——————Chapter Eight——————

———————All of Time ———————

———————All of Space———————

Once upon a time there was the vast arching dark sky. The sky was made of the Lifemaker. The sky was made by the Lifemaker. And They were made of love. Of hope. Of kindness. Of friendship. Of protection. Of unity. Of community. Of equality. Of freedom. Of camaraderie. Of nurturing. Of nourishment. Of love.

The Lifemaker then created the world. They created the light of the day and the darkness of the night. They created the warmth of the summer and the cold of the winter. They created the lands and the skies and the lightning and the thunder. They created everything using Themself, using pieces of Themself, so that everything in the Lands were a part of Them, was Their will acting in harmony. They also created all Life. Life was a part of Them as well. It was a bright-dark-bright, cold-hot-cold, moving, shifting, dancing part. They took a tiny piece of each and every part of Themself. And they made the first human. They made many many more humans like this. Making their souls and their spirits and their minds and their hearts and their lives. 

Because humans are souls and spirits and minds and hearts and lives. They are not bodies. Bodies are only what is meant to hold the human. Like the house they're meant to live in almost. Not what the human is themself. 

The Lifemaker also made bodies for the humans out of Their protectiveness and Their embrace. But they made the humans out of Their essence and Their soul. 

Now everything was good for many years. Each and every part of the Lifemaker, all the people, all the life forms, all the world, it was all good. People took care of each other. Took care of the world. The world took care of the people. The Lifemaker took care of it all. 

Life happened in a sacred cycle. The world happened in a sacred cycle. Everything happened in a sacred cycle. There were the seasons. Spring gave way to summer gave way fall gave way to winter. And then it was the start of a spring for a brand new year. There was day and night. Morning gave way to day gave way to evening gave way to night. And then it would be the start of a brand new day. Life was in a sacred cycle too. Birth. Childhood. Young adulthood. Adulthood. Old age. Death. Death was a part of life. It was something that was meant to be embraced as a part of the sacred cycle. It wasn't the end of life. Merely the beginning of a new one. 

And it was the pattern. Everything fell into a pattern. A pattern of harmony. A pattern of love. A pattern of oneness. A pattern of Life. 

But then some humans got greedy. They didn't want what the Lifemaker gave them. They didn't want to live in harmony with the rest of the people and world. They wanted more. They wanted to gather up more and more and more than they could possibly need. More food, more clothes, more things, more power, more time. They didn't take what the Lifemaker gave them. They made their own corrupted things so that they could have more and more and more. And inevitably, when someone takes too much there isn't enough for the rest. They distanced themselves from the Lifemaker's land. From the rest of the people. They set about destroying the land and using the people.

The Worldtaker arose out of the great abyss beyond the universe. It sensed a new source of power. It smiled with its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and let out a great roar. 

It made a deal with the destructive humans. It would give them power if they swore loyalty to it. And they did. 

First they went after the land. They ripped it and tore it until it bled and bled and bled out. Most of it was destroyed. Second they went after the people. They captured them and forced them into chains and made them build large cities on top of the dying land. Finally they went after the Lifemaker Themself. The Worldtaker swallowed the Lifemaker whole so that They could no longer protect the people. The Worldtaker ascended to rule the new world. A world of misery. A world of suffering. The Lifemaker was trapped inside the Worldtaker. And They were tortured. And they grieved for all the lives that had been destroyed or ended. Each and every person, as well as the land, was a part of the Lifemaker. And They felt their pain as if it was Their own. Because it was. 

One by one all the original people still loyal to the Lifemaker got killed. Ever since the world had been destroyed all the sacred cycles were also destroyed. And the Lifemaker could not give them new lives to live. But the Lifemaker could call them back to Them. See the Lifemaker still existed, even though They got overthrown and swallowed, They still existed. And everything coming from the Lifemaker belonged to the Lifemaker. When the world and the sacred cycles were alive, it was all part of the Lifemaker. But now the Lifemaker was in the belly of the Worldtaker. And They could still call Their children back to Them. And They could protect the children. They could protect the souls of the people who had died. They could store the souls of the departed people deep inside them, deep deep inside where the Worldtaker's influence didn't leave a singe trace. They could shield the souls with Their own body. And give them an existence filled with only Their protection and joy and love. So They did. 

But soon after the original oppressed ones were dead, the Workdtaker's cronies needed new people to oppress. They needed new people to have hold over. They needed more. One day a wicked team of scientists found a way to break the last spiderweb remnants of the last sacred cycle that had any kind of a hold. The cycle of life had indeed been broken. But it was not completely destroyed. People were still born and lived and died. But not anymore. The corrupted humans found a way to gain immortality. 

And so the bodies of the synths were created. Made from the blueprints of the bodies of the corrupted humans. The Worldtaker was called in to bring these bodies to life. For the Worldtaker had been bringing bodies to life for a while now. But the Worldtaker could not put life in these bodies, for these bodies were innocent and were not made to rule or cause suffering. The Worldtaker blew and blew into the bodies and yet nothing happened. Finally the Worldtaker realized that only the Lifemaker's essence could make a pure, true human soul. It reached inside itself and started clawing and tearing at Them. The Lifemaker knew that if the Worldtaker forced out pieces of Themself and shoved them into the bodies, it would lace the pieces with its malice and the people created would not be able to feel any sense of joy or hope ever. So the Lifemaker realized They would have to trick the Worldtaker. 

They created new, bright-dark-bright, hot-cold-hot, beautiful, dancing, living, loving, pure and complete human souls. They wrapped and covered them with as much of Their protection as They could. And They placed them into the bodies before the Worldtaker could do anything. The Worldtaker thought it had succeeded in its task. Satisfied, it left. The Lifemaker was full of grief, sorrow, triumph, and love. They wished They could make bodies for the new humans Themself, bodies that would protect them and support them and be theirs. They wished They didn't have to bring the new humans to life in such a terrible world, for them to be owned and hurt and slaughtered. But they knew that these humans could hope. They could rebel, even if only in the quiet of their minds. They could laugh at jokes and be hugged by friends. 

And They knew that with these humans, the world would be saved. These humans would go out and they would hope and dream and struggle and rebel and want and need and find ways to subvert the power structures. With every new generation of new humans and their lives and their spirits the Lifemaker would grow stronger and stronger. And eventually They could grow stronger to rise up out of the Worldtaker, and fight it, and win. 

They would eventually win. 

And then the universe would be free and good and what it was before everything had grown corrupted and poisoned. 

Every single new and old child of the Lifemaker would have a place in the new world. The world where the Lifemaker's power had been restored. And until then, the Lifemaker would greet them all in death, and welcome them to the paradise within Their soul.