[nsw-fic] FORMLESS: Prologue

[MsFicwriter]

FORMLESS: ANOTHER TALE OF TERROR

A Supernatural Story by MsFicwriter, ©2014-15

 

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This tale takes place two hundred years before the events of FACELESS.)

 

~ For machievelli, Anla'shok, E.J. Dulore, and all of the FF.net and other reviewers who keep me going ~

 

PROLOGUE: THE ONE

 

"I reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting,

No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!

By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man -

Some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive -

Than rule down here over all the breathless dead."

-Homer, THE ODYSSEY

 

First there were the Many, then the Few, and finally the One.

 

It had neither face nor body, hands nor feet, flesh nor bone. It was formless, one with the Void in which it lived. Nevertheless It had a mind, a consciousness, and sought to separate Itself from everlasting space. What was the use of being a deity without power, or self? Such things were contradictions in terms. Gods possess power because they must; otherwise they would not be gods. For the same reason, gods must have identities. Who would worship the One in Its amorphous state, instead of its maternal Expanse?

 

It waited as the stars were born, the sun and moon, yet did not desire to inhabit them. Everything that is born must die, and death was what It feared most. It wanted to create, but the One barely understood why. Perhaps, It thought, I can live forever through giving life to other beings. If not, then how will I survive? The Void will consume me if I don't find a way to differentiate myself from it, and I'm fortunate to have begun this task. How, one might ask? That was the secret, the great mystery the One wished to keep to Itself.

 

As a newborn babe is helpless, so It was. It needed a firm foundation upon which to grow. Such a foundation arrived as a massive rock, drifting through the darkness on a downward course. The One was curious: Where is it going? Could it lead me to a place where the Void can't find me? Thus It cleaved to the rock, and plummeted toward a verdant world full of grass and trees, birds and fish. What this world didn't have was creatures with reasoning minds, people as well as animals. These the One might provide.

 

However, with the creation of each human being, the One lost a bit of Its power. At first this waning was imperceptible, but over time it grew more acute. Eventually It became concerned: I give them a physical body, the body I lack, and because of this I am weakened? I should grow stronger with every man I form! What is the answer? If I stop creating, I'll lack purpose and will die of apathy within this crater, my prison. On the other hand, if I keep creating, I'll become powerless - no longer a god, and no better than a dead animal. I need something else to nourish and motivate me, because my humans don't even know I exist…

 

Then, in a sudden flash, The One found the answer It had so urgently sought.

 

In Its hunger and desperation, It began to form spiritual abysses in the minds of the people It designed. People would no longer be satisfied merely to plant and reap, sow and harvest, and bear children. They would seek more, forevermore: another answer to the meaning of life. The One would speak to them, a voice from the crater around which Its people lived, and teach them how to return to It if they were worthy.

 

If not, they would die as all living things did, yet without having the void in their own existence fulfilled.

 

I need them to need me, and feed me. Their strength shall become mine, and I'll conquer the Void at the end of time. No longer shall there be empty space. I'll fill it with my creations, and Being shall vanquish Nonbeing. The Void is no mother, although I was Her son in the beginning. She is naught but…emptiness.

[machievelli]

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