His commands and her cries of resistance were swallowed by the wind and thunder, which soon expired too. Air, sand, and power faded from reality until even their memory was gone. Neither soul was sure how long it had been since the tribulation, only that it represented a threshold they couldn’t cross again. Together, Kory and Sohrab sailed silent and shapeless through the expanse between worlds, without even starlight to guide their path. Nothing to cling to but the vague notion of one another, always as it shouldn’t have been, forever as it had to be. The latest stage in a centuries’ old vengeful prophecy had reached fruition at last. But what if it hadn’t? What if they weren’t enough?

  After floating through the formless void with only the fading singe of cataclysm behind them, a celestial body appeared, hidden for so long and grander than anybody remembered. This world, resplendent with light and color was at once more ancient and advanced than possible within the limits of time. The two wandering spirits began to take shape, knowing without being told that they witnessed the most glorious vision, the sweetest glimpse of something unreal. Before them hung the self-named diadem of existence, the Great Forge from which all forms of intelligent life sprang, all forms, that is, save the first one.

  Even from this far off vantage point, as they descended to the glittering planet, the two felt the scorching wind of entropy. The seeds of primordial hatred were planted here long before the first dressed stones of the great palaces and sprawling altars were laid. Something foundational poisoned this picture of serenity. And as their feet touched the ground, their wills embodied once more, they turned to one another and saw themselves as they really were; man and woman, friend and foe, mere bit players in this sweeping, cosmic tragedy.

  “I’ll try to explain as best I know how,” he whispered, as he held her close. “You weren’t meant to be here alone. None of us were.” For a time, they walked hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, in a watercolor garden under an indigo sky. Gleaming orbs of golden light hung between the trees as turquoise ones shone from beneath the surface of shallow pools. Paths as wide as highways made of bricks the size of houses cut through the wooded glade, though none were left to walk them. Absent from this vision was any sort of sound or scent to tether it. Where there should have been a pleasant breeze or the fragrance of flowers, hung only sterile stillness.

  “It’s beautiful,” she sighed sadly, unsure which part of the vista would wither and die first. “But where is everyone… anyone?” She felt his left hand squeeze her right.

  “They’re not here anymore, and neither are we. We’ve only stolen a memory from the ones who can’t exist outside of it.”

  “Who were they?” she asked. “And what do they want with us?”

  “Forgive the imposition…” he said gently, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “…but it’s the only way I know how to tell a good story. It’ll make sense on the way up.” Before them rose a staircase at the garden’s end with steps as tall as they were, but it required no climbing. They seemed to glide up it slowly.

  “Finding the gates of heaven closed to them, they made their home among the stars.

  What little I know of these beings comes in part from visions and from memories my own kind have preserved. They entered the common plane of existence from one higher, seeing something in the primitive Humans they desired. I can scarcely imagine what that must have been. Their children were burdened with power from a world beyond, but tethered to this mortal hell all the same. And so, they left the world of their mothers, and ascended first to the one next door. Finding it unsatisfactory to live under the same sun as their favored cousins, they departed again, this time further to the planet you once called home, ancient in appearance by the time they arrived. They collected their strength for a generation or two, constructing relics that confound us even to this day, but more importantly, extracting the precious mineral from the void itself, gathering it up in deposits across space. That which we strive for was planted for our benefit, that we might one day be whatever they intended us to be. Surely not this…surely not…

  Not… not all…not all but some – the best of them left your world, landing here at last. Quaint isn’t it? The early stage race they abandoned lives on today, unbothered by the fate of the forsaken. Needless to say, it was in this place their plans came to fruition. They built this magnificent edifice with one end in mind, to litter the stars with life made in their own image. The others we have met on our travels, I cannot place in the timeline, nor can I discern the fathers’ intent in making them, but I will speak to our fate.

