The Creators: Epilogue

JUSTINA

Angela gawked at Diamond's empty astral body, then looked up at me. I could see her perception of me changing by the second as she processed what she'd just witnessed. It was like watching layers of lies fall away. The perception of omnipotence, the perception of omniscience; the accusation that I should've done something to stop it, then the realization that there was never anything I could do. At the end of this evolution, all she saw was me, and her expression softened. I opened my hands helplessly to her, and she nodded. It was enough; it had to be. It was all there was.

She turned away from me and ran down the bridge to where Brandon was standing, that trademarked flabbergasted look on his face. She needn't have sprinted so desperately; Brandon would be the last of them to make the walk. There was one thing that every self-condemned soul had in common, and it was that not a single one of them carried a shred of doubt. They streamed by me without even seeing me, staring up at the light like they had before the planes were merged. I thought I saw a sense of recognition in their expressions--a sense of going home--but it could've been just my projection. There was no understanding it. To understand it was to become it. As I watched them drop their bodies before the light, I realized that I was no longer the caretaker of the afterlife; I was a bridgeman. I was here to ferry them across it.

I turned to Petra. She had ceased her hysterical screaming and simply knelt before the endless current of the dead. I could feel the depths of her defeat through our connection. I could feel the hopelessness as she realized for the first time that she was unequivocally wrong. What a mortal emotion it was. The ethos that she had tied her identity to was shattered, and the shield she used to defend herself against all that she had done was gone. For in the end, her parents rejected her ideals, and she could only sob on her knees as she watched them walk by her into oblivion. I saw all of this from a very clinical perspective. It made it easier for me to cope with the emotions that threatened to shatter me. How could she be so strong as to endue them? How could she kneel in such a distraught state, and drown so willingly in the depths of this defeat? I could hear the desperation in her sobs as she begged each passerby to stop, and I knew that she recognized her futility, but still, she endured it, whimpering their names, pleadingly recounting their stories in a desperate attempt to hook them onto a memory, but she was just a tortured eulogizer. Why did she do it? How could she? Even after all the journies I'd taken, I could not comprehend this love of pain.

"What is it that I still don't understand about you?" I whispered.

She looked back at me; her featureless eyes now bloodshot. "Do you understand anything, Justina?" she asked me, her lip trembling. "Where do they go? Why do they go? I asked you that so long ago, and here we are."

"It's different this time."

"It doesn't feel so fucking different!" she snarled, heedless of the snot that shot from her nostrils.

I swallowed. "You hate me right now."

"I do," she hissed, her eyes swimming with it. "I would cut your throat again if I could."

"Why?"

"Because I gave you a second chance!" she screamed. "I made you the architect and entrusted you to right the wrongs of your past, but you failed! You failed me again!"

"I failed?" I asked calmly. "It's all my fault then?"

"Yes! You're the idea of life! You're supposed to understand them!"

"I thought you did."

"I can't, you GODDAMNED IDIOT!" she shrieked. "Don't you see that?! How many eons of failure do you need as proof?! All I can do is carry their darkness, but I can't understand why they go to the light!" She balled her shaking fists into her chest and huddled upon herself. "What is it that I'm missing, Vitanimus?" She hissed. "Why do they go? Tell me, please."

I crouched to her level as our parents passed by all around us. "They go because..." I trailed off, thinking on my words, "...they go because they're ready to."

"That doesn't make any sense," she whispered into her arms.

"It doesn't make sense to me either," I muttered back, brushing her hair behind her ear, "but I know that none of them are afraid. None of them hold any sorrow, regret, or pain. That's what death used to be, Petra." I frowned. "No, it never was that either. Those were just the things we carried into it. Death was never the real evil; it was that we didn't get to choose. We were just ripped away, but now..." I looked up at the light, "...now, it doesn't have that power anymore. Now... now it's just the end, and the end isn't evil. We made sure of that. Petra, we won, don't you see?"

She buried her head into her own embrace and shook it furiously. "No. That doesn't make any sense."

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. "We don't have to understand," I whispered into her hair. "We just have to let go."

"I can't!"

I brushed her hair behind her ear and raised her face to mine. "Ah, but Petra," I smiled. "If you truly want to destroy evil, then you don't get to choose."

She blinked up at me, sending heavy rivulets down her cheeks. I think she understood, but I couldn't know for sure. For as much of an architect as I was, I knew that there was no grand design to this universe. Perfection was a paradox that we would chase in vain, ceaselessly trying to find the right combination to fit the imperfect edges of existence. And as I brushed her hair away from her face and saw the love begin to thrum from it anew, I thought that we both understood on some level that we were mistakes. Ideas wrought from primitive minds, given shape and life to by the accident of sentience, then thrown together by circumstance. No one had destined our existence. No master hand had tended the flames of our love. There was no grand reason for it all. In truth, we were nothing alike. If we had both been born mortal, then we would've shared nothing more than a cordial conversation in a café, but we were born alone, and so we found each other. Though there would always be an infinity between us, our hearts and minds had created a bridge across it. And slowly but surely, we would walk toward each other from the ends of the expanse. All of the others--Lucilla, Astrid, Willowbud, Julia, Brandon, Angela--all of them would be gone in a cosmic blink of an eye, but we would keep walking this bridge--this tightrope, knowing that the other one was getting closer by the step.

End of Book Three

End of The Creators

Author's Note

I have no idea why I decided to turn high-fantasy smut into a philosophical dive into the nature of existence. I honestly have no idea why any of you would read this far, but I am eternally grateful that you did. There isn't a central lesson to this story. There really isn't a point to it other than to say that the journey we take--the journey that we are--should always be done in truth. Even if you are not true to others, you should always be honest with yourself. Understand yourself, forgive yourself, and love yourself. We all have regrets, we all have failures, and we all feel the sands of time falling. It's OK. I won't pretend to know the secret to life, but if there is one nugget of knowledge I can impart, it is that happiness can't be achieved if your perception of yourself and the reality of yourself don't align. Accepting who you are doesn't mean you have to be complacent with who you are; it just means you know where to start your journey, and that's 99% of the battle. If there is any truth to be garnered from the reading (or much more so, the writing) of this long and winding tale, it is that all of us--every single one of us--should probably see a therapist. Or you could just ignore all of this pretentious bullshit, click on another story that isn't so preachy, and fuck yourself. Honestly, that's probably the best advice I can give you. Think that's what I'll do now.

Again, from the bottom of my twisted heart, thank you all so much.