An immutable memory saved in my mind.

An event that altered the logical sequence of causality.

A decision that started a sentence of eternal suffering.

During the sunset of a day in which not even the record of time existed in this universe, I was able to know the reason why it is impossible to predict the human future precisely. The emotions. Those unpredictable reactions that nullify logical thinking.

I understood that even a higher being, endowed with absolute knowledge would be able to make an irrational decision due to the impulse of his emotions.

Even in front of the same words and actions, people with the same knowledge will have diverse reactions and will make illogical decisions due to their emotions.

For that reason, the human future it is only possible to predict at a probable level instead of at an exact level.

That variable that I had forgotten due to my nature, forced me to realize that destiny was uncontrollable, since perhaps, it was pre-established.

I even got to the point of thinking that free will was an illusion, something as real as the world of dreams.

“[So now, the only thing that you have to do is make a decision.]”

Those words, said by me, were spoken in the language of the quantum universe after a long talk. Telepathy. And they were directed to the ancient human who was at some meters in front of me.

“[…]”

Instead of receiving an answer from his side, the ancient human looked his own hands that he had intertwined at the height of his belly while maintaining his lotus posture. He separated them and then looked his right hand while extending it and leaning it on his right thigh.

In that moment behind him and in front of me in the distance, the water of the sea began to move near the shore in which there was a little group of primitive humans.

From the water, four men began to emerge. They were tall men, about two and half meters height, with snow-white skin and without any trace of facial or corporal hair.

The golden and ornamented clothes that they wore only covered some parts of their bodies. A garment was covering from the top to the back of their heads, like a hood. Another was covering from their necks to their shoulders. And a last one, left their thighs and legs uncovered, but was covering their crotch, from their waists to their knees.

Those faces, which I could only watch for few two seconds, revealed sharp expressions due to how marked were their jaws. That was all that I could perceive form that faces that lost their identity as soon as they emerged from the water.

From their faces, a black fog wrapped in red sparks as burning ashes, was released while was swirling like a tornado around their heads. In a few seconds, the morphology of their heads began to change, taking the form of different animals. The head of the first man, adopted the appearance of a dark furred jackal. The one of the second one took the appearance of a golden-feathered falcon. The one of the third one received the form of a red-fire furred primal feline. And the last man changed the original morphology of his head to the one of a silver-scaled ancestral dragon. Although the appearance of their faces had changed, the sharp expression that accompanied them, gave them a terrifying aura.

When the new physic form of their heads finished defining, the depth breath that took every one of them, as if they tasted every particle of air that they breathed, along with the gills that they had in both sides of their necks before their mutations, that now were invisible, made me understand who they were. They were the men of the sea, the paladins of the physical universe. The Ancestral Scrubbers. And they had come to dictate their judgement.

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When they completely came out from the water and walked to the shore, I was able to see the staffs that every one of them carried in their hands. In their right hands, they held a golden staff, 30 centimeters large, whose vertical upper side, from where they held them, was a ring that emitted a constant blue luminous fog from all its circular area. In their left hands, they carried a black staff that looked like a spear of like two meters large. Its lower end ended in a sharp point like a stake, and in its upper side, were nine extensions of the same spear, which had the form of black claws that embraced it around it. Those black claws extended 10 centimeters up and, from its base, 10 centimeters down, as if there was a mirror below those upper claws.

I perfectly knew the names of the two staffs that they carried.

When the four men stepped on solid ground, I turned my attention back to the ancient human that was in front of me again.

“[Watch…]” I said through our mental link. The human looked over his shoulder behind him. I kept talking in the language of the quantum universe. “[Those men that hold their Seals of Immortality and their Stakes of Pain in their hands are the responsible of mankind decay.]” The human looked me to the eyes again. Those eyes that looked me back, emitted an intense pale blue light from the depths of their pupils, just like mine. I continued. “[You know your options already. Now you have to choose.]”

The human turned his gaze back to his extended right hand again. He watch it for some moments, lost in his thoughts. And suddenly he closed it tightly. He answered me in the language of the quantum universe while strongly clenching his fist.

“[I think… that you should stop being so selfish, Maria.]” He looked me to the eyes. “[I want to still living in this existential phase. From now on, I expect to share my power with my siblings.]”

How fool.

A thought that I said in my mind, but that I did not transferred through our psychic connection. That telepathic answer that I received and the determination of his physical expression felt like daggers that shattered my heart. I abandoned my lotus posture, cutting our telepathic link, and stood up. I turned my back to him, and covered my head with the hood that I was wearing, to hide the tears that began to fall through my cheeks. I did not want to reveal him my desperation nor my frustration through any mental or physical means.

“If that is what you choose then the punishment that you’ll receive will made you understand the foolishness you just committed.” Those words that I said aloud and in my language, sounded hollow, emotionless. “That life you longing to feel, so bad, will become the pain that’ll made you pay for the sin you committed.” That was the last message that I left before I started to walk and get away.

That ancestral human, blinded by his emotions of desire for still feeling his form of life and empathy for his species, was no able to see the severity of the sin that he committed. Although I revealed him the most probable future, his emotions did not let him choose the most logical decision of all.

As I walked away, I tried to visualize that apocalyptic future that would make its way from that senseless decision that he had taken. With each second that was passing, the desire of abandon the world around me along with my main objective, became stronger. However, while I was moving forward and watching the horizon in front of me, a slight light of hope, which blinked in my mind, make my steps slower and slower.

It’s possible that the executors of that sentence of eternal suffering would become the key of the human salvation.

When I completely stopped, I turned my gaze back to the catastrophe unfolding behind me. The last sunrays of this dark day were burning the sky. Their flames were attracted by the sea, the birthplace of the guardians and judges of this world, without disturbing the serenity of its surface. Although it was just a reflection, the recent events made that a part of my mind could see the physic form of that illusory fire.

And now, the actions of an individual had allowed that those flames emerged from the sea and annihilate the land and the species in which he himself was born.

In the midst of all that, I was able to understand that, the sun, in this temporal phase, was not only marking the ending of this day. Because in the midst of this usual sequence, my perception denied the normality of the scenario watched by my eyes.

In reality, that sunset that I was seeing, was the twilight of the era of humanity. Because after that sunset, would come the dawn of the dark era of man, which would take the form of an eternal night.

While I was a witness of this tragedy, and was processing my new options, I decided to be a part of this new everlasting nightmare that deployed in front of my eyes.

It looks like there are things that simply cannot happen, I thought while the world around me was slowly darkening by the cruelty of a nascent hell.