Day 15: Flashback
She was the Abyss and the Abyss was her. That much couldn’t be disputed. It was true the moment all the darkness of the world poured out of her; a mind once sealed now was open to the truth. The choices the Abyss had made, the integration of primordial essence into flesh and blood was whole and complete. That didn’t separate the memories swirling in Isiri’s mind however. As she sat alone in the recovery tank, kept company only by guards who were rightly terrified to say anything to her, she did her best to sort through all the visions coming, going, and drifting along in the long currents of her eternal mind.
Blackness, darkness in the eternal reach of the void spread, cracked in front of the reality of the room. Quickly growing, changing, and shaping into nothing. With the same speed, everything appeared. The fire of the first stars, the building of solar systems, the destruction of planets. All moving forward at lightening pace, until shifting and settling, stabilizing. The void was calm quickly. The Abyss’s gaze shifted. Earth, at least that’s what these humans kept calling it, was where its gaze settled. Though in truth it never considered naming it. Though if one was selected, it may as well be “beloved.” But it was a fire ball in its own right for so long. But a blink and it was a world of water. And the Abyss settled in fine within the depths, finding a comfort that that bent to its whims in much the same way.
Lingering longer, there was an oddity. Movement, not derived of tides or gravitational weight. Something that moved of its own will, life. A beauty it had never observed before. A beauty it had never experienced before. And so it chose to do so. It was simple at first, the flipping of flagella and the splitting of bacterial life. It didn’t remain so for long. And with time there were worms, and plants, and corals, and fish, and all that came after. A time as Pakiycetus, another as Helicoprion, leading all the way up to this current body. For Isiri was the Abyss, and she was it.
Those memories didn’t fade though, even before she had Awoken to this truth. An instant later and she was following her mother away from the heat of a rising smoke vent in the deep. That shifted and faded away to her sister whispering secrets about places she’d seen, different fish that had shocked and amazed her. A vision of her mentor speaking so plainly of the Abyss… of herself… of a place and time that she should have known and been. Her words echoed in her ears a silent song for her alone. “To see and become, that is all the sea knows. One cannot exist beyond it, even those that have left her to roam dry lands and fresh waters. The Abyss knows and loves all. You will know this in time.”
It was true. For all the Abyss knew was love. It loved life, the chance to live. It loved the seas and space that held it. And in the moment that these humans showed the pain their lost ancestors had caused, she had lost that love to the fires of anger. A regret. The memories broke, revealing the cold metal walls of the recovery tank. The planet she was on was far in space and time from the one she loved. But these people were the last vestiges of such burdens. If only they hadn’t been the cause of their own pain and struggles.
The electric crackling of a portal in the corner of the room signaled the Captain’s arrival, ending the time Isiri had to sort through all these things for the moment. But the big take away remained; that if any lesson would be learned through this body, the Abyss would have to hold on to what little of its beloved so remained. Even against the face of extinction. The Captain had made Isiri a promise. She hoped this would translate to the Abyss as well.
(OC-tober prompts by @oc-tober2023 can be found here.)
