Birth
by R. Michael
He lives in rural Minnesota with his family. His works have appeared in Dark Recesses, Twenty-two Twenty-eight, Land Beyond the World Magazine, Metastellar, and other publications. He enjoys reading, gaming, and walking with his border collie.
I watched the quasar, transfixed. Any moment, the cumulation of six millennia would emerge from the ravaging black hole. Long ago, my parents abandoned their roles as caretakers, slipping away into different realities, leaving one final offspring incubating in the quasar before departing. My nine other siblings would rather demand mortals’ worship than maintain the order of existence, so I spent my time alone in the void, awaiting my brother’s birth.
The stream of energy from the supermassive black hole flickered crimson, and I drifted closer. Time slowed, and matter wobbled before sinking inward. From the dark heart of the spacetime wound, an emerald energy glob wriggled forth.
Two pairs of hands with six fingers materialized on either side, mirroring my form. Once he emerged from the cosmic womb, he mutated into a shrouded, whirling mass with a bluish aura. Despite his youth, I sensed immense power radiating off him. The temptation arose to increase my own size, but I did my best to squash that thought as soon as it formed, reminding myself I had nothing to prove.
“Sister,” he greeted when our minds connected.
“It is good to finally meet you, Ambrose.”
His form flared with tongues of black flame. “What a marvelous place this is.”
“I hoped you’d think so. Our family has either abandoned or abused it. I’ve held it together, but the eons erode my strength.”
“Who could take such grandeur for granted?” Ambrose drifted outward. “There’s so much vibrance, but it’s hampered by a slow rot.” His face warped with disappointment. “Death is everywhere. Valernima, how could you permit this?”
I froze, uncertain how to respond.
“Fear not, you don’t have to do all this alone. The destruction of life, planets, and stars no longer needs to persist. I can help you eliminate it.”
“There’s an order, Ambrose. Things end so that others may exist. When stars die, others are born.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. I know your strength is waning, I can feel it. Holding everything together whittles you away.”
“That isn’t why death exists. It’s built into nature as Mother and Father dictated.”
“You said they left. We are the gods now, and with our shared power, we can reorder things. Everything can endure.”
“I wish it was that simple, but when we destroy the foundations of existence, all of reality unravels. Trust me. Soon you’ll learn that some things must be as they are.”
“So we must tolerate all this death? Are we not capable of shaping reality? This is your chance to forge something new. Why not take it?”
Ambrose’s sudden belligerence startled me. “You misunderstand …”
“Age has lulled you into passively accepting things as they are.” The flames along his body morphed into an ebony inferno, then Ambrose doubled his previous size.
The words I searched for eluded me. While I reeled, he approached a red giant in the process of using the last of its hydrogen. Ambrose’s inky essence encased it. The star wobbled within him, and in an instant, it shrunk to a yellow dwarf. Smugness exuded from him when he turned to me.
The once doomed object resumed nuclear fusion. I couldn’t believe it; Ambrose appeared to have done the impossible. But within moments, currents of green energy crackled from the star’s corona, warping it into an ellipsoid.
“Restore it to the way it was, now!” I shouted, knowing I couldn’t get there in time. Green energy overwhelmed the star, shredding it. I rushed after, hoping to contain the anomaly, but it overwhelmed the orbiting gas giants then weaved toward the next solar system at an accelerated rate.
I stole a glance behind to see Ambrose wrestling with the blackhole that birthed him. I whirled around. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?” Out of the corner of my eye, the destructive currents tore through more stars. If I didn’t act soon, the universe would be consumed.
“Then lend me your strength!”
“You must stop!” I pleaded.
Ambrose severed our mental link. His non-response was all I needed to know I couldn’t get through to him. With all four of my hands, I drilled into his essence, grabbed on, and started to pull. However, he retaliated in kind. Every ounce of my being burned. Ambrose’s ebony flames devoured my lower two arms, and excruciating pain threatened to overcome me. Yet if I didn’t stop him, he could cause irreparable damage. I looked away and pulled harder, digging in. Writhing, he howled, trying to enlarge himself. Dark tendrils coiled around me. Pressing further, I at last felt his core. Without a second thought, I dislodged it.
What had I done? A weight bore down on me as I watched his remains dissipate in a cloud of energized particulates. Never had I ended one of my kin before, but there was no time to dwell on that. The damage had to be corrected. Weakened, I raced to stitch the cracking universe back together, but hundreds of planetary systems still met an early demise.
Once the calamity abated, I tried to ignore the encroaching loneliness. Did I act rashly? Could he have been saved? Deep down I knew the answer, yet the gnawing sorrow within tried to convince me otherwise.
Looking at the black hole I spared, I wondered if I could beget my own children. It would be impossible to keep the balance alone for an eternity. It took two combined essences to forge my generation, and my power continues to wane. The time will come when necessity may force me to try conceiving divine life on my own, even if it ends me. For now, though, I must heal and continue to preserve things in solitude.
© Birth by R. Michael. 2023. All rights reserved.
