An End of Gods & Dust: Act X

“Everyone waits for the end.”

- Haruki Murakami 

The last human stood before a god, and the human was angry.

The human wasn’t angry that the god hadn’t stopped the deaths of his friends; his makeshift family that was born amongst the black-stained dunes.

Kokuo was furious because the god before him was a liar.

“Einya? No - no, you bring back Karra. Right now.” Kokuo lunged forward, reaching out for his friend.

Golden rings cracked against his cheekbone and jaw, and Kokuo was laid out on the black sand.

“Don’t be foolish, Kokuo. I am Karra and I am also Einya. You cannot separate us, as we are one, and always have been.”

There was a soft clinking, like glass beads rolling against each other, and then a much smaller, more human-sized hand was beneath his chin, lifting his head gently from the sand. He winced, looking up into the mortal visage of the goddess of Chaos. 

“Karra…why?” He whispered, blood staining his lips red.

Karra’s face pinched with strain, and her mouth trembled slightly. Only her sky blue eyes remained steady. 

“Because I was supposed to have forever as a whole - not as this broken, gaping maw at the end of all things.”

Kokuo was confused. To him, Karra was speaking in riddles.

Karra sighed, stretching back up to her full height and turning from him. With a confident sweep of her hand, the sky overhead wheeled away from the sun, turning orange, red, then pink and purple, until the veil of night closed in and all the stars glowed at once.

“This was ours. Our creation. Our dance.” Karra held her arms out wide to the sky. “All that is, was, and ever will be…it was our gift to the emptiness that birthed us.”

Karra slowly lowered her arms, and as she did, the night sky moved once more, circling to an unfamiliar bright cluster of stars that seemed to slowly rotate in a bend of a twinkling river. But, as the stars moved, they slowly began to fizzle and wink out into nothingness. 

“Then…he was ripped from me. My partner. My muse.” Karra turned to Kokuo, black tears streaking down her face. “My family.”

Kokuo shakily sat up, leaning heavily on his forearms as he folded his knees beneath him. He tasted blood, but his head was clear. His mind brought before him the image of the effigy of the god of Order standing vigil over Selene’s body. 

“Your family…was Order?”

The goddess flinched, wiping at her face. Almost comically, she pulled back her black-stained fingers and stared at the tears she had shed in open shock and disgust. 

“Family…a shallow word for what we were…but to you, I know it means everything.” Karra lowered her hand, the moisture at her fingertips turning to steam. “Order had always claimed humans were the greatest of the consequences of our creation, and had encouraged me to walk amongst you as he had.” She glanced down at Kokuo, her blue eyes searching for something in his expression. “It wasn’t until I felt him ripped from me that I even considered it.”

“And now? After walking with us…do you believe Order was right?”

Karra’s form rippled, morphing back into Chaos’ true form, her raven wings encircling the night sky. Then, much to Kokuo’s surprise, she sat before him on her knees, mirroring his pose.

“In all my wanderings, all I ever saw were kings and thieves, creations unworthy of his gaze, his attention - his love. Humans saw greed as the ultimate virtue when it was the very thing that was destroying them. They were foolish, mindless animals.

So, I unleashed the unmaking storm.”

Kokuo clenched his fists into the sand beneath him. “So it was you.”

“Yes,” the goddess said, “it was me.”

“Why?”

Einya gathered a handful of black sand in her hand and let it drift from her fingers. “When Order was swallowed, I was left with nothing but dust and the emptiness he once occupied. Life became meaningless…even after I descended, I asked myself: ‘why should I sustain this world when it is so ugly? Why - when the only thing that made it beautiful was him?’”

The black sand in the palm of her hand faded to its natural, reddish color as it passed from her fingers to the ground. 

“I could have stopped it…at any time. I almost did.”

Kokuo’s whole body shook. “Why didn’t you stop it?”

Chaos locked her vacant eyes with his, and gave a soft, human smile. “Because you couldn’t fill the void in my heart.”

Memories flashed before Kokuo: her finding him in the storm, her offering her rations of food and water, her always protecting him, always doing well on supply runs, always being calm and unfazed in the storm and knowing what the Vulturkin were and how to defeat them. Her kindness and grief as every one of them - Selene, Tryfon, Hallas, Ourania, and Leto - succumbed to the world she had brought to ruin.

Something cracked in Kokuo, and he laughed. Quietly at first, in small bursts, until he was nearly crying into the sand, his whole body contorting over his knees as he tried to hide his face from the person he would have done anything for. Sacrificed anything for.

“You’re…you’re no god,” he gasped, swallowing back more hysterical laughter. “You’re human. You always were. This - all of this - all because you didn’t know how to process your loss.”

Chaos was silent at his statement.

