Dancing with the devil
Tick… tick… tick…
The birth of a new world. New everything. A world completely different from others where the course of events would be completely dissimilar. A world that while at this moment in time, contains nothing, may grow into something brilliant.
“Another one, eh?”
“I give it a few years at most”
“It’ll be lucky to survive that long; they’re so impatient these days. if nothing’s working after a couple of days it’s in the bin and straight back to the chalkboard, so to speak.”
Among the stars of the cosmos, beings of incomprehensible power looked down upon the new world’s construction, though it only earned a glance. Across the universe, billions of times further than the eye can see, there were many worlds in construction, the amount of which was almost innumerable.
“Do the young not fathom that the most successful of worlds take time, ingenuity, patience, genius even. None of which they possess.”
“Greed. That’s all it is these days. They see those who have succeeded before and believe that simply copying them will bring about a favourable outcome.”
“I still remember when they first started creating worlds. They put in time, effort, emotion, and they weren’t doing it to impress ourselves. A large proportion of those worlds are still going strong today. And yet, rather than copying the hard work and effort of the earlier makers, the young ones choose to neglect that side of things, and copy everything else.”
“It’s quite sad really, watching a world as new species are born, totally unaware of their fate. Constantly being observed and measured against standards, of which they’re completely unaware, and all it takes is a thought from their maker and it’s gone. Poof. Just like that.”
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“Though, you can also understand where their makers are coming from, I guess. Some of them will have been around for millions of years and will have seen all their peers surpass them and go on to achieve great things. Yet they themselves will still be at rock bottom, on an endless cycle of creating worlds and trying to think of an original idea which, granted, is very difficult to do when following in the footsteps of billions before you.”
A pointless talk, really. One that would have happened hundreds of times and was just stating the obvious. The Watchers had long since grown bored of watching a young world develop and bet on who would survive the longest, how long the world would last, or choose avatars to represent themselves on each world. The times of doing so were long gone. There was no point. If they ever chose to take part in the growth of a world, they knew it would flourish, and on the other hand, if they didn’t, the world would likely be abandoned soon after. There was no longer any fun in helping new worlds for the Watchers. The same way that you couldn’t read the same book repeatedly. Perhaps you could, but if you had to read it ten, one hundred, a thousand, or a million times, you would have long since grow sick of it to the point of despising it.
The Watchers had their favourite worlds that had been going for billions of years now. The ones they could always trust to put on a good show, to always provide refreshment from their boredom.
“Do they not realise we are actual beings, with personalities? They replicate the same formula repeatedly with maybe, one change, if we’re lucky, and just expect us to enjoy it.”
“Exactly. And even if a world does emerge that creates a slight level of interest, the creators of the most popular worlds can simply exert their power to destroy it. Although we could do something to retaliate against them, why would we? All that does is inconvenience us. There’s no point to it.”
Yet another futile conversation. The Watchers were simply stating points that they were all aware of, just to create talk and complain. However, for the first time in a while, something was about to take their interest. One world amongst the many appearing and disappearing had something very odd about it that made the Watchers sit up and well, watch.
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Arlo Tavernier was born on the 9th of May 2451 on planet Zion (also known as planet 87). A child born in a quiet world. One which hadn’t received the attention of any higher beings since its creation over 2000 years prior. And yet, the birth of a seemingly ordinary child changed that forever.
---CHAPTER 1 END---