Being

Born of primordial chaos, It stepped out of the ancient sea and onto the primitive land. The Being looked around, confused at the sights and sounds that assaulted its new senses. The ground beneath Its feet felt course and was a clean, crisp tan in color. The water was warm, crystal clear blue, and full of prehistoric single-celled organisms. The air smelled sweet of flowers and salty water. 

Being stumbled inland towards two tall omnipotent beings. One had dark skin with black hair that curled down to its feet, and the other had transparent skin with hair the color of the sky above. 

“Welcome.” In an archaic language, the voice sounded inside its head. 

“What is this place?” 

“It’s your place to do as you please. You are the first but not the last. You, our child, will bring about a world that will grow and thrive.” Then the beings vanished, and It was left alone to roam this world yet to be born. 

Alone Being walked from the sea, enjoying all the sensations from mud between its feet to snowflakes cold on its skin. After millions of years of wandering alone through the world that still formed beneath Its feet, Being was lonely and bored. It sat on the shore of the sea wishing it had something else to watch or speak with when an idea floated into its mind. Until this moment, Being only created microscopic creatures or primeval sea creatures for the being to swim with, but what if? What if Being helped one of those creatures crawl out of the sea onto the land. 

How would it adapt? How would it change over time? Would it survive? It would be a fun experience to watch, at the least. However, in order to create new life, something must be sacrificed. Being frowned at the tiny odd creatures that swam near his feet and shrugged as It placed a hand on the ground, and the weather changed as the plates shifted. It watched in what felt like slow motion as eighty percent of Its first babies died together and smiled as It stilled the world back into a perfect climate for Its next children. 

Being swirled its finger into the sea and watched as the first fish crawled its way onto the shore. Giddy with laughter, Being danced around and accidentally stepped on the fish. 

“Oh. Oh. No.” Being picked up the lifeless fish and brushed Its finger along the colorful scales, and the fish took a new breath. “We’ll call this a do-over.” It set the fish on the ground and watched from a distance the fish make its way inland. 

Being watched with foolish pleasure as more and more fish crawled out of the sea to live among the land, but the fun died quickly as the creatures struggled to adapt. The creation was too much too soon, and most of the animals and plants died off again promptly without any help from Being. But twenty percent of them were strong enough and wily enough to adapt, so all was not lost. 

It watched those survivors evolve into so many beautiful amazing creatures, from the smallest fur animal to the gigantic flying insect. There were monstrous lizards and odd birds. The abundant clean air filled Its lungs, too, as Being wandered over the earth for millions of years, watching its creations grow. 

Being enjoyed the exotic land with warm heavy air, rains, and an abundance of sunshine. It swam with the giant rays and sharks. Rode the feared Synapsids and ran with the Sauropsids. Being watched as the first colorful beetle crawled onto the most beautiful flower It had ever seen. After another swim in the same ocean with the same creatures, Being laid on the sand and stared at the clear cloudy sky. It was bored once again. Maybe it was time for something more entertaining. 

With that idea only fresh in Its mind, Being placed its hand on the ground again. This time volcanoes erupted from all over the land, and ash cloaked the sun. Being shed only a single tear as it walked through the dying animals It had once loved. They seemed to suffer so completely in their deaths that It swore it would never kill off so many creatures at once or in such a cruel way. It was a great dying, and ninety-six percent of the life It’d brought into existence was gone but what grew from the destruction was more than even Being could imagine. 

Life was a miracle, Being thought as it walked through the jungle forest full of sizeable toothy meat-eaters and armor-plated plant-eaters. The way that life had not only recovered from the great dying but had thrived made Being happier than it thought possible. For millions of years, Being lived in a world of prehistoric creatures and eternal growth. Its world changed itself as the plates moved land apart; large monstrous creatures controlled the land, sea, and sky. 

Something was missing. How could It be lonely while surrounded by such life? Being thought as it watched an oversized insect crawl over Its hand. There were only so many times one could walk, swim or fight the more vicious creatures for fun. Maybe it was time to switch it up again. Perhaps the next time what comes from the ashes would be intelligent life as itself was—some creature to speak as it speaks or grows into something never before seen.  

Being called a rock from the cosmo and sat back as it slammed into the earth. When the fallout cleared, the terrible lizards were long gone, and Being healed the world to start anew. This time the creatures that cultivated were truly magnificent in their development. What began as multiple hairy animals had formed one intelligent species. 

As time went on, that species only grew, and Being watched as the human went from survival nomadic to settled creators. They developed languages, spread out over the world, and built empires. Being laughed when the humans developed religions to explain their world, cried when they murdered each other under the flags of those religions and stood in awe as they endured regardless. 

Being often took human form and walked among Its creations learning from them, mating with them, and trying to find out what makes them tick. These innovations are only into a few thousand years in a world ions old, but Being feared, they would end up destroying themselves and taking all Its hard work with them. Being was contemplating bringing about another purge as It walked along the streets dressed as a human. 

Being wore an all-black suit with its long grey hair left to flow down to its shoulders and its rainbow swirling eyes covered by mirrored shades. It passed a mother struggling with her two screaming children, a group of teenagers staring at their screens, and a man fighting with another over the price of an object. It was petty, corrupt, and unpleasant. What was the point of all of this? There was so much suffering of their own creation, and money had taken over for empathy. 

Being sat on a park bench and was ready to end it all. Maybe start over with a new creation. It had done it many times before and with some success. It lifted its hand to place it on the ground to bring an apocalypse. But...It watched a beautiful young woman passing out brown paper bags to the homeless that laid in abundance around the park. She smiled and spoke to them as equals while she handed clean blankets and clothes after the brown bags. 

The homeless recognized her as they chatted with her and welcomed her while she walked among them. Her blonde hair was bound in a messy knot on her head, and her clear blue eyes smiled with kindness as she helped those who struggled to help themselves. When she walked past Being, he felt the goodness that flowed through every molecule of her lifeforce. Being eased his hand from the ground and followed that girl. 

She walked into a decaying building that housed a soup kitchen where It watched her feed people tirelessly for hours. When her shift was over, she walked into an apartment only to emerge changed into a cheap suit and comfortable shoes that she walked on to the department of jobs and family services building. Being continued to shadow the girl as she made her way to her office and smiled as she greeted her co-workers thoughtfully. 

She spent the rest of the morning fielding calls, tending to unhappy people, and working to make others' lives better. She never stopped, and although Being could sense the headache that pounded in her skull, the girl never wavered in her empathy. When the girl left the building to help a child find a safe place to rest its abused head for the night before, she finally ate dinner alone in a diner; Being felt something It hadn’t in years...peacefulness. If this one human could still find hope, empathy, and kindness in a cruel world, then there might be hope for them all yet. 

Being laid on the sand near the sea from which it was born and stared at the stars in the galaxies that Its parents had created. Being knew it had siblings out there making and loving their worlds because it could feel their power. But this slice of paradise for all its flaws was of its own experiment. For now, Being would leave it to fester and see if the humans, for all their intelligence, could change the path they were on before It had to intervene again.