Miracles, Enid thought, as she focused on the thirtieth century. Humans even in the thirtieth century over used the word. We have broken the light barrier, it’s a miracle, we can create human babies from two random samples and some special sauce and grow them in an artificial womb, it’s a miracle, we have no parents for these babies well let’s make parents, just accelerate the ageing of those babies in those tubes and give them artificial memories, yay, we’re saved, it’s a miracle. She swept away the images of humanities triumphs. Seeing her ‘mortal’ sister only increased her fear of doing what needed to be done.

No, she thought, miracles were not the triumphs of humans over adversity, or any species for that matter, miracles were a seemingly random coming together of events that surged the universe towards to equilibrium. Now, at the end, after all she had seen and done, she understood that order, chaos, life, death were all required. She didn’t have long now. Even as she looked over the prime universe’s history and future time was running out for her. In her self-inflicted blindness she had not seen the horrific consequences of her actions. While she faced off against her true self’s brothers Lucifer and Chronos she had missed a very insidious enemy her fumbling manipulations of time had created in her wake.

Perhaps it was a sign of her impending dissolution as the greater power she’d been born of and had usurped as she woke from her long slumber. She could already hear the pounding words of her true self demanding to be let free of the bonds this pathetic avatar had dared place on her. She was the universe. She was creation. The anomaly must be squashed. The anomaly must not be allowed to toy with perfection. That was the flaw in her true self’s perfect creation. That she had missed an important detail. You can never attain perfection. You can only ever make it good enough. The secret grease that made things work the thing her true self abhorred. Chaos.

She drowned out the intrusive thoughts of the other by focusing on the last task she had to complete before she initiated reorganization then finally released her sense of self into the infinity that was her true self. She did not think about how angry being manipulated by others made her; God included as she did the same thing to her youngest biological daughter. Perhaps she was already losing herself to Seraph. For Seraph saw only her purpose and not the impact it had on the mortal souls who inhabited her perfect creation.

The first manipulation being that she brought her into existence at all. There had only been the boy. Now there were two. She could not bring herself to destroy her child, but balance had to be maintained so she pulled the boy out of time and hid him away. It had to be a girl, or the dominos would not fall as they must.

Next, she moved herself to a terrible year. The year the Grey came to Earth. She had warned them when the vision came to her, but it was inevitable as some things were. She needed the perfect mother to replace her. A woman who had prayed to God for her entire childhood to give her a beautiful daughter. Sadly, the Grey had come, and she’d frozen to death. The celestial being reached down and nudged the young Apiyo just so, when the area was excavated, she would be miraculously preserved. Not wanting to separate sisters, she tried to move Apiyo’s twin in time but no matter how she tried it, the twin’s time ended here. After a million permutations she relented. Finally pulling her out of time and hiding her away just before she died. Her time was growing shorter by the moment.

One would think a celestial being with control over all time and space that could bend reality to its whim could change something as simple as a person living instead of dying. One would be wrong. In the prime universe. The core that all others would eventually be dependent on there were certain nexus events even they could not manipulate. Lynch pins.

She could find a loophole in most cases. A cloned shell, empty of anything left to replace a dead child. A scattering of DNA to make it look like someone was disintegrated. There was a weight to reality a flow to time. Inertia might be a better term. So long as that weight thought it had been replaced with an equal weight, time flowed forward. When she was her blind mortal self, she could not see the loopholes for the weeds. She had started to figure it out. Now she saw. You could break the rules, but you had to fix the paradox it created by convincing reality that what happened was supposed to happen. When she was fumbling around trying to fix the damage, one time-travelling demon was causing she had always been one step behind. Because she hadn’t seen that to fix the past, she had to convince reality what happened was supposed to happen. Fix the paradox or close the loop.

That did not matter now. No matter what she, or Seraph did, Chronos would always eventually win. He had already been foiled five times by Lilith resetting the timeline. Lilith was gone and Seraph was ill-equipped for the task. All he had to do to win was unravel time. To fix the mess Seraph would have to reset her perfect creation. Something the purpose that dominated her every action would not allow. She had found her own loophole. Trap herself in a mortal body. The personality she had created was now threatening her perfect creation and her purpose demanded she stop this anomaly. This celestial being with human failings and emotions. It had to be erased.

She could feel Seraph tearing at the thin membrane that kept the all-knowing being from consuming its mortal personality. She shook her head and stumbled as tears opened the knowledge of everything everywhere was seeping in. She forced herself to focus on who she was. She was a mother. She was an Empress. She was Enid Aurelius. She had her own immortal soul.

She pulled herself forward back to the thirtieth century. She took a tablet from her sister’s drawer; An old one she would not miss and replaced it with the gentle nudges. She tossed the old tablet into her hideaway pocket dimension.

She made sure the list of hopefuls for a child would land on Apiyo when Isis selected a ‘random’ listing. She moved backwards just slightly and nudged Apiyo to change her application. She moved back and forth until Isis read it over and made an immediate call. She smiled. Her old friend was always so predictable.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

She moved back further a hundred thousand years before. She nudged a depressed and suicidal mother to make the choice of sacrificing herself for the greater good. She moved forward and witnessed the first meeting between Bit and her daughter. She smiled and realized she had yet to name the girl. Rahana was not working for her. She reached her finger into the hat where Apiyo had placed all the names she and her husband had picked. She made sure Apiyo picked Allison. After one of Enid’s many deep and lasting loves.

