On the highest stratum of the world, called Haven, there was the Gear. The Overseer of the world, which the mortals refer to as the Will of the Gear. Below Haven, there lived the Goddess, in a Sanctuary high above the stratum in which dwelled the mortals, a place they called the Cradle.

We were one with the Goddess, and then we separated from her. As the seasons transformed from dry to rain, we wrote. As civilizations formed and then crumbled in time, we took note. The world forgot about us, but the Goddess remembered.

We could not discard the book, for it was us. Bound like a permanent tattoo that cannot be removed or cleaned, it was there that we wrote: life and death, fate and prophecy—we wrote down everything.

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I never questioned the Goddess; I loved her. But I hated keeping records—all the ugliness of the world, all the momentary pleasures, the desires that are not eternal. I told the Goddess that, and she just glanced at me and shook her head sadly. To me, it was a sign of her weakness. Her body was frail. She couldn’t take care of herself, nor was she good at managing the world. Or maybe that's just how it should be; it was twice that chaos marred the world, making the others and me write down the consequences.

I didn’t understand what made me do it; perhaps it was boredom or ingrained disgust, but one time when no one cared, when chaos demanded nothing, I did something very rash.

I ran away from the world.