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Wednesday, June 15, 2016

A Short-short Story on the Creation of a Multiverse

It is hard to determine where to begin a story, because a “beginning” is rather arbitrary when you get down to it.  Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, to quote a song line that seems to echo across the multiverse, and don’t things make more sense when we see what events led up to them?  But those events are born from earlier events, and those are responses to even earlier stimuli.  Even Creation itself has a beginning in the hands of a Creator hailing from an earlier Creation.  Get back that far, however, and time loses meaning and the stories become just one eternal round, the same thing again and again.  There are variations, of course, but nothing that truly alters the cycle.  Not to mention, the thing you meant to tell in the first place becomes lost, too small a detail to notice.
Enough philosophizing; we’re already at risk of losing the tale and we haven’t even started it!  We’ll begin at this point:

In the beginning, the universe fractured.  The old God, His work complete, His Children taught and prepared, divided the substance of reality between Them so that They could create universes of Their own and be gods in Their own right.  Their spirit children would inhabit the new universes, passing through mortality and testing their wills and faith to one day rise to divine glory.  Thus the eternal cycle would be perpetuated anew.
The new gods took their inheritance and scattered across the eternities so that their Creations would not crowd one another and each God could pursue their own vision.
When the last group prepared to depart, however, one of them noticed something terrifying in the space the old Universe had occupied.  Creatures were forming from the void, coming into existence from a place where there was no longer organized Matter, and without a divine hand guiding their formation.  Created by no one, and thus without guidance or direction, these Demons had but one goal: to undo Creations, to annihilate universes before their time, to threaten the Eternal Rounds in a way no being created within them could.
“What shall we do?” one of the gods asked.  “Our Father, the old God, said nothing of this happening.”
“We cannot permit these demons from undoing our work, and the work of our brothers and sisters,” another said.
“I have a thought, brothers and sisters,” a third said after a moment.  “The demons are many, but they are concentrated for now in one place, fighting amongst themselves and establishing a mockery of order.  When complete, our Creations shall each be as large as the one we came from.  If we build them near one another, rather than separated as our brothers and sisters are, we can create a shell that may contain the demons.”
“But they will enter our Creations!” the first god protested. “Enter and destroy them.”
“Not if we prepare for them,” the third god said.  “I propose we shape our Creations and the spirits who will inhabit them in such a way that they can repel, capture, or even destroy a demon who comes in.  We and our Creations will stand as guardians against these demons, protecting the innumerable Creations of our brothers and sisters not just from the ravages of these spawns of Chaos, but from the very thought and fear of them.”
The gods pondered their brother’s words.  At last, one said, “With our Creations so close together, will there not be a chance the inhabitants might be able to cross from one to another?”
“There is a chance,” the plotting God answered.  “The chance is greater should your plan for your Creation permit demons to enter so they may be combatted directly, but we must all plan for this in our own way and discuss later how to keep our spirit children sorted.  For now, we must make haste and build our Creations; I see the demons begin to spread apart from one another.”
And it was so.  The Gods encircled the demons and began to Create universes.  A few of the gods delayed and instead went unto the demons to fight them, studying the demons’ methods and how to repel or destroy them, and then returned to their place in the containing bubble, Creating as they shared what they had learned.
Each God Created their universe unique, according to their own plans and personalities.  Some made their Creation as a fortress, with boundaries hardened against both invading demons and leakage from neighboring universes.  Others left their boundaries to be permeable and taught their spirit children in the ways of combating demons.  A few bold and crafty Gods each plucked a demon from the pack and built a universe around it, folding the demon’s nature into fabric of Creation itself, to contain as a training aid or in hopes of taming and redeeming the demon’s chaotic soul.
When the work was complete, a bubble of organized Creations trapped the demons born of chaos, preventing them from spreading across the whole of the eternities.  The god who had proposed the plan said, “It is good, brothers and sisters.  Let us now each go down unto our own Creation and begin the work as we were taught.  When the demons begin to press against their cage, we will convene again to counsel and assist one another, if necessary.”

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