Ode to Annihilation
"close our eyes, don't let us see
this world is a catastrophe
what you built is broken now
we burned it all to ash somehow
one girl's fire, one man's blight
so much for your panem's might
now here you stand, regrets and all
it's time for your dear world to fall."
- my-mental-mind
The world was breaking.
Walking amongst its ruins, he saw everything they'd built crumble to ash. Glass towers piercing the clouds, vehicles conquering sea and sky, machinery with the ability to feel - all of it, reduced to rubble. All of it leveled to the ground.
Humankind had brought itself to the brink so many times, fought until there was nobody left to fight and destroyed until there was nothing left to destroy. Like spoiled children, they discarded every toy they outgrew, leaving broken pieces in their wake.
Was this their thanks for his creation?
He had made a promise long ago, to never again interfere. As he cut a path through the charred landscape, however, he couldn't bring himself to sit idly by. This place had been a verdant jungle once, teeming with enough wildlife to populate a planet.
To them, the preservation of welfare was enough reason to uproot the entire ecosystem, sacrificing the species it inhabited by doing so.
Species they hadn't cared to learn existed.
It was repugnant.
Funny, too, that they had chosen a bird of reincarnation as their symbol of hope when all it did was bring them closer towards dystopia.
Looking out into the burning horizon, his eyes found a young woman, fingers clasped firmly around a taut bowstring. His eyes settled on an elderly man, hands tied to a pole, coughing blood onto his white shirt whilst laughing hysterically.
A vengeful daughter. A corrupted leader.
Together, they would bring the end.
But not on his watch.
Throwing both arms wide, darkness descended from above, eclipsing everything it touched. Spreading, like a shroud of nothingness, humanity took its last breath.
His mistakes were amended, buried beneath oblivion, removed from existence.
Annihilation. Seven days of extinction.
Then the world was born anew.
echoverse . weebly . com
What might this be?
Hello, all. This Sunday evening, I'm bringing you something I don't think any of my readers were quite expecting (especially those of you who have not been teased about it on Discord).
You see, I've been wanting to expand on my portion of the echoverse for a long time. Most of my friends on here know by now that I'm an absolute worldbuilding fiend (not in the sense that I'm a master, more so that I love it with all of my heart) and so an idea hit me: why not make a story out of the documents I've compiled rather than keeping them all to myself.
My ambition with this installment is chronicling the major events from New Rome's creation up to the 20th Hunger Games (ITA), starting with this cryptic little vignette. I'd love to hear your interpretation of it. Who was the narrator and what exactly did they do?
I feel like I should add a disclaimer, as well, that this doesn't mean the end of Into The Abyss. I simply needed a short break, and this gave me some time to focus on something else. An Ode is a side project that I don't intend to take anything away from my SYOT.
I'd also like to give a shout-out to the wonderful fireflyllama, who's publishing her last chapter of Crown of Thorns tonight. It's such a brilliant read. If you want a good laugh, cry and/or panic attack, it's definitely worth checking out.
Lastly, huge thanks go out to my collab partner my-mental-mind for the STUNNING poem at the start of this chapter. I'm super excited to have him along for yet another journey.
That's all for this time. I can't promise when I'll update this next, but a second chapter shall come!
Until then,
- Remus