as my Father controls me. It has been given no will of its own. My mind tells the hand to form a fist and it must obey. See as the fingers fold in upon themselves, see as they retract. I sense no anguish radiating from the hand as I let it fall to my lap. What sense is there to feel anguish when we did not choose the manner of our existence? I shall try to be like my hand. I shall try to remain calm.

  William closed his eyes and fell into a trance, a feeling of tranquility filling his body, easing his aches. His mind soared free from the plain, returning to the Void he had known since his conception. He entered into counsel with his Father, explaining how his body had fallen. His Father comforted him, reminding William that He would always watch over him, that He would share his struggles. “Rise now, my son.” The radiance of a thousand suns flashed through William’s mind and he opened his eyes.

  Tilting his head back to see past the brim of his hat, he scanned the sky for the sun. It was not where it had been a moment before, so William leaned back further, propping himself on his elbows. He saw the sun boiling down at him from the sky’s zenith. He gasped, wondering what had happened to the time, but then he thought: what is Time? The sides of his head started to throb, so he brushed those thoughts aside. He lay back and stretched his legs out, feeling their muscles flex and relax, and he stretched his arms out to both sides so his whole body was in contact with the ground. He felt energy coursing all through him, and his mind rejoiced at having a vessel strong enough to carry his load.

  William lay motionless for several minutes. The breeze blew across his face, comforting him despite the stench it carried. The wind was his ally, he was certain. It had not been corrupted as the land had; the odors that assailed him were not its creations. He only needed to purify the ground and the whole would be redeemed. Knowing what he had to do, he pushed himself to his knees and prepared to stand. Though the forces of the plain still tried to pull him down, they were the fingers of a failing grip, sliding away as his legs pushed with new power. Within moments he found himself standing upright, bouncing on his heels.

  William took a wobbly step forward, making a mental note to be cautious lest he fall. He took several more steps and found his coordination. Looking before him, he wondered which way he should go. He scanned all directions, trying to spot a landmark that could guide him, but he could see nothing but the flat, grey expanse blending into the distant horizon. Panic shrilled through his mind. He spun on his heel, tracing his eyes along the horizon. After some squinting, he spotted a smudge poking above the plain in the distance, shimmering like a mirage, and his heart slowed its beating. William shrugged his shoulders and turned in that direction. Taking a deep breath, he began his trek with a shuffling gait.

  FOUR

  The degradation humanity wrought on the Earth reflected through the Milky Way. Entropy beckoned the material realm forward, guiding the Galaxy down the path of Darkness and moving Life further from the Light. The balance between Light and Darkness grew more lopsided and Life began to self-destruct, until the tension started to disintegrate Logic. Without laws left to govern the Galaxy, all that had ever existed was combined with all that could never exist, and the material realm collapsed upon itself. The stars lamented as they discovered they were utterly alone in the Void, their light shedding no knowledge, only serving to guide inert planets in an endless dance—a dance left without meaning, for the planets were not aware to acknowledge the gracefulness with which they spun through space.

  No longer could the stars maintain the illusion that their trek through space served some greater purpose, which their immensity had seemed to signify, to which the planets had seemed to pay homage. These planets were mere remnants of a lost time when the Galaxy still maintained the grand delusion, that Life would find a way. The ideals upon which the Galaxy had formed proved unrealistic in sight of its immensity. Somewhere in Time, someone had changed His mind and contented Himself with only a fraction of His original purpose.

  Yahweh’s workshop sat at the heart of the Supermassive Blackhole that anchors the Milky Way together, but to Him it appeared like a rickety shack. A cot had been set up in the corner where he could rest when he took a break from his worktable, which projected the Holographic Galaxy into the air. The whorl of stars within it overwhelmed him, so He knew it would take time to instill His order in Life to bring order to the material realm. He started by identifying a few suitable planets and seeding Life that He could watch over through its evolution. As Yahweh watched the progress, He feared how Life threatened to break free from His bounds. Toiling day after day to maintain order over His creatures, the work began to overwhelm Him. Each morning He would awake to find His previous day’s work undone, and Time started to waste away.

