The firstborn had been silent since the Mother of Creation began shaping humanity.
It was not the silence of confusion.
It was the silence of someone thinking.
The family had gathered outside their home that evening, beneath the old tree where they had spent countless years together.
The younger two were arguing over something insignificant, their voices overlapping while their father watched them with the faint amusement he rarely bothered to hide.
Their mother sat nearby.
She had been quiet for most of the evening.
The firstborn finally spoke.
“Why?”
Everyone looked over.
The question was directed at their father.
“Why what?”
“Why would the Mother create them?”
Their father leaned back against the tree.
“The Mother creates because creation is what she does.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question.”
Their mother looked at the eldest.
“Then ask the question properly.”
The firstborn’s gaze moved toward the distant horizon.
“Why humans?”
No one answered immediately.
The younger two had stopped arguing.
The eldest continued.
“They are fragile. They become sick. They grow old. They die. Their bodies are weak enough to be broken by things we wouldn’t even notice. They cannot see beyond what is directly in front of them. They know nothing of the realms, nothing of the powers that shaped existence, nothing of what came before them.”
Their father listened without interrupting.
“They are oblivious,” the firstborn said.
“They have no idea what surrounds them.”
“Perhaps that is the point,” their mother replied.
The firstborn looked at her.
She continued quietly.
“Not every living thing needs to understand the whole of creation.”
“Then why create them at all?”
“Because she wanted them.”
That answer seemed to trouble the firstborn more than anything else.
One of the younger two shifted closer to the edge of the gathering.
“I want to see them.”
The firstborn looked over.
“So do I,” said the other.
Their father sighed.
“Of course you do.”
The two younger siblings exchanged a look.
They had inherited their father’s curiosity.
Perhaps too much of it.
Their mother smiled faintly.
“You will not go near them without permission.”
The younger two immediately looked disappointed.
Their father noticed.
“That expression will not work on me.”
“It usually does,” one of them said.
“It does not.”
“It did yesterday.”
“Yesterday I was tired.”
A quiet laugh moved through the family.
Even the firstborn smiled.
For that moment, everything was still as it had always been.
Three children.
Two parents.
One home.
No one knew how little time remained before that would cease to be enough.
The younger two waited.
They waited until their parents were occupied elsewhere.
Then they did what they had been forbidden to do.
They concealed their true forms.
Their ancient presence folded inward until there was nothing remarkable about them.
No supernatural aura.
No visible sign of what they were.
Only two young strangers standing at the edge of a human settlement.
The village was nothing like the realms they knew.
It was small.
Crowded.
No grand structures.
No ancient halls.
No magic humming beneath the ground.
People simply lived.
They carried baskets.
Prepared food.
Quarreled over ordinary things.
Children ran between houses while older people watched from doorways.
The younger two stood there for several minutes without speaking.
Then one smiled.
“They’re real.”
The other looked around.
“I know.”
“No, I mean…”
The smile widened.
“They’re really here.”
They entered the village.
At first, the humans were cautious.
The two strangers were unfamiliar.
But humans had a strange way of accepting people.
A shared meal helped.
A conversation helped more.
By sunset, the younger two had already learned several names.
By the following week, they had become familiar faces.
No one knew where they came from.
No one knew what they were.
And the younger two preferred it that way.
They helped where they could.
They carried water.
They repaired things.
They listened to stories.
They sat beside villagers during meals and learned that humans could spend an extraordinary amount of time discussing matters that seemed completely insignificant.
They found it fascinating.
They also discovered something their parents had never been able to teach them.
Humans felt everything intensely.
Love.
Fear.
Grief.
Joy.
Anger.
Hope.
Because their lives were short, every moment seemed to matter.
A meal mattered.
A wedding mattered.
A child’s first steps mattered.
Someone returning home after being gone for several days mattered.
The younger two began understanding why the Mother had made them.
Not because humans were powerful.
Because they were not.
Their lives were brief enough to make ordinary things precious.
They began making friends.
Real ones.
One human insisted on teaching them how to bargain in the marketplace.
Another invited them into their home whenever food was being prepared.
A family allowed them to sleep under their roof during a storm.
A child followed them everywhere, convinced the two strangers knew the secrets of the world.
The younger two never revealed the truth.
They could not.
So they lied about their origins.
They invented families.
Invented journeys.
Invented reasons for being there.
It should have felt wrong.
Instead, it felt strangely natural.
For the first time, they were not ancient beings.
They were simply themselves.
And the humans loved them for it.
When they returned home, they brought stories.
Their parents listened.
The firstborn listened too.
At first.
Then the stories began to irritate.
“They gave you food?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they had enough to share.”
“They barely have enough.”
“Exactly.”
The firstborn looked at the younger sibling.
“And you accepted it?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Their mother noticed the change in the eldest’s expression.
“Why does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does.”
The firstborn looked away.
One of the younger two smiled.
“You should come with us.”
“No.”
“You might like them.”
“I doubt that.”
“They’re not what you think.”
The firstborn’s gaze sharpened.
“You’ve known them for barely any time.”
“And you’ve never known them at all.”
Silence.
