It is the void.

The void is eternal.

No beginning.

No end.

End and beginning are concepts created by the self-centered who want the universe to begin with them.

They don’t understand that beginnings are unnatural.

The universe merely is.

And it flows in many forms.

It can be smaller than an atom.

It can be larger than the largest concept of large.

But this is the story of one verse of the universe.

The collision of nebulas and star matter created the first one.

The first one screamed as it came to life.

The light blasted from its eyes.

It flinched as a supernova and a nebula mixed too much.

And so it was.

It took its time. Centuries at least. And it came to be.

Living was painful. It was the only one. And it was so complex.

So, it created a world filled with its liking.

And it split itself in half.

And so it became Sabato, the Patriarch of Order and Power.

And so it became Tuja, the Matriarch of Chaos and Change.

And so they took their world, and they gave it plants and water.

Those were the easy things to make.

And they took the clay of the world, and they played with its shape.

They gave it several forms.

They held the clay together. They gave it life.

They called it cells.

That was a hobby that didn’t last long. It got boring.

So, they made the invertebrates.

They had scales and crawled all over the oceans.

They usually died quickly.

So they made them smaller.

And they lived longer.

They played with the invertebrates.

They gave some of them eyes, like the ones they saw in each other.

They played with them.

Then they gave some of them fins.

They had new scales that helped them swim in the water.

The gods enjoyed their new creation.

Sabato and Tuja made many of them.

Tuja always had fun with it.

But Sabato wanted things to stay the same way.

Tuja would give random flaws to creation.

She would try to make things for Sabato.

She helped create fish in the first place.

She was so bored creating life all day.

She wanted to see what life could do on its own.

Sabato was different.

He wanted to make everything orderly.

He wanted to make sure that the fish didn’t overpopulate too much.

He had to keep everything in check. He would create destruction if he had to.

Tuja was different.

She wanted to see how far she could take it.

She would never listen to Sabato.

She would give the fish different appearances. Occasionally, she would create a fish that was different.

Sabato was mad when the life he created did something without him.

He was mad when things didn’t go how he planned.

He was slowly getting used to it.

Sabato was doing his best to be flexible. But he was mad that the world he envisioned didn’t come out how he wanted it to be.

Sabato was frustrated.

They had the urge to build, but they had no idea why.

They were the architects of this world, but they felt like something else was guiding them.

They wondered if there was more that they could do.

Sabato would spend a lot of time wallowing in the water of the world he created. He felt like he was out of ideas.

He felt like he created all the lifeforms that he and Tuja were able to create.

But of course, Tuja had other plans.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She was always up to something.

She wanted the fish to jump up in the air.

She wanted to see them glide above the water.

She played around with it too much.

Tuja liked to see the fish jump in the air.

That’s when she saw the fish jump onto the land.

There wasn’t much on the land.

A couple of shrubs. Some algae that washed up on the shore.

But the fish would land there from time to time.

It would give Tuja an idea.

She wanted to make a fish that could walk on land.

She wondered how she would be able to make such a thing.

She didn’t want Sabato to know.

Sabato didn’t let Tuja have any fun.

She had to have fun all by herself.

Tuja played with the clay and made a walking fish.

She tried to make it work but so many of them died.

Tuja cried when she saw it die. Sometimes, the walking fish would die before they reached the land.

She kept trying.

But it was something she was afraid of.

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen.

But Tuja thought it would be fun.

She got some sleep, and she tried it again.

Tuja tried really hard to make sure the fish wouldn’t flop too hard on the ground.

She made the fins shorter so it would have less impact.

Tuja set the fish down.

She hoped.

She would pray if she understood what praying was.

Tuja was waiting.

She looked at her new fish every single day. Even as she carved other fishes.

The fish leaped on the land.

It seemed to be okay.

Tuja clapped.

It was the happiest day of her life.

Tuja saw the fish as it maintained control on the land, before slipping away.

She had no idea how long it had taken her to make that fish right.

But it was worth it.

Sabato would mock Tuja. She would take forever to do something.

Tuja wondered if there was a way to get back at Sabato.

They had done this to each other for many millennia.

She wondered about how she could pull a prank on Sabato.

She had to do something and hope that Sabato was too lazy to change it.

Tuja wanted to play around with it more.

She wondered if all the fish could walk on land.

It would be fun.

Sabato would hate it.

But Tuja thought it was cute.

Tuja spent some more time.

She was trying to make it perfect.

Sabato would do his best to make sure the world didn’t rip apart.

He wanted to make the world more adjusted so the fish wouldn’t boil up and die one day.

Sabato dived below the world.

He dug in the lava that made it, and he made sure it would never rise up to boil the oceans.

And he rose up. And he saw that the world was a rock covered in the ocean.

“We shall call our land Stoneterra,” he said.

“But we spend so much time in the water. Are you sure?” Tuja said.

“I have decided that life would be better away from the oceans. We shall bring it to the land,” he said.

“You have made me so happy. I love you,” Tuja said.

Tuja would look at the life Sabato created. Sabato would give interesting designs to his fish.

She was always jealous of it. She would either create fish that would eat it, or she would kill the fish herself.

She was like that.

And the fact that Sabato was okay with fish on the land made her aggressive. She wanted a reaction out of him.

There would be time.

