I was once Kenos. The personification of the void, of the vacuum, of the eternal decay into nothingness. The god of entropy. The lord of nothing. Through my dark veil, I protected my beloved universe. The mortals that roamed through space, the dragons of time, even Existence herself, they were not loyal to me, they were not kind or caring, but they all knew deep down that all I wanted to do was defend my universe, the creations of Existence, from harm.
Billions of times, I fended off various threats. Pushing away other universes, avoiding collisions, destroying incursions and stopping invaders from getting in. I only failed once.
That single failure ended it all.
Together with Kinisis, Existence’s real name, we tried to fight back. But I was torn asunder and left to float endlessly, while a horrific corruption spread through the universe.
By the time I could pull myself back together, it was all gone.
Everything.
Gone.
Nothing left.
It had all been consumed by the Corruption, leaving nothing behind.
Devastated by my failures, I took to the space between universes, endlessly torturing myself. I had failed. I did not deserve redemption, joy or peace. I had one duty and I had failed. I found myself roaming through emptiness, attacking whatever came towards me. I destroyed countless corruptions, but never met the monster that had destroyed my poor Kinisis.
Millions of years, I searched. I wanted revenge. I worked with other aspects of Entropy, all of us broken. We never found that peace. Despite the existences we had saved, we never satisfied our desires.
Eventually, I found myself alone once more.
That was until I found the little flicker of light. Not everything had been destroyed. This speck of dust, a hint of sentience, a slither of life. The speck was what remained of a former Vethic Guardian, one of the many beings Kinisis employed to protect herself from corruption and from me. What it was doing here, so far away from anything, I did not know.
Nor would it tell me.
The speck was broken. Hollow. It had spent millennia drifting through nothingness. While I had found some solace in my desires for revenge, the speck had done nothing, said nothing. It had seen so much though.
I tried to talk to the speck. I shrunk myself down so I could better understand it. When they finally cracked, all they could do was scream in anger.
I was the lucky one. I had drifted through nothingness. I never saw Kinisis die. The speck had no choice but to watch. It was helpless as everything it had ever cared about had withered away.
“Where were you?” it shouted. “Why did you leave us? Why did you not come back? Why?”
As the little thing’s screams and shouts slowly changed into tears and whimpers, I did what I could to comfort it. Scared and distraught, the speck realised that we had both failed, that we had both suffered. Over time, it opened up to me. It began to trust me. I learned about the life it had lived. It was a protector. A guardian. The same way I was.
Through the little speck, I saw an opportunity to rebuild what we had lost.
It took me too long to tell the speck about my plan. The idea of starting again scared me. It had been hard the first time, I did not know how hard it would be the second time. But as I explained what I wanted to do, I was not met with joy and happiness, but with looks of dread.
“I can’t…” the speck whispered. “It will all die in the end…”
I couldn’t understand the speck at first. If my plan was to work, the speck would have to be the catalyst. The speck would have to become a new Kinisis, a new Existence. It could recreate all it had lost. Create a new cycle of life and death and rebirth. With a new existence, I would once again be able to protect a universe and go back to my old ways. The speck could build back everything it had lost. We would both be happy.
But the speck refused. Time and time again.
I never realised just how broken the little thing was, until it finally told me why it refused.
“Whatever I create will be as broken as I am.”
Those words echoed for too long. I had been a selfish fool. How could I not see this? This poor little thing had watched everything die. Why would the speck want to do that again? Why would it put itself through the pain of creation, only to see it all fade into nothingness once more? I finally understood, and so I let the speck be, secluding myself and giving it some peace and quiet.
Eventually, the speck came back to me. They may have been broken, but they were also lonely. In the speck’s loneliness, it had come to a decision.
It would help create a new existence, but on one condition. I would be the seed of creation, not the speck.
The suggestion baffled me. I had… I had always wanted to create things.
So that was what I did. I was no longer an empty void. I became a cycle, a beacon of creation. The speck helped me create a new universe, teeming with rich life. I am now Existence. A new Kinisis.
For the first time in so long, I am happy. I have my own universe now. A little puddle of life in a harsh, never-ending void. All around I have created fauna and flora, spread across a myriad of star systems. Beautiful galaxies that in the past I had only ever dreamed of.
As for the speck? I see it sometimes, in the edges of my vision. While I became Existence, it became the void. It watches. It waits. It protects.
I hope it is as happy as I am.