The Return of Chaos
I had no answer. “Just keep watch over my children,” I told him, unwilling to reveal my ignorance. He would not understand why a Creator did not know all the answers. He swam away with confusion in his eyes and I watched uneasily as Sapia’s people populated the land. I attempted to consult Apollo on these matters, but he did not understand my power which was so alien to him.
“Where did they come from?” he asked. Even I did not know.
An Improper Sacrifice
The day that Sapia conquered the ocean was not a stormy day. In fact, Apollo shone brightly in the heavens. She and her people crossed the sacred boundary from her world to the next as they paddled out to sea in dugout canoes.
“Where is he?” she demanded, her sharp eyes searching my being.
“Who?” I asked.
“The magic creature. The menace. The evil one,” she spat. I refused to answer her, retreating into the foam of the ocean. I had no power to protect my protector. I was useless, my only ability was to create and destroy and now I could not even physically destroy the imminent threat to my world.
I watched them take him, dragging him from the ocean, raising their spears in triumph.
“Sacrifice,” I heard Sapia whisper. The violence in her voice shook me to the core. “Cut off his fin and boil it into soup. It will give you magic.” Her people cried out in happiness, slicing through his skin, taking what little was left of him from me. They left his body for dead, taking only the fin. I sat by his side, watching his blood soaking into the sand, mingling with my own salty tears
“I am sorry I could not protect you,” I moaned, watching as the sea licked at his open wounds as his life trickled away from him. I stared back at the shore, Sapia’s triumphant eyes staring back at me in victory. Was mine the power of creation or alienation?
Powerless
The potion did not work. The magic they desired was ever elusive, driving them to near insanity. They cut down the trees, pierced the soil, and killed those who stepped in their way. They reminded me so much of the ghostly beings I had first encountered, the ones who I had done away with. It was as though my original, stupid sparkling beings had replaced their souls.
“Who are you?” I demanded, throwing my voice to the screaming wind.
Sapia stared back at me, her gaze hard, her cheeks sunken. “I am the Creator,” she said. She told lies, her voice filling up every crevice of my being. I refused to make any new fish, any new protectors, knowing that she would destroy them, throw them away, not appreciate their simple-minded, innocent need for survival. My one power had been taken from me. Even Apollo refused to answer my calls, knowing nothing could be done to save me from destruction.
The violent beings marched across my world, showing no forgiveness, declaring all others inferior to them. Even me. The world was no longer mine. I found myself plodding across my surface, over and over, trying to find others I could save, but all turned from me, regarding me with hollow gazes.
I had failed my creations. Now they turned to Sapia, refusing to hear my kind words, her pupils corrupting their innocent souls, introducing them to a world of turmoil, alienating me from my own children. The loneliness drove me mad as I walked the Earth, waiting for a fate I knew I could not escape.
Chaos did return and I closed my eyes, waiting for the release of darkness to swallow me, bring me back to the beginning. He gestured to the sky and the sea and the mountains and the universe and finally pointed a finger at me.
“There is no such thing as magic,” he said. But then his face changed, the pupils of Sapia piercing into my core, my heart freezing inside my gut.
“The ultimate power is not that of creation. It is of fear and seclusion,” she whispered and with that, the universe blazed with illumination in my eyes before it succumbed to chaos and darkness. It was all my fault. My selfish want for companionship had driven my world to the edge and, from that point, there was no return.
