Let's play?

In the beginning it was chaos.

Let's say that, despite being a overused phrase, it is the best way to describe how things were.

I could also avoid looking around, I would have lost time: abundant stellar fragments, light trails and endless black danced in the universe, as if someone had taken and shaken it as you do with those balls filled with artificial snow.

There was everything, and there was nothing. Everything had lost its original destination, if it ever had one, and living beings were counted how many heads a Hydra could generate. Surviving in that unusual atmosphere due to the fact that they did not live properly. Their vital functions were blocked, so the pressure exerted by the fragments of the stars did not affect their bodies.

By a rough calculation, billions of creatures roamed into Nothing unconsciously, totally unaware of where they were and where they were going, or rather just do not care. They were well formed wraps, but still wraps.

Humans, animals, demons, dragons, elves, dozens of species of monstrous creatures. All that the imagination could spring was there, looking around without seeing something.

I was among them. I was also wandering aimlessly in those bleak moors. My conscience remained steadfast, perhaps the only certainty of that aplit universe. Something that I could call blood ran frantically in what I would describe as veins, again if my body can be said compounded as that of a human being. Yet it had the shape and properties, but with completely different performances.

It was the Power that intoxicated me, a divine fluid that yearned for the destruction of what was already in the hands of a sad and imminent end.

As for being the only one properly survived, the loneliness of that vision played on my senses, as to want to say that in the end it was my fault.

What crime, you ask?

I'm not allowed to give a complete answer. Too many questions were submitted to me and too many were those answered. Maybe that's why I'm not allowed to reveal too much, because really an answer had turned a complete creation in a complete chaos.

But the greatest fault was yet another.

I smiled. I found it funny to levitate between those fragments and dead bodies that they couldn't sense my presence, or rather, it was the only fun this situation could give me after the utter destruction.

I stood on one man in particular. I touched his face with one ethereal hand: I could feel his anger, his cynicism, his total distrust, while not feeling any of these feelings. If he had lived on a planet and had met other people, it would have been obsessed to madness.

I stroked his cheek and hair, leaving him to his blind and future despair.

Curious, that game was fun.

I moved about a young woman nearby, who held her hand to another woman. Two species joined by a touch they could not perceive or really wanted.

I put my hands on their faces, their eyes were open but the gaze was absent. The youngest one had a candid but furious mood, the other a troubled and turbulent spirit. The youungest one would have lived in the memory by pursuing an ideal, the other would run away from the remembrance choosing a new life.

I moved my hand on their joined, separating them. Everything had already been written in the Book, it should be like that.

A little later another man was floating with his arms locked on his chest. He held nothing, or perhaps something, a tiny fragment of light.

His figure was solemn and protective. Touching his folded arms, the light flickered for a moment, but his body did not move. His future was marked by so many emotions, so much pleasure, as pain. The whole thing was tied to that bright and vibrant light that seemed not wish to be separated from him. I gave a smile even to that creature, surely he would have treasured it.

I met many other bodies with an interesting mind and troubled by the possible future. There were just few interesting beings compared to the many other creatures from the calm and monotonous fate. Everything I saw in them was the absolute carelessness and ignorance towards other demons around them. I dared not even touch one of those abominable creatures. The chaos was eroding their bodies, penetrating deeply in their innermost being, nothing could bring them back to the original state. Many of these were even become ghosts of themselves, corrupted until the hypothetical core. To look or not in their future, I would not have seen nothing but crimson red.

Boredom pervaded me, replacing the loneliness and resignation.

I could play with the essences of all kinds, but apart from the first results there were not too many of my interest. I did not know what I was exactly looking for, maybe a playmate? Yet I was not a child that needed to provide a fun at all costs. I had no clear feelings, I have not nowadays.

Yet I would have paid any price for a little entertainment.

I could snap my fingers and voilà, one of the bodies would be animated to entertain me or tell me many stories. Time was not a problem, in that place, but empty talks with a doll would be fun just for some time. I just needed to play, and play and play again. I had the full right and power, but without an impetus motivating I would not have lifted a finger to my surroundings.

The darkness was silence.

Then the silence became hiss.

Yes, a faint noise but too acute for those who had good hearing. Needless to say, mine was developed to the highest level: I could hear the song of a siren from miles away, as the call of a dispersed into the desert where there's only howling wind and sand. I had many fortunes, it is true, and among them the misfortune to endure any insistent event.

