===Long Ago -===

He Who Does Not Sleep moved in the darkness.  All was black, as it surveyed the infinite void around itself.  The being felt nothing, heard nothing.  It might have hated the nothing that was both its body and its surroundings, but it knew of nothing else.  It could not hate for it had nothing to love.  It knew only the infinite nothing.  

Time did not touch this place.  No seasons came, no hearts beat, nothing changed from one moment to the next save for the beasts’ thoughts.  It thought however of nothing.  It did not do for to do it required something, and here there was only nothing, only it.  And so He Who Does Not Sleep existed, and waited. 

Into this world of infinite nothing came something.  A spark, a window to the brightness and light of the world.  .   The window was small.  A pin prick of light against the curtain of black.  But the intensity of a sudden something where there was nothing burned the beast as if a thousand suns had been unleashed.   And for a moment, He Who Does Not Sleep was blinded.  With the light came time as the light dimmed and grew in its own way; one moment became different than the last; variety came where there was none.  It seemed like it went on forever, since time had never touched this place before.  Even a moment of difference felt like thousands of years.  The seconds stretched across eternity.  It was struck dumb by the intensity of something against the nothing it had always known. 

In that moment it learned.  As the tiny bit of light shone upon the black it learned hate.  It hated what was different.  It hated the light that had come into its womb of dark.  It hated the something, and longed again for the nothing.  Even as the tiny spot of light dulled to an ache in its head, it hated the order it imposed on its world.  There was now up and down, left and right, even if they were only in relation to where the light was.  Suddenly the darkness of its world became a prison.  It stewed and over time grew more impatient and knew greater hatred.  

Curse the light that had come to this place. Curse the something where there was nothing.

It flexed its power.  Now with something to act against it realized it was strong.  It pushed and strained, it realized was contained.  It bent against the sides, feeling walls where there had been infinity.  Restricted, trapped, it raged.  It roared, and sound came to the darkness, echoing off the walls of the enclosure that suddenly had become far too small for its size.  He Who Does Not Sleep shook and tussled. It pushed at the light, trying to block it with his form, but it could not.  

Its thoughts changed again, now to escape.  The light had shown it its cage and now it must be free.  Within it burned the need to be free of all of it and the light had shown it its power, and its size.  

It threw itself at the hole, pushed at it, clawed at it, like a drowning victim trying to find purchase. It rattled the edges of its prison, its form growing fingers to slide into the hole, to rip at it, to tear it apart, to free itself.  Its fingers slid against the smooth sides of its containment finding no place to grip against the walls that held it fast.  

The walls moaned as it raged, and the hole widened slightly, buckling under the force of its blows and exploding outward.  Excited it redoubled its efforts, smashing the barrier, but try as it might, it could not push the hole open any larger.  It could not change the size and shape of its window to the world.  But its form was mutable, it could not break out, but it could slide a bit of itself through.  A tendril reached out, out of the prison of infinite darkness and reached into the world of the light.  

A plan was formed.  If it could not escape it would reach out into the world of the light and snuff it out.  Kill the light, and share with those on the other side the peace of infinite abyss.  Of a darkness without end…


AllEvents