The younger sibling immediately regretted saying it.
Their father looked between them.
“Enough.”
The conversation ended.
But something had already been planted.
The younger two kept returning.
Months passed.
Then years.
Their friendships deepened.
They watched humans grow older.
They attended celebrations.
They mourned deaths.
They fell silent when someone they cared about became ill.
They discovered that immortality made certain things difficult to understand.
A human could spend an entire lifetime loving one person.
The younger two had eternity.
Yet somehow, the humans seemed to understand love better.
Perhaps because they knew they could lose it. Find the original chapter at g.com.
The younger two began protecting people without being asked.
Not because humans worshipped them.
They didn’t.
Not because the humans knew what they were.
They didn’t.
They did it because they cared.
And every time they returned home, the firstborn noticed.
One evening, one of the younger two placed a small wooden carving on the table.
The firstborn glanced at it.
“What is that?”
“A gift.”
“From whom?”
“Someone in the village.”
“Why?”
“They said I reminded them of someone they lost.”
The firstborn picked up the carving.
It was crude.
Poorly made.
The kind of thing an immortal being would normally overlook.
Instead, the firstborn stared at it.
“You kept it.”
“Of course.”
“For what reason?”
“Because it means something.”
The firstborn put it down.
“You are becoming attached.”
The younger sibling didn’t deny it.
“I am.”
“To something that will die.”
“So will everything.”
“Not us.”
The younger sibling looked at the firstborn for a long moment.
“No.”
That simple answer seemed to enrage them.
“Then why are you behaving as though you are one of them?”
The younger sibling’s expression changed.
“Because I like them.”
“They are beneath us.”
The room went still.
The younger two exchanged a glance.
Their mother slowly rose from her seat.
“Do not say that again.”
The firstborn looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I will not have you speaking about another living being as though existence is a privilege you were granted and they were denied.”
“They are weak.”
“They are different.”
“They are beneath us.”
Their father stood.
The warmth disappeared from his face.
“Enough.”
The firstborn met his father’s eyes.
Neither looked away.
Then the eldest left.
Their footsteps faded down the corridor.
Their mother remained standing.
Something in her expression had changed.
Fear.
Not of the firstborn’s strength.
Of what that strength might become if pride was allowed to grow unchecked.
The firstborn began visiting the human settlement.
Alone.
No disguise was necessary beyond what their family had already taught them.
They wanted to understand.
At least, that was what they told themselves.
Instead, they watched.
They watched humans bow to elders.
They watched families fight over land.
They watched people work until exhaustion.
They watched lovers argue and return to one another.
They watched parents sacrifice food for their children.
They watched strangers help each other.
The firstborn saw all of it.
But where the younger two saw beauty in human weakness, the firstborn saw opportunity.
They saw creatures who could be frightened.
Controlled.
Broken.
And the more they watched, the more convinced they became that humanity had been given something they had not earned.
Freedom.
The right to exist without understanding who stood above them.
That thought became unbearable.
One evening, the firstborn approached a group of humans.
No one recognized them.
No one bowed.
No one knelt.
A man laughed at something another had said.
Someone brushed past the firstborn without apology.
A child ran between them.
The firstborn turned.
The child stopped.
For a brief moment, they stared at one another.
Then the child smiled and ran away.
The firstborn watched.
Something cold settled inside them.
They had lived among beings who knew exactly what they were.
Humans did not.
They did not fear them.
They did not worship them.
They simply lived.
And somehow, that felt like disrespect.
The first death came quietly.
Then another.
The younger two noticed the missing faces.
People they knew.
People they had eaten with.
People who had trusted them.
They searched.
When they discovered what had happened, they returned home furious.
“You did this.”
The firstborn stood by the window.
There was no denial.
“You killed them.”
“They were weak.”
“They were innocent.”
“That is irrelevant.”
“They trusted us.”
“They should have known better.”
The younger sibling stared at them.
“You think they deserved to die because they didn’t know what you are?”
The firstborn turned.
“They should know.”
“Know what?”
“That they are not equal to us.”
The younger two stood frozen.
The firstborn’s voice remained calm.
Almost disturbingly calm.
“They should worship us.”
Their father entered the room.
He had heard enough.
“Leave.”
The firstborn looked at him.
“Father….”
“Leave.”
For the first time, there was no affection in his voice.
Only command.
The firstborn left.
The younger two remained.
Their mother was crying.
Quietly.
Not because of the humans.
Because the child she had raised was becoming someone she no longer recognized.
It did not stop.
The firstborn began feeding.
Human blood became another form of power.
Some humans died.
Some survived.
The ones who survived carried stories they could never explain.
They spoke of something that moved faster than sight.
Something beautiful.
Something merciless.
Fear spread from one settlement to another.
The younger two tried to stop their sibling.
They failed.
Their parents tried.
The firstborn turned against them.
And when the Mother of Creation finally appeared, the family understood that the matter had moved beyond punishment.
It had become a wound in creation itself.
She arrived without announcement.
The sky changed.
The air became heavy.
Every creature in the surrounding lands felt her presence.
The Phoenix stepped forward.
The Angel remained beside the younger two.