She held the side of her head as more of Seraph flooded in. She was almost done. Everything was happening as it should for young Allison. She watched her grow; find her first love and do everything she had needed Allison to do.

She zoomed out. She stood over a geodesic chessboard. Her manipulations were not centered around the red queen, who she had used to represent her daughter. The piece at the center of her chessboard was a black king. She had denoted the black king’s manipulations with black pawns, they were all gone but the black king remained untouched. Allison had swept the board but had never interacted with the black king. She closed her eyes Seraph’s growing power was taking the form of a migraine.

Time was running out. She had to finish this, make final arrangements and complete reorganization. She gave up trying to play within the rules. Desperate times and all that. She was wise enough now to the ways of time travel she had to do things… in a strange way. She shoved a League science fleet sixty thousand light years to a planet where the Black King’s path intersected then she shoved them back in time, to the point just before Allison would need to arrive. Reality was starting to twist and turn. She pulled on the fabric of reality to hold it taught. Now Allison arrived at the remnants of the rogue planet. Enid poked her finger through the wormhole Allison created and tugged the excess fabric, pulling herself back to the point just after the fleet had arrived and she connected it to the handful of reality fabric she’d pulled to the future and she linked them together.

She released it and it snapped into place. Reality reordered itself. She’d fooled it by creating a causality paradox and closing the loop. She smiled as the red queen’s path and the black king’s path crisscrossed. Still the black king did not move from his hiding place. She stumbled as a wave of fury pulsed through her, Seraph was gaining strength.

She reached out and pulled herself forward desperately. She looked down on Mary and Allison in the starfighter. Allison was asleep. Mary was in pain. Her brain was shutting down. She was going to die and so was her child. Perhaps it was mercy. Perhaps it was one mother reaching out to another but she lowered herself and reached into the fighter. She touched Mary’s cheek. The girl looked at her. Mary asked through pain clouded eyes.

“Who are you?”

Enid smoothed her hair.

“I am Allison’s mother, child. You are going to die and so is your child. She tried her best, but she is only mortal. I confess, this may be my fault. I saw there was once a long lifeline for your child.”

Mary’s breathing was becoming shallow.

“Please I just want to hold my daughter, just once I want to see her smile.”

Enid closed her eyes and winced. Mary looked up at her.

“Are you alright?”

Enid touched the side of her head.

“I confess, I will cease to exist soon as well. I have a great task to complete. I did not want you to die alone.”

Mary looked up at her with pleading eyes. Enid looked on into infinity. She was risking much by delaying here.

“Please Dark Mother.”

Enid kept stroking Mary’s hair.

“I can extend your life, but it will not be pleasant, there will be much pain, unbearable pain, reality is not forgiving when you are holding it a bay, I can give you the tools, but you need to have the strength to use them. We will need to trust that my daughter will keep her word. She needs to make a choice and as much as I can nudge, I cannot manipulate mortal minds directly anymore. You will not be in your right mind. If you are strong enough, I promise you one moment of perfect clarity with your daughter, I can give you no more time, my time is growing short. I need Allison to complete her own great task. Your child will not be a messiah, but she will be a savior. May she do as much good as the last child I helped save that called Mary his mother.”

Enid smiled sadly at Mary.

“Please I just want to hold her and tell her I love her.”

Enid reached her fingers into Mary’s head. She gently tugged on her neurons and strengthened her blood vessels that were threatening to burst. Mary’s death was a nexus event. It had to happen, but the child did not need to die. Apparently, reality was fine with her seeing her child born. She did not envy the girl’s pain reality was crushing when you opposed it. Enid pulled herself forward along Mary’s newly extended timeline.

Mary’s brain was disintegrating. This was her moment of death. Enid had tears in her eyes as she saw the pain in her daughter’s eyes. Pain, she had caused by extending Mary’s timeline. She rewound time to just as the baby was placed into Mary’s arms. She held up two fingers and everyone paused around them. She touched the newborn with one hand and with the other she touched the side of Mary’s head. She pulled them into this frozen moment. Mary looked at her daughter and smiled.

“She’s so beautiful.”

Enid closed her eyes and accelerated the newborn’s mental development just enough so she could recognize her mother and smile. Just a tweak. Mary started to cry.

“I love you so much, little Allison. I wish I could stay.”

Enid shuddered as Seraph fought against her.

“I am sorry, Mary, it is time for you to go.”

Mary looked up at Enid.

“Will she be alright without me?”

Enid looked at the baby. She closed her eyes and pulled Mary along little Allison’s timeline. Mary smiled and tears of joy dripped from her eyes.

“She is surrounded by so much love. She never forgets me…”

Mary’s head lulled and Enid smiled sadly. Her tears dropped onto baby Allison’s arm.

“Goodbye, sweet Mary.”

She struggled against Seraph once again and realized her mortal body wasn’t handling it. She felt her fangs come out as she once again felt the hunger for blood. She reached out her hand and touched her daughter Allison’s cheek.

“I will always love you. We will meet again, the powers that be willing. Goodbye Allison.”

She pulled herself out and she blinked. Her simple act of kindness towards a dying mother had rearranged her geodesic chess board. The black king charged at the red queen. She would need to fly close to the flame for this next part. She released her vampiric form. She embraced infinity like a dear old friend. She opened her eyes and saw everything, all at once, in the brief instant she set her backup plan in motion, then she initiated the grand reorganization.