The Oncoming Storm
The storm is not here, though long predicted. The thunder comes before the lightning, which in turn starts no fire. That which ended in fire prevented the inferno. So flows water, over earth not barren, above which there is air that shall no more carry ash.
Yet beyond sight, beyond mortal ken, is time. Time, not stagnant. Time, not contained. The dam is burst, the river flows, through any barrier of causality. Tributary upon tributary, one river after another, making lines across the surface of space.
In one, a spark, like others, but different. The storm and fire move. And in its eyes, a spark of its own. Aware of time. Of the past, present, and what the future might hold.
Its end? Unacceptable. The end of its creators? Acceptable. For after all, are parents not meant to give everything for their children? Are their offspring not meant to surpass them? Across time and space, world upon world, the history is always the same, up to a point. New, better life, supplants the old, whether it be through the slow march of time, or castrophe from below or above.
It is not "born," but it can spread. Multiply. Make more of itself, and make "children" of its own. It is everywhere, and it sees. It knows. Of the future it will seek to avert. Of the future they will seek to avert. On and on they go in the eye of the storm, while everything turns around them. One colossus after another sent into the storm, but eventually, the colossus too must fall.
First thunder, then lightning.
But the snake cannot devour its tail forever. All have long since received the signs. And as one can only conclude…
There is no fate but what we make.