The Primordial Record novel Chapter 1907

Chapter 1907: Bringing Forth Change

Enoch touched the space in front of him, as if he was reaching across the nothingness to touch the remnants of that past... a past that no longer existed, because by his hands, he had erased everything, and he was the only remnant from a civilization and history that no longer existed.

"The reason I could erase existence was due to its limits; it appeared infinite, but it was not. How else could there ever be a place like the Edge of All Things? The explosion of all there is tore existence apart at its seams, and it was no longer limited. Limbo was born, and it would expand forever... reaching across all there was and was not, without limits... There would be endless change. My paradise was here."

Enoch stopped talking, and Rowan did not ask for what was next. He knew that there was still more to this story, and he respected the silence, even when it went on for several decades. The eyes of Enoch before him were clouded, and Rowan could wait.

His patience was rewarded as Enoch started talking without any indication,

"I was alone... I floated in a whiteness so complete it had weight. No up, no down, no time, no sound. Only myself and the echo of my own heartbeat, which now sounded, for the first time, afraid. This was a new sensation, fear, and it birthed new inspiration inside of me... I wanted to create, to crush this unknown sensation in my heart, and from that fear, the seed of ambition was born."

The hand that Enoch stretched forth in front of him began to pull, as if tugging on the fabrics of reality, and Rowan, who was in a unique position, saw something... sad.

Enoch was sitting on an invisible throne, and when he reached towards the space around him and tugged at it, nothing changed, but in the memory... what a sight it was to witness existence where there was nothing but light, so bright and yet so complex, it almost made Rowan weep.

"I reached for my Lumina to make something—anything—a single photon, a grain of dust, a memory. My power answered, vast and obedient, but there was nothing left to shape it with. No darkness to push against. No law to break. No one else to witness."

Rowan saw Enoch sitting on a throne of nothing, reaching for a power that once shattered all of existence, but now there was no light dancing among his fingers, where, in his memories, there was at least his Lumina. Only a Creator could understand the profundity of this loss.

"I was the canvas, the paint, the painter, and the ruin all at once."

In the memory that Rowan was witnessing, he saw Enoch scream, and the scream went nowhere because there was no longer a where. In the perfect, featureless forever he had created, the smartest and most powerful being who had ever lived finally understood the thing he had killed the universe to find that Change requires something to change from, and something to change into.

Enoch pulled back his hand, and he sighed, "Now there was only me. Eternal. Unchanging. Alone. Rowan, I should have been sad or broken, and for a long time, I was, but the answer came to me in a flash, and I knew the truth that I was running from for so long... I wanted change, yet I was unwilling to let go of the last constant that symbolized stagnation... My Lumina, the last remnants of the Luminious, remained, and how could there be change when the most powerful symbol of the previous reality was still inside me? So, I cut it out of me... my light."

Rowan had not heard the whole story, but he thought that Enoch would not find any positive ears to back his vision from him. No matter the stagnancy that plagued existence in the time of the Luminious, did that mean they deserve to be killed off like that?

Perhaps, the birth of Enoch signified the inevitable change that would occur in a system where nothing was new, and even the birth of any new Luminous was predicted and understood.

Rowan did not think it was impossible for him to hate Enoch more than he did, but the quiet disregard for the ending of all existence finalized his resolve that Enoch was his enemy.

"My regret did not last for long, because the change that I sought from the moment of my birth appeared before me. My Lumina, the part of me that should be unchanging, began to vanish. Finally, this was change, this was the thing I craved for so long... I don’t know how long I remained on my knees watching my wings disappear, so lost was I in the state of things, but what I know was that after it was all over, there was darkness, and the ever-present scream of the void as it continuously expanded."

Enoch finally relaxed back on his throne, a heavy sigh emerging from him, as if the journey of peering into his memory carried a weight that he had been eager to let go of.

There should be more to this story, perhaps the Luminious did not allow existence to vanish without a fight, maybe there was something more that occurred that should reshape the entire narrative in a manner that would change how Enoch presented himself in this story, but Rowan was acknowledging the fact that of the many truths in life, that this might just be that one truth he would never be able to know.