Kokuo let a few more gasping breaths and tears escape him before he too went silent. 

What more was there to say to a god who didn’t love this world?

Chaos’ hands wound around his buried beneath the sand, and she pulled them up until he was forced to look into her eyes once more.

“So, Kokuo, friend to Karra, I ask you: what should a god like me do at the end?”

“Can’t you stop it? Bring everyone back?”

Chaos shook her head, the burning gem in her crown slowly dimming. “No. I cannot. The damage has been done. Even if I were to halt the storm, most of all life has been extinguished.”

Tears welled in Kokuo’s eyes, but he refused to let them fall. “Then…this entire time with us…you knew. There was no hope.”

A thoughtful smile curled across her lips. “Order never believed hope could be extinguished. What he never considered was that hope would die on the day of our parting…a parting that neither of us knew was coming. Hope may be gone, Kokuo, but you can still give this world a gentle end.”

At this, black dust swirled between their hands and a dagger carved from bone was conjured from its writhing sediment.

She let go of his hands to grab the blade, then turned it handle first towards him. 

“Once I die, all creation will cease to exist. You can end what I could not. Do not let this world suffer any longer than it has to.” Her words were eerily steady, her void eyes vacant of swirling stars. 

Kokuo shook his head. “No - Karra, I can’t.”

Einya lunged forward and pushed the hilt of the dagger into his hands, curling his fingers around it. “I am not Karra. You will not be killing her. Only her visage.”

“That’s not what you said - you -”

“Kokuo!” The goddess snapped, desperation seeping into her voice. She looked into his eyes and he saw her irises flash to a sky blue. “I’m trying to make this easy for you.”

“But what about you? You’re - “

“The bringer of the end.”

“The goddess of creation! You and Order both!”

Karra stilled, her breaths evening out.

Kokuo narrowed in on those eyes - human eyes - eyes that had been kind, protective, and supportive. Eyes that had led him out of the storm. Eyes that now asked him to close them forever.

“Life isn’t meaningless, even when we lose someone. Even when we lose the most important person. We still have us. We still have futures, dreams…reasons for continuing. For existing.

You can still create, Karra. You can build something new out of the dust. Don’t…don’t ask me to erase us. Don’t ask me to end it when you could build a monument out of our remains.”  

The gold bands, rings, and bejeweled crown worn by the goddess began to rust and crumble, joining the dust around them. The windstorm around them quieted, but didn’t quite give up its currents. 

The tears she shed were clear. 

“You are so much like him…I must be the first god in existence to experience regret.”

She slowly pulled the tip of the dagger toward her chest, and Kokuo pulled; fought against her choice, but she was so much stronger - this god of beginnings and endings. 

“Let us become dust, Kokuo. Let us join the others in oblivion. Let us end the suffering of this world, so that somewhere out of the emptiness something new can be born.” 

Kokuo shook, his tears mingling with hers on the black sand made up of the lives eroded by this calamity. 

“It’s alright, Kokuo. It’s like going to sleep, or so I’ve been told.” She had the guts to let out a soft laugh even here at the end. “I will hold you as I wished I could have held him.”

“Karra…”

“I will create no more, Kokuo. I have nothing left to give but this. Please…do this for me.”

The one person he would do anything for. The one person who had pulled him out of the storm. 

Slowly, Kokuo relaxed, but the dagger did not move. Instead he did. He moved to hold his friend Karra as she’d claimed she wanted to hold him, positioning the dagger above her chest in a more gentle manner. 

It was his turn to save her from the storm. 

Chaos’s features melted away to reveal Karra's brave, smiling face once more. Her tanned skin gleamed with fresh tears, but her sky blue eyes were filled with a peace he had never seen. 

Gently, he brushed his fingers through her dark, sand-caked hair, and returned her glittering smile. “Okay. Let’s go, Karra.”

Karra’s familiar, rough hand upon his cheek was the last thing he felt before he pushed the bone blade into the god’s chest.

.     .     .

The last god laid in the arms of a human, and the god felt peace at last.

In that final breath, the last remnants of Order pierced her chest, and all was quiet.

There, at the end of existence, she was joined once more in that perfect dance of annihilation, twirling through the vast emptiness of creation with stars trailing in her wake.

He would return, wearing his face once more - that young boys’ she’d nearly forsaken to her wrath. The one she had rescued, and had fallen in love with all over again.

But it was so much more than love, because from their reunion not just one life was born, but trillions. 

Bright lights, conjured from dust and the flooding tears of the gods.

Ready to let Time start again.
______________________________________

Read from the start of the series:

Author's Note:

Firstly I want to thank everyone who stuck around till the end of this series. It took a while, but I'm honestly so happy with completing another project, especially a passion project like this that I didn't even know would ever get written.

A special thanks to Stephanