Genesis

A Myst Fanfiction
by: ahsirakh

And they lived happily ever after.

I lifted my pen from the page and studied the finishing results of those countless nights of labouring at my desk. Reading the magnificent sentence that crowned the work I had accomplished once more, a smile brightened my face and obscured the pale complexion and dark rings that had also been a culmination of my nighttime forays. Indeed, it was all worthwhile. Father would be pleased, if he were to be sprung upon in the morning with this masterpiece, of course. I hardly believe he would feel the same were he to spring upon me this late into the night. Noiselessly I reached out to snuff the dimly lit firemarble in its lamp holder, then proceeded to bed.

Several years had now passed since I was four years of age, when Father had decided not to send me to the Guild of Writers, explaining that he would "personally instruct me as to the minutiae involved in manufacture of works of art". Subsequently he had lectured me one-to-one on the creativity that was necessary in Writing. Without explaining further, he began teaching me the typical method of Writing: to begin with a single word before proceeding into specifications. I mastered this style meekly, but viewing many Writings by the adults Father deemed experts left me bewildered and disinterested. Why would anyone be appealed by mere descriptions of places, however beautiful?

Thus began my own journey into a different aspect of Writing, hoping to impress these experts with a novel style, a style that would astonish everyone else with its ingenuity. For whenever adults came together to sit at a table for a platter of ikhah nijuhets or some other small delicacy, the choice of conversation would always begin and end with scientific topics such as the basaltic formation of trachylyte. One cannot blame them, I guess. It is their nature. I can only hope I will not become the same.

Of course, having no freedom of my own, there was an obligatory... acquisition I had to undertake (I did not relish the idea of describing the action I committed a theft; it sounded much too criminal, albeit it probably was.) While Father was away and Mother's attention was diverted elsewhere, I managed to sneak into the former's study and procure a sufficiently large tome for my venture into the narrative, which had promise to produce things more wondrous than any sheer description could achieve.

It was to be a story of two contrasting worlds. One would be abundant, filled with nothing but light, seas, grass and trees, of greater light and of life; in it would live people with hearts of ardent curiosity for all that was possible. The other would be barren, empty of everything but darkness, earth, dust and ashes, of lesser light and of death; in it would exist, and but exist, macabre shells with interest in nothing but eternal tedium.

Then I sent a being from the plentiful world to its bleak counterpart, but sadly, the natives of the latter refused to accept anything that differed from their inexistence. And when tolerance fluttered between these corpses there was destruction, and eventually there remained only the best, sad though they were from the loss of all that had been. In the end, there remained only ceaseless good.

And they lived happily ever after.

Father would be pleased. I could well imagine his smile, his contentment when I proved his statement, that I did not fully utilise my creative potential, wrong. It was a situation I could barely wait till morning for.

But then morning arrived.

"This is wonderful, my son!"

My father's exclamation of satisfaction did not serve to encourage me. In fact, it left me even further depressed. I knew he had not uttered those words for my original Writing style, for he had already spent quite some time admonishing me over it-- it was not the sign of a gifted Writer; the blood of Writing ran in the veins of the family's history, and I was not to disappoint my ancestors; there was nothing to be made of Writing tales since no one bothered to read them: even arguing along the line that our entire race had always lived on stories drew a complete blank, simply inducing even more lectures.

"Yes, the great potential it holds..."

Father glanced again at my handiwork, drew an intake of breath, and sprang suddenly to action: he strode to his desk in three steps that would normally have taken him seven; cleared every sheaf of paper with a wide swiping movement that emptied the desk of them, snatched a large book from the bookshelf standing timidly beside him, and proceeded to Write as quickly as his eager hands could take him. A nervous apprentice rushed forwards and did the best he could to arrange the clutter Father had swept to the floor.

"It is of no importance, don't bother--"

The apprentice fell back, a look of bewilderment registered on his countenance. I was just as bewildered. Never had I seen Father as excited, as crazed as this, especially in the past weeks: he had looked ready to rip his hair entirely off as document after document with the Council's official seal was placed continually upon his desk.

"Two worlds, of course... why didn't I think of that before?"

Two worlds. What was the significance of that simple phrase? When Father had murmured it, something had struck an alien note at the back of my mind... just what was it about two worlds?

"... together as one..."

So that was it. He would Write an Age that would bring the two worlds, one of light and one of darkness, together. But why? What was his purpose for doing such a thing?

"I shall give them everything them want, yet nothing they will not work for... It is perfect."

I felt a sudden chill of foreboding. My father had always taught me never to Write an Age that offered a heaven, which would provide inhabitants with nothing but complacency and dependency. If his intention was to place both worlds together, just so there would exist the paradise the Council of Garternay had requested but the Ronay would never access, then the paradise would certainly be the world of light I had described. This meant, naturally, that...

My heart sank. Silently I cried for these D'ni. They would have their new start, led into one of two worlds that Father would select for them. And I already knew which of the two he would choose.