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  You’ll recall your people were their first creation. Mine were the last, planted on the furthest habitable world at the edge of it all. And what an unsatisfying world it was too. It happened toward the end of the decline. In their advanced age, they imagined a threat so great it would devour them all, and they were certain it would come from beyond the galaxy. We were meant to be the silent sentinels looking out into the abyss, warning them in thought should the day of destruction ever come. In reality, mind speech did little more than preserve us against the loneliness of time.

  I imagine there was intent behind our being brought together, but whomever would have explained it wasn’t there. If it’s possible to know the reason, I will stop at nothing to find out. I promise you. We deserve more than to be powerless servants of that nameless multitude, and we deserve to know what tides carry us along, whether we drown or not.”

  His story and the staircase ended on the same breath. They stood on a precipice leading to nowhere, overlooking an endless city of cyclopean scale. Each structure appeared to have been pulled straight from some foundational, shimmering bedrock without the touch of a single tool. The image of it melted into the light of the setting, orange sun, itself a swirling bouquet of coronae in the burning sky.

  Kory felt she understood perfectly everything Sohrab had imparted to her. She even had the missing piece he hadn’t yet found. But it pained her to think of that foul priest’s warning from so long ago, whether in dreams or reality. The thought of it all being laid out for her, of her life having only one way to go, filled her with a greater hopelessness than even death itself. She hadn’t the time to learn what she really wanted, but this couldn’t be it. Could it?

  Tears filled her eyes as she turned to face him, her longest suffering companion, her fated end. “Is this all there is? Don’t we get a say?”

  He didn’t bother to ask her why she cried, or even read her mind to see. Here before him was the chance he’d once hoped for and wasted on a colder night long ago, the answer to his whole lifetime of pain and longing. Whether or not she’d decided what she wanted, he was sure he could do the figuring out for them both. Without words or need of them, he lifted a hand to wipe away a tear, then pulled her face closer to his. When his lips met hers her eyes shut for the last time on this ruined world.

  She started to tremble and quake in such a way that he thought she might collapse. He held on and sank to the ground with her, holding her lifeless form across his knees as he saw in horror the blood spilling from a hole in her chest. Terror washed over him as he beheld the crimson river running down the staircase, covering her face and his hands. And what should be pressed into his right hand, but a jeweled knife, placed there by the very wretches who’d woven this vision.

  He roared in a primal kind of agony and rage, finally eclipsing that scream of fear he’d once sent forth as a kidnapped child. The boy who didn’t understand a thing was now the man who understood just enough, but not enough to do anything about it. None were there to answer for the wrong they’d done him. Soon the sound of collapse drowned out his betrayal, as the landscape itself crumbled in a wave of hot solar wind. Those dancing arcs in the sky had come to devour the ancient paradise at last. Sohrab held Kory close in spite of her pitiable condition, and saw in his own final moment, a glimpse of those responsible. Their horrifying shadows writhed in the streets below, grotesque even unto death, as the cleansing fire consumed them all, ghosts and prophet alike.

  #

  Nash cowered on the bricks with her head in her hands, positive she was next to die. When she saw Sohrab rush out of the building, she was sure he’d taken her place in line, but not permanently. Only after a few uncertain moments of short breath and stifled cries did she notice the air was still, eerily so. As quickly as it began, it ended. A quick look around at the mountains of destruction revealed something she’d hoped for so recently, but now wasn’t sure if she wanted. In the crack of every ruined building and street, along Kory’s warlike path, were huge crystal blue shards, jutting forth from the gaps like a thousand spears. Nash was sure it could never be worth it, even if it was a hundred times that amount.

  What she saw next filled her with almost as much horror as what she’d just been through. It proved their striving had been in vain. In spite of the threat Kory once posed, it gave Nash no relief to see her two oldest friends face down on the ground, motionless and covered in blood. Whatever he had meant to do wasn’t enough to save them, and whatever expectations were laid at their feet weren’t enough to overcome their own weakness; they, the imperfect vessels of a vengeful prophecy still unfulfilled.