The firstborn stood alone.
The Mother of Creation looked at the family for a long time.
Then her eyes settled on the eldest.
“Look at what your union created.”
The Phoenix flinched.
The Angel lowered her gaze.
The words were not meant to insult their love.
They were worse than that.
They were grief.
“I gave you life,” the Mother said.
The firstborn said nothing.
“I gave you a family.”
Still nothing.
“I gave you freedom.”
The firstborn’s jaw tightened.
“And I watched you turn freedom into dominion.”
The eldest finally answered.
“They are beneath us.”
The Mother looked at the younger two.
“They do not believe that.”
“No.”
The Mother returned her attention to the firstborn.
“That is why they must remain free.”
The firstborn’s expression hardened.
“I will not bow to creatures you made yesterday.”
“You will not bow to them.”
The Mother’s voice lowered.
“But you will not make them bow to you.”
The firstborn attacked.
The battle that followed was not a battle between equals.
The earth split beneath them.
The sky burned.
Mountains cracked.
The Phoenix tried to reach their eldest.
The Angel called out.
The younger two screamed for their sibling to stop.
Nothing reached them.
The firstborn fought as though every strike could erase the judgment being passed upon them.
The Mother of Creation fought back.
She did not destroy.
She restrained.
Every movement carried the weight of creation itself.
The firstborn refused to yield.
And eventually, the Mother was forced to unleash more power than she had intended.
The final collision shook the realms.
Silence followed.
The firstborn fell.
The Mother remained standing.
Barely.
For several moments, no one moved.
Then the Mother of Creation began to change.
Her form flickered.
Her body became translucent.
Tiny bubbles of luminous energy began rising from her skin.
The Angel rushed toward her.
“Mother.”
The Mother looked at the family.
She looked tired.
Older than she had ever appeared.
“I do not know whether I will return.”
The Phoenix stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
She smiled faintly.
“I may not.”
More bubbles lifted from her shoulders.
Her hands began disappearing.
The younger two stood frozen.
The Mother looked at them.
Then at the Phoenix.
Then the Angel.
“Take care of what remains.”
Her gaze moved toward the place where the firstborn had fallen.
“And never mistake power for worth.”
Her body dissolved completely.
Thousands of tiny luminous bubbles drifted upward.
Then vanished.
No one knew where they went.
No one knew whether the Mother of Creation had died.
Or whether she had simply vanished beyond their reach.
For the first time since creation began, there was no answer.
The firstborn was not killed.
The family could not bring themselves to destroy their own blood.
Instead, the remaining ancient powers were summoned.
The deepest part of the earth was opened.
Far beneath mountains.
Far beneath roots.
Far beneath rivers.
A prison was carved where nothing living should have been able to survive.
The firstborn was taken there.
Chains were placed around them.
Not ordinary chains.
Ancient bindings woven from forces older than kingdoms.
The doors closed.
Then another.
Then another.
Until the firstborn disappeared beneath layers of earth.
The final seal was placed.
Forever was the word used.
No one knew whether forever truly existed.
But they believed it would be enough.
The family returned home.
Nothing looked different.
The tree still stood.
The house remained.
The same mountains surrounded them.
The same sky stretched above.
Yet nothing felt like home anymore.
The Angel stood in the doorway for a long time.
The Phoenix came beside her.
Neither spoke.
The younger two sat beneath the old tree.
The place where they had once laughed.
The place where their family had been whole.
Neither of them knew what to say.
There was nothing left to say.
Far away, beyond the reach of the ancient realms, a single human slept.
Unaware of the war that had taken place.
Unaware of the Mother of Creation.
Unaware that something had been left behind.
The Mother had given humanity one final gift before vanishing.
Not immortality.
Not power.
Something quieter.
A blood that could endure.
A blood capable of surviving what should have destroyed it.
A blood that would remain rare.
A blood that would travel through generations without anyone understanding why certain descendants could withstand what ordinary humans could not.
The blessing would weaken.
Disappear in some bloodlines.
Sleep for centuries in others.
Until, one day, it would find the right blood.
The right vessel.
The right moment.
And when that happened, creation would remember.
Luca woke with a sharp breath.
For a moment, he remained still.
The room was dark.
His shirt clung to his back.
Sweat ran slowly down his neck.
He looked toward the window.
Nothing.
No movement.
No sound.
His breathing gradually settled.
Luca sat on the edge of the bed.
His gaze found the mirror.
He stared at himself.
Then at the scar across his chest.
His fingers moved over it almost absentmindedly.
The old wound had never completely faded.
Tonight, it looked darker.
Almost fresh.
Luca frowned.
He said nothing.
He simply stared.
The memory..if it had been a memory…was already slipping away.
Faces.
Voices.
A home beneath an ancient tree.
Three children.
A mother dissolving into bubbles of light.
A door closing beneath the earth.
He closed his eyes.
A long sigh left him.
Then..
Drum.
His eyes opened.
Drum.
The sound was distant.
Slow.
Deep.
Not coming from the room.
Not coming from outside.
Somewhere beneath him.
Luca’s hand tightened over his scar.
Drum.
Drum.
Drum.