Prologue: Let there be Light

-----------------------------------------

The power rips through him, tearing great rents in his skin. He feels his blood boil in his veins and knows that this will be his end.

He will not go quietly. Not now, not after all his sacrifices, after all the sleepless nights spent writhing in agony as he shaped his body to the Light. Not with his loved ones waiting just beyond the veil; so close he can feel their fingers brush through his hair and hear their soothing whispers.

He closes his eyes, burning tears snaking down his cheeks. ‘It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would. Just numbness and tingles. Guess I paid upfront for it.’

The Light is coming from everywhere now, every crack and hole in his battered body spewing enough power to sustain a city for a day; and it just keeps coming. His eyes open again, and he locks eyes with a Hole in the World. It recoils from the burning pillars of Light coming from his eyes and lets out a scream that shakes the earth beneath them.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He floats, just a little higher, and brings his limbs together; three pairs of wings cradling his burning form, and the luminescence increases rapidly.

His core cracks. Then shatters.

The sound of breaking glass echoes first in his mind, then in reality; drawing another wail from the Hole.

The world ends with the resounding chime of shards of glass, and an expanding sphere of Light that subsumes surrounding matter, turning the very rock into pure Light.

He feels none of it; just a creeping warmth that he sinks readily into, and the sensation of arms cradling his form.

Maybe not the End he wanted, but one he would accept.

‘Peace at last…peace at last.’

-----------------------------------------

His eyes open, not to his smiling family, but to an unfamiliar ceiling.