Prologue
The dull chime of the elevator arriving brought the sleepy-eyed, coffee deprived man back from his brief daydream and back to the reality of life. Just another day, the same as yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and on and on. The days and weeks blur into months and then years just step on by without any warning and suddenly you're so much older than you remember being.
The man sighed, adjusted his gray windbreaker and shuffled into the empty elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor, something he had done thousands of times over the years. As the doors closed he pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking the time.
7:10 the screen showed, letting him know that he had just about twenty minutes to get to work. Plenty of time to stop for a coffee and have a smoke, as usual. If there was one thing he was, it was predictable He liked routine and punctuality, it made things easier, more predictable. It helped too that work was only a 10 minute walk away.
The elevator opened a short minute later and he stepped out, putting his phone back into his left pants pocket while he fished the red pack of cigarettes and lighter from his right pocket. The lobby was empty, as he knew it would be, as it always is at this time, and right on cue as he pushed open the door to the outside, the cigarette was already between his lips and being lit. A slow, pleasurable exhale of gray smoke came next as he went down the steps to the apartments and made his way to the crosswalk just ahead.
A neighbors dog was barking, and a couple of cars were waiting at the stop light as he approached, his eyes on the coffee shop a couple of blocks down. Caffeine and nicotine were his two favorite breakfast items. He waited as the light turned green and the drivers went on their way. The coast was clear.
He stepped off the curb and onto the crosswalk, and into nothingness. There was no feeling, nothing to see, or hear. There was no darkness or light, distance or future. Time didn't exist, the past never happened and the now is nothingness. Eternity means nothing when there is nothing to measure it against. The consciousness, or soul or spirit of who he was, was all that remained, a frozen sliver of something in an infinitely vast nothingness. He no longer knew fear or happiness, struggle or heartbreak. It was bliss, the ignorance of everything, or would have been if there was bliss to be had. The only thing that he knew was that he still existed.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
While he existed and where or for how long, he didn't know and it really didn't matter, he had no thoughts, just the vague sense that he was. If he could have, he would have seen and been aware of the other Existences around him, slowly but surely being ushered along to wherever they were going by an unseen shepherd.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Shepherd observed impassively as its charges flowed onward towards The Gateway to be reintroduced into The Continuum. The process was mostly autonomous, with The Shepherd never really having to do much of anything but watch, as these wayward Existences had no will or direction and simply drifted along in the current like flotsam. One of those pieces of Existence was brought to their attention by a gentle chiming and a nearly imperceptive pulse of energy coming from the vast expanse of nothingness they all inhabited.
It had felt far too long since The Shepherd was able to fulfill its purpose and a feeling akin to glee was felt by them as they guided the chime ever closer until they could grasp the Existence, inspecting it, laying bare everything that made up that Existence. So, the Continuum had marked this one, and as The Shepherd finished its inspection, if it could have grinned, it would have.
A fragile little thing, full of so much potential, potential that had always been there if it had had the chance or opportunity to bring it out of them. The potential for change, progress, evolution. They were imbued with the potential to change everything that has been, and a sense of fulfillment coursed through the being of The Shepherd. It had been far too long since it last was able to serve its purpose. To bring change.
Change was the nature of existence, the foundation of adaption and survival. Stagnation would infect everything worse than any cancer if change never came, and change would never come without a catalyst. This small little Existence that The Shepherd looked at lovingly would be that force of change, if it decided. Change can't be forced, and the Right of Choice was an immutable law of The Continuum, and all The Shepherd could really do was guide the Existence to where it needed to be to facilitate any chance of bringing change, regardless of what that would mean. It watched, a little less impassively than before as that Existence was pushed along towards a separate flow, all by itself until it passed beyond The Gateways and to its next journey.