So she tried to make the fish walk on the land.

Some of the fish didn’t want to. They preferred to stay in the water.

So Tuja took her time. She would create storms that left the fish on the land.

The fish would go on and do their own thing. Sometimes she killed them. Sometimes she didn’t care.

The gods played with the fishes. They made new ones.

The amphibians, as they are now called.

The amphibians would migrate to the land when the ocean got cooler.

It gave Tuja many ideas.

So she created the thunder lizards. They were large creatures.

Sometimes she gave them feathers. Sometimes she didn’t.

She liked showing off the scale of her project. She was working on making them larger.

She was spending all her time giving the thunder lizards crazy names. Sabato hated it. He thought they were more like sentences than names.

Tuja was having fun.

But then something happened.

The lizards got too big.

They did not listen.

They fought too much.

So Sabato decided he would destroy them.

He made himself a horned creature out of clay. He called it the Meteor Bull.

He would harness the power that he needed to destroy them.

Sabato and the Meteor Bull charged across the world. They destroyed the dinosaurs wherever they could find them.

And the dinosaurs died in a global consuming fire.

They had committed no crime.

They were only too beautiful and powerful for the gods.

Sabato wondered if he would create life that would kill him one day.

He thought that the important thing was to not let them get too large to stop them.

Sabato and Tuja spent time in the ashes of their creation.

They had many creative phases.

But they did not like it anymore.

They were bored with their creation.

And so they destroyed it.

And they created something else.

And they destroyed it with time.

They wondered if they could continue. He wondered if he was truly order. She wondered if she was truly chaos. The dread gave them time to ponder. The gods were lazy beings. They were destructive when they decided to get anything done.

And then they decided to create life again.

But this time, they would create life in their own image.

Sabato held the clay in his hands.

He worked hard on it.

But it didn’t look any good.

He wondered if he should continue with it.

He scrapped the clay and tried again.

Tuja helped him.

They looked at each other as they tried to make the being.

The clay was wet.

“I want to make it perfect,” Sabato said.

“It will never be perfect, it will only be,” Tuja said.

And with those words, Sabato tried.

He formed the figure.

He would look into the ocean. He would look at himself for inspiration.

But he realized that his creation would not be him. It would be something else, and that was okay.

Sabato put the finishing touches on his clay. He decided to make it like him, but smaller. He had to make it grow as he made all the animals grow.

He pressed life into it.

Sabato stood back.

He saw his creation.

It was weird at first.

Sabato didn’t know how to react to a being that was like him.

Sabato did not know how to handle this feeling of seeing himself as another creation. The child cried. It was weird, but he kept going.

And he created another child.

They decided to make fifty of them. Twenty-five female. Twenty-five male.

They had their minor flaws.

They sometimes got the boys mixed with the girls.

Tuja and Sabato didn’t always know what they were doing.

They placed the children in all the corners of the world.

And these children made up the Seven Tribes.

The first was Orfana. They would live on their center continent, near the Orfan Mountain. There would be warm summers, and wet winters as long as they obeyed and worshipped him. And the olives and the livestock would be plentiful.

Then there was Qemo. They lived west of Orfana on the continent. There were a couple of snowy mountains between the two tribes.

And west of Qemo was the large island of Satig. Sabato made an island that rained a lot. He decided that they would fish in the ocean. And he gave them large trees that could handle the cold weather.

South of Ofrana would be the Emsus. They lived on a small island. They could spend their time farming and catching large fish.

And east of the Ofrana would be the Amroc. They lived in a large range. It was an open steppe for the the Amroc with pockets of desert in between. And east of the Amroc would be the Siohek. They lived in a hot jungle near the ocean that stretched out and ended with the vast mountain ranges so the oceans would not rise and drown them.

And on the Far East was the Daffa. Their continent was a land of deserts and mountains.

Sabato liked this layout. He hoped it created order.

Tuja was bored. She wanted things to be more exciting.

She wondered if she could make the children hate each other.

It would be like the time she made the fish eat each other.

But much more fun.

She couldn’t even imagine the options.

So she waited.

And she tried to make things interesting.

She made them jealous of one another.

And she made it hard for the people to be happy.

And she watched as the tribes fought one another.

She laughed as they turned against each other.

Tuja told herself that she didn’t like drama.

That was a lie.

She enjoyed the mess she created.

And that’s when she decided that her time manipulating the world around her was ending.

She was done with the responsibilities. She wanted to eat special food that she had created.

And so, Sabato created the lower gods. The New Ones who would take care of the new world.

He created Imjir, God of Death. And his brother Irasil, God of Nature.

And he created Umir, God of the Causes. He was the one the humans would look at for blame.

Sabato could create, but he couldn’t handle the complicated new world he created. He felt constrained by the responsibility of having order.

He wondered if he had created enough Gods.

Tuja had gone crazy with her obsession with the humans. So Sabato created Kakabel, the angel to help Tuja when she needed it.

Sabato was losing it.

He was building a castle on Orfan Mountain. He wanted to spend the rest of his days there. He searched for inner strength.

But even though he tried, he lusted for his creation.

For lust was power. That natural feeling of order.

The humans were bringing out something in him. It didn’t feel good.

Tuja and Sabato were neither good nor evil. They merely were.

And maybe that was a problem in this new world they created.