I turned and met nothing else but bodies, which now I began to consider my victims. None of them made odd hissing, going down a inexistent path aimlessly and without breath, they could not even see my figure. The silence came back for a long moment, that even the slow moving fragments didn't release the typical rub in the astral universe.

I resigned and began to discover the souls of the onlookers. This time I came across a dark sphere, which was constantly changing shape in a small human, then back round and elusive. I walked slowly, I was not in a hurry, hoping to catch it during the human transformation. I pulled my hand but drew back immediately: corruption had taken over, turning an innocent creature into something unstable and capricious. Some of his endings were extended steadfastly towards neighboring bodies, drying up all their energy, by increasing the main body.

It was a disgusting presence. It would be expanded soon, but without being able to dry me up, sucking any other form of life. Insatiable and disgusting, but capricious as a human child without games.

Just how I felt.

I walked away from that being, my intervention was useless at that time. Stopping the growth of the creatures was not my business.

He was not alone, however, groped to invade the minds of the neighboring bodies. Further, a large mass was eating a hoard of essences, drying them up and becoming gigantic at sight of eye. Compared to me, it was something terribly huge and smelled of destruction. Another thing I hate is the acrid smell of supremacy and pride. At a minimum, this mass would have to divide to act in his prime, or would have escaped the control of its own power, destroying himself and everything. Or maybe it was just what it would point in the future.

So the sound went back.

Pressing my hands over my ears would not have done any good, who is incorporeal is crossed otherwise from any external sensation, although voices narrate the opposite. I was a living proof, the only one currently, an ethereal body that could detest too pungent sounds.

This time I heard it coming from my left, so I hurried to verify its source. I gave a last glance to the last black mass: it was incorporating the body of a man with absent gaze. I could feel it. In a probable future he would do anything to achieve his purpose, even it that means devastating consequences, as if that was not enough the state in which the universe was at present.

The sound, however, was far more important.

A strange excitement expanded in my whole soul. Someone lived, or at least it seemed, and it was calling in a so insistent and annoying way. Maybe it would have played with me, it would give me a bit of its company, we would travel together to discover the boundaries of the galaxy even aware that there was none.

I made space between the stellar debris, moving them only with the imposition of my hand. These paved the way for me, showing me the entry of a black hole in the remaining Black. A spatial distortion, simply opened. Nothing sucked inside or rejected outside. It was exising without existing properly, it lived without living and emitted that sound.

Fear has never existed in my vocabulary. Any being, except the demons, would be lost forever if it wanted to walk through that door to oblivion, but all that did not affect me, I was neither living being nor a demon. I took a step to the hole, I looked behind me, I noticed that the external vacuum was somewhat eventful, while the empty interior was totally dead.

"Who are you?" I asked to whatever was whistling. I did not expect an answer, but I longed, as long as anyone could establish a contact with me.

As I suspected, I received silent about my question and the sound continued, becaming more and more acute. I could go on even deeper without falling in danger and so I did. I walked into nothing for a countless time, observing a landscape full of emptiness. Boredom seemed to have calmed down thanks to that curious trick, but the fact remained that patience was failing.

I needed only a nod, a single nod.

I raised my index finger and pointed it in front of me. I called the power that harbored in my being, drawing an invisible circle. "Show yourself." I said, ending the gesture by opening the whole hand, and now a traced shape was pulsing of a blinding white.

Something showed. Someone.

Huddled in itself, with its arms encircling legs and knees to the chest, the female figure seemed more a anthropomorphic form of an egg that has not yet opened up to a little girl. Still emitting that annoying hiss, now stronger than ever, going on its proximity.

I smiled enthusiastically. "Let's play?" I said in a small voice, placing a hand on the head with waving hair.

The sound ceased immediately.

I pulled away. I could not feel anything. My body was not pervaded by the typical shock that the other bodies gave me, sending me their characters, their intentions and their destinies. That figure did not emit anything. It was a doll.

An empty shell.

How could I play with a box with no games inside?

I tried to touch her again, caressing her face, shoulders, arms, every inch of its being. Once and another. I had never met a body without essence before that moment, unless I have emptied it personally. In that case, of course, it was naturally empty.

Frustrated and bitter, I abandoned the girl and headed for the exit. I was teased, ridiculed by anyone except by myself. I chased a sound like you do with a butterfly in a field, forgetting that sooner or later I would have lost sight of it or that butterfly would not have been so much out of the ordinary. I just had to find another fun, maybe going back to the first analyzed bodies, yes, those had all the look to be excellent puppets. I could change the rules of the Book and put my hand on their stories, inventing new ones, mixing the events between multiple creatures.

