Have you ever wondered what it was like to remember everything you've seen and felt the exact moment you came to life?
A lot of people would probably think of it as a blessing—to recall your first moments, to remember the face of your parents when they first laid eyes on you.
Lovely, you might even think.
Unfortunately, I do not—I cannot share the sentiment.
Because the moment I opened my eyes, only pain and anguish greeted me.
A world on fire.
Ashes rained from the sky. The land—nothing but scorched earth and soil—was blackened by the eternal flames of this… Hell…
For a time, I suffered.
I suffered a great deal.
However, my memories from that era of my life remain quite foggy, which I am very much thankful of. Unfortunately, there are some things that I can never forget, things that can never be wiped away from my mind, no matter how much time passes, no matter how hard I try to smash my head, or even erase my own memories….
The pain…
The suffering…
The anguish…
I didn't even know.
I didn't even know for how long I had burned.
Days? Weeks? Months? Or probably even years...
Regardless...
For a long time, I became familiar with the feeling of my flesh being cooked—my blood boiling my organs—and my soul being scorched and purified by something so… divine… yet sinister.
Sometimes, I even wondered.
Why?
Existence came so suddenly for me, but even more so did the pain….
So why?
Why torment me?
Why leave me for so long?
Why… Father?
Despair clung to me.
It dug deep into my soul.
The wounds on my body may have healed instantly, but the scars in my soul… they gnawed at me. They burned my existence, my will to live… slowly… ever so slowly… I felt myself… dying.
It was tragic.
For a being to live, to only know pain, to slowly die like this...
I wondered if this was a joke. And if it was, what exactly was the punchline?
I laughed.
Why?
I didn't know.
It felt like the most natural thing to do at the time.
My laughter echoed across the barren planet… this wasteland I called home.
It was a shame, really.
So much space.
So much time.
All to myself.
And yet… nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Makes you really ask yourself:
Was this… life… worth living?
What was the point of living in a world like this? What was the point of bleeding through this Hell? Why Father? Have I done something? Have I committed a great sin that cannot be forgiven? Have I… failed you..?
"..."
I was met with silence.
Desolace.
But then…
Just as those thoughts crossed my mind, something happened… something… changed.
The world… lit up.
For once, a graceful brilliance of light touched my skin. It was… radiant.
Divine.
It was… new.
Foreign.
What happened? I asked myself.
It was odd, truly.
Why? Why now? Why introduce me to such warmth… to this comfort… now?
Why now, Father?
Why… did you trap me in darkness?
Please.
Just this once.
Speak to me.
Show me a sign.
A direction.
A command.
God… I pray to You…
Bless me with Your grace…
I…
I was desperate.
Even with this warmth and comfort, despair still swarmed my heart.
I wanted hope.
I wanted a future to see.
I wanted a life to live.
A home to call my own.
Maybe God heard my prayers.
Until now, I remain uncertain if my plea was the cause of what came next.
A geyser—a massive wave of water, blue and pristine—gushed out from the depths of the planet.
The waves crashed on the lands, submerging them, drowning them in its wake.
Though a bit embarrassing to admit, I truly forgot how I survived the flood—the first flood—the first of many to come.
After that, the flames that once blanketed the planet died out.
The heat cooled down.
The ground, once barren, gained some semblance of life.
And the sky… the sky was now clear and blue—bright and radiant.
The wasteland was a wasteland no more.
I didn't even know what to call it at that point.
All I knew was that things were changing.
Rapidly, without pause, as another event immediately came after…
Fields of green started growing from the ground.
Trees, grass, vegetation—all sorts of greenery—sprang up at once.
It was shocking. It truly was.
My soul throbbed.
My heart beat faster than ever before as I felt something within me… growing.
I looked up at the sky…
And from there, my eyes peered through the expanse of space, where I saw a spark of flame in the empty void.
Then the spark grew.
It grew brighter and brighter. It became a frenzied flame—a ball of inferno—and… exploded.
A shockwave came after, rocking space itself, warping and destroying small patches of existence…
And from that explosion, the Sun was created…
And with it came the Celestials.
Stars.
Creatures, beings, and even… monsters. All of them, entities like me, littered the endless void of space, litting the dark blanket of space with sparkling light and glorious divinity.
What was this…?
What are you doing…
God?
Why would You create these… disasters?
This chaos? Why?
It was pointless to ask.
I knew that no matter how much I question Him, no answer would come.
But it still made me uneasy.
The day will come when I will meet those… siblings of min—
Chirp—!
"What?"
Breaking off my thoughts, I looked around, trying to locate where the sound came from—where I then found my eyes on a… bird.
With feathers as white as my own hair, it flew elegantly through the air—carefree… without worry… without pain.
And as I gazed at this small beast, feeling nothing but warmth and ease, I thought to myself…
Why, Father?