Everkant Series - ep. 15 - 1st draft - Empathy is rarely universal.

Now we're dead.

That glass is looking good again, you think. That knife is appealing as well. There's a life's work to all things considered. No mass can ever be created or destroyed. It can, however, be transformed or rearranged into something else. So, in a way, we're not losing ourselves within time and space. Earth will keep us, forever. The universe will. Keep us. Forever. Changing and rearranging until we're something else. Not new, mind you. Rinse and repeat and you'll be all things and all things will be you. Given long enough time that is. Isn't that amazing? It is. The new scholars don't agree with it. There's a new school with roots in the east that challenges this notion and puts earth and men at the center of it all. They don't even acquiescence the existence of the gods. Men. Women. Children. Mankind is all it matters to them.

Oh, what a surprise awaits them in the end. We're too small to be at the center of anything. We're a microbe, a thought error, a glitch in the system. Life shouldn't harbor destruction. You see, when the gods created this...thing, this land we live in, they didn't expect us. Us! They wanted a garden. A pretty garden they could shape and reshape with their little tools. Somewhere along the way, the first life form appeared. They didn't think much of it. It was so tiny, so small that not even them could grasp its potential. But alas, life and survival will always find a way. Now we're here. Millions or billions years later, challenging them. The gods. Their ideas, their notions. Wondering if they were ever here at all. The fire inside us doesn't lie, but it doesn't tell the truth neither. If there were any gods, they're long gone and they left us, their unintended creation. Their little accident, to ourselves. What do we do with our newfound freedom?

Well, take a look around.

I've made my decision, boy. I'll go with the knife. You can do it. Like I taught you back then. Don't let me bleed to death. Make it quick. That's my freedom. You're also free now. From all of it. The gods, the fires, the flames.

We're all dead anyway.