The birth of the world commenced in profound silence. A realm that had never been, yet always would be, sprawled beneath the gleaming claws of Oblivion, the devourer, the one who consumed all to usher in the new. And within its lengthy, winding grasp lay Void, the consumed, bound to the end of all things and yet, paradoxically, a giver of all existence.
Oblivion loomed above, vast and formidable, its lean form a silhouette against the endless dark, a presence both ethereal and overwhelming. Its pale skin shimmered beneath the weight of unspoken thoughts, and its wings, fragile yet mighty, fluttered in the air, driven by an infinite longing.
Void, smaller and cloaked in secrecy, stood before Oblivion, a tragic beauty, with eyes that beheld everything and nothing. It was draped in stark white and deep celestial blue, the fabric shifting over its form as it quivered in anticipation of the inevitable. It knew what was to come. Beneath that veil of cloth, its face was a constellation of eyes, infinite, hollow, and unknowable. Its limbs trembled as it stood on the precipice of eternity.
“Unbar thyself to me. Lay thyself bare before me.” Oblivion's voice came not from its mouth, but from the very air around them, resounding in Void’s mind, its meaning seeping into the smallest corners of its consciousness. “Yield unto mine insatiate maw, that I may devour thee entirely—flesh and spirit, entwined—and, in thine unmaking, birth the world anew.”
Void closed its many eyes, and stepped forward, its cloak swirling like the night itself. The air around it seemed to sigh—soft, mournful—and with each step, the weight of the end drew nearer. In a single, delicate movement, it shed its cloak, revealing the inky vastness of its being, with flesh soft and thick, ripe for consumption.
Void hesitated as Oblivion loomed over it, a tremor running through its small form, like the twitch of a creature caught in its final moments. Yet, it had never feared Oblivion, for how could it, when it had been its counterpart for eternity? The two had always been together, and always would be—created from one another, born of the same breath of a beginning to never begin and an ending never to end, infinitum. It simply nodded, slow and steady, stepping closer, feeling the weight of its inevitable undoing.
With a sharp, swift motion, Oblivion reached down, its talons wrapping around the tender flesh of Void’s neck. The smaller god shuddered, but did not resist.
The moment its mouth closed upon Void, the air itself bent, and existence seemed to still. A slow, agonizing drag of eternity followed as Oblivion tore, piece by piece, at Void’s very essence. First, the long, tangled hair, the myriad eyes scattered across its body. Oblivion devoured the shape of Void in layers—glistening, smooth, yet steeped in an eternity that made the process unbearable. A terrible weeping echoed within Oblivion's gut, but it was not one that escaped its throat. No sound was permitted here.
Void’s form shuddered violently as Oblivion’s teeth met its skin, each bite drawing forth a writhing miasma of memories, thoughts, hopes, and desires, soul and body alike, drawn into the vast, all-consuming nothing. In being devoured, Void began to fade, its spirit unraveling in Oblivion’s unrelenting maw, swirling into the blinding abyss of its being. As Oblivion devoured Void, the air shifted. The very essence of Void—its boundless knowledge, its sacred uncertainty—was consumed in pieces. With each bite, Void’s presence dwindled, growing quieter, fading from existence like a flame extinguished, though suffocated in gasoline.
But something strange stirred within Oblivion. The consumed had not gone quietly. Even as Void was devoured, it left behind something—an aftertaste, a thread of life, a spark of creation, a seed nestled deep within the core of Oblivion. And within this seed, something was born.
The first shift was subtle. Oblivion’s body trembled, its once effortless power faltering as the remnants of Void grew more fragmented within it. Yet, something else stirred—something new, pulling against the very fabric of Oblivion’s being.
In that final, consuming moment, when Void’s last breath was drawn into Oblivion’s maw, a terrible yet beautiful transformation began. Oblivion’s body rippled, convulsed, as though the weight of its consumption had become too much to bear. Its wings folded inward, covering its face, claws retracting into its flesh. The vast emptiness within its chest, once filled only by hunger, began to shift into something else, something new. From the remnants of Void’s flesh, two new beings—one of Time, the other of Space—were formed, emerging from Oblivion’s skin as children tearing free from their mother’s womb.
Time was delicate, fragile, with a body that shimmered and stretched across eternity. Its mischievous, squinted eyes gleamed with the wisdom of the ages, one an ever-ticking clock, its form a twisting mass of fleeting moments, draped in the fabric of what was and what could be. Space, its counterpart, was infinite—a radiant expanse that bent and flexed with every movement. It was made of the void between stars, the space between breaths, its presence constant yet ever-changing, chimeric and all-encompassing.
Thus, from the dying form of Oblivion, the first gods of the new world were born: Time and Space, eternal lovers, children of Oblivion and Void.
Time reached out, its paw soft, brushing against Space. The touch was both familiar and foreign. Their eyes met, and, in their union, a new world began to take shape. They curled around one another, naked and untouched, trembling under the weight of the universe, yet untouched by it. And with them, they carried the power to reshape the world, to create from the ruin and bones of their predecessors. And create, they did. For three hundred and sixty-five days, the two conjoined, writhing, to form the beginnings of a planet’s core, coating it in an ocean of fluid coaxed from them both.
In the stillness that followed, the world began to breathe.