Then, the sound again.

Before walking through the door on outer space, I turned once again. That figure, partly in shadow and partly illuminated by the residue of my power, crackled and throbbed.

Convinced that it was trying to draw my attention and while it wanted to make fun of me, I decided to return. I would have punished it, making it disappearing from the universe, it would have repented to be so elusive and preserving its souls for only itself. To me it owed its existence, to me it would return.

A few inches from her, I bent and watched her face better. Her eyes were closed and she had no expression, just stood still. Useless. A senseless waste of space devoid of energy. I had really created all this? Did I waste my time in devising an empty shell that sounded sad vibrations?

"Let me see again what you are." And saying that, I touched her forehead. For the umpteenth, last time, I established a metaphysical contact with her.

Then I remembered.

In the beginning it was chaos.

And in the chaos there was me, just me.

I was the Chaos.

It was not a pretty sight and there was nothing to do. I did not know the reason for my existence or what I was looking for. Just one need made space in the vast Sea and it was to find a playmate.

At the time I could be called a child, according to human stages. An arrogant brat who wanted to play to build a world, a universe. So I did, like having fun with colored bricks and mud to give birth to one, ten, a thousand, billions of creatures and places.

After deciding their location, I touched them one by one, giving them a conscience. They were disoriented, unaware but terribly curious. As I was at the time, I watched everything in the shadows, manipulating them at my will to create a bedtime story I most befitting.

Among them, there were just horrific creatures. It would not be funny to omit them. Obviously the latter were not compatible with most of the other existences and vice versa. They did war. They destroyed each other. Suddenly the game was no longer funny.

Some creatures called a name. They invoked it several thousand more, all aimed at a single entity. And gladly I gave them the answers they were looking for, reassuring, promising serenity. I deceived them for fun and naivety, hoping to renew my thirst for joy. The game of war continued despite this and, frightened by the ferocity that harbored many beings, I decided to put an end to everything.

It spent some time since then. My conscience was asleep, giving me a not entirely deserved rest, leaving my entire spirit maturing. With the passing of the ages, even my body turned on a more recognizable form, very similar to that of humans who I had used as pawns.

In all this, I had forgotten my first creation.

I was uncertain of its functioning and destiny, I just wanted to try to see what would happen. I infused my power into that creature of female fashion, without thinking about giving her a personality and a story. She had to serve only as a prototype for the rest of her kind, and yet I transmitted most of my infinite power to test her strength.

Then I left her, interested in the construction of all other living beings. I put her aside, as you do with a used puppet in the attic that does not have the playful effect on a grown child anymore.

That little girl had never stopped wanting to play.

I smiled at my baby, wrapping it in a warm embrace. I felt a slight vibration, the hissing stopped but was immediately replaced by a golden glitter. The body was now hot, with that Power darting inside.

"You're part of me." I whispered in her ear, holding her in the grip of my arms. A sister, no, a daughter, that's what she was. I would have followed her every step, in every place, at every meeting. I could no longer afford to give up that being, closer to me than any other creation in the universe. I had to give her something. I had to give myself something.

I reported everything that I had built to its primordial state, sacrificing part of my power. The worlds and its inhabitants had returned to their initial state, but I had erased their memories and I had given them something much more interesting.

The freedom of choice.

Others wars followed in which I did not set participate, as many moments of happiness for all living creatures. Evil beings, that had engulfed the dark power, made their daring moves several times but were thwarted by other benevolent forces. Would it continue like this endlessly? Moreover, be free to choose also meant to grow an ego and with it the most disparate decisions.

As for my favorite creature, instead, I decided to send her into the world much later than the others. She must develop and follow her own path, meeting unimaginable challenges and undeniable trusted companions, under the protective veil of her original creator.

I am still wondering why I had not thought right away that funny game.

That girl is my best creation, the one and only able to call my power at will. Lina Inverse is not aware of what happened at the beginning of the world, or at least not totally. It's okay like this, basically.

And, speaking of me, I continue to observe the world in which I put her, feeling a shiver of pleasure to imagine what will happen in her next adventure.

Few beings created by me have a vague memory of my figure. They have nicknamed me as the Mother of all things, the primordial Chaos, the one who created the Sea of Darkness.

But among the many epithets they gave me, my favorite is definitely LON.

Lord of Nightmare.