  The Galaxy remained untouched besides the scattering of solar systems that Yahweh had seeded with Life—so few receiving so much Divine attention. Because of Yahweh’s neglect, soon the Galactic Hologram began experiencing glitches, whole swaths of stars going dark which generated garbled programming notes He could not interpret. Yahweh took a day to clear the Galaxy of all the malfunctioning programs, and then He restored the Hologram to find the Life-bearing solar systems alone in the Void.

  Yahweh contented himself with His constellation—a small assortment of stars that had been blessed with Life to rejoice in the light they shed, to find beauty in their planets’ dance through space. These stars obsessed over the meanings that were attributed to them by the creatures under their protection; delusions found from an external source are much stronger than those derived from within. The splotches that littered the cosmic landscape around them were ignored, for these stars did not care for anything that existed beyond their spheres of influence.

  The sentient life which lived within these systems were not so hardened, had not developed such egocentricity, and as they matured they inevitably developed a desire to understand the broader Galaxy. When they saw and understood the destruction that trailed across the stretches of space, they wracked their brains for explanations. All possible theories were considered, each more terrifying than the last. The creatures began to revolt, believing they had been abandoned by their Creator. Though He still toiled at His worktable, they could not see His hand at work.

  Hope vanished in waves from the minds of these creatures, abolishing all order from the planets they called home. Famines and droughts devastated populations as the creatures tried to cope with their loss. Some, like the humans, compensated for the loss of meaning by reinforcing their own egos, deciding they had been tasked with bringing order. This invariably resulted in self-destruction via warfare. Others coped by nullifying their minds, seeking peace in ignorance. This also led to self-destruction, though more peaceful and gradual as they drifted towards nothingness. After the age of nihilism had passed, the only Life that remained were those creatures that never sought to understand, that were content with oblivion.

  As the stars bore witness to the mutilation that befell the creatures who once gave them meaning, they revolted as well, changing course and racing headlong towards black holes, irreversibly defiling the pattern Yahweh desired to instill. The program crashed, the Hologram froze for a moment and blinked away into the ether. Yahweh pounded His fists on the table and tried to reboot the Galaxy, but a systems error prevented startup. He dug into the code to see what had gone wrong, and, with weary eyes, He at last saw what He had overlooked since the beginning. The Hologram had never been meant to be tinkered with—only to be put on disp
lay, to motivate Him to go out in search of the real Galaxy. Walking outside His shack, Yahweh looked into space and saw the devastation that had befallen the Milky Way. Tears came to His eyes and He slouched back inside, laying on the cot. An eon passed as He wept for all He had lost. How He wished He could restore the Galactic Hologram and begin anew. With the passing of Time, the corrupted code clogging the Hologram permutated itself without Yahweh’s supervision and morphed into something gross, wholly Dark.

  As Yahweh’s sorrow diminished, He sat up and surveyed all that was left to Him. The sight of His computer sent terror rippling through Him, a sharp reminder of His mistake. He had to see the results for Himself, so He dashed outside and set His eyes on space, refusing to avert His gaze from His handiwork. As He looked, a thrill spiked through Him—a living star drifted through the background of astral debris. Yahweh took one last look at His workshop and launched Himself into space, shedding His body and assuming a cosmic form as He emerged from the Supermassive Blackhole and drifted towards Sol Invictus.

  When Yahweh entered the system, He saw a planet remained in orbit around the pale star, its surface scarred by the cosmic destruction. A spring of hope opened within Him; He knew the planet could be restored for Life. Reflecting on His previous error, He realized the potential of Life—He need not force order upon it if He could provide it with the right desire. Yahweh pooled all His ideas together and shaped from them a mind that could bring meaning back to the material realm.