Chapter Text
There is nothing. And then suddenly, there is everything.
Matter bursts outwards and the vacuum is filled with the universe. Where there was nothing is an infinite cosmos. This is long before his time. His kind was not around to witness the birth of the universe. Nor was he there to oversee life crawl out of the primordial ooze. He himself comes into the world much in the same way the universe came into being. He was not, and then suddenly--he was.
He is born with an intrinsic understanding of what he is, something he is told humans are not privy to. While he knows his function, his reason for being, those he is to influence have no idea of theirs. Which is where he comes in, to guide them.
He sees the earth when mankind is budding and new, bustling and building and coming into itself. Humans build civilizations that are swept away not a millennium later. They spill the blood of their own kind, prematurely ending their already woefully short lives.
Still, no matter how fast humanity is sprinting to its demise, he tries to slow it down. One person at a time. It’s a lengthy project, often unrewarding, but he is forever where mankind is finite. How else would he whittle away eternity?
In his early days he’s bright eyed and eager, much to the chagrin of his elders. They send him off with well wishes, completely unprepared for the mess that is humanity.
He witnesses history. He is the unseen presence that begs Orpheus not to look back and after that failure Peter is a little bit more jaded.
The world changes. Religion changes it. Where he was accustomed to seeing marble shrines and temples he sees smothering, enclosed places of worship. People don’t believe in Gods walking among them anymore, although they do believe in witches casting curses. He tries to quell the calamity. He tries so hard, but no one wants to listen to reason.
For the first time, he feels utterly helpless.
Those older and wiser than him decide it’s time to pull back their shepherding hand. “What will be, will be,” is what he’s told when he protests.
“We can’t abandon them when they need us most,” he says. But he is young and knows little.
He watches from afar. He watches massacres and war and sickness. He watches until he can no longer stand it. Time passes by him quickly and before he realizes it, the world is nothing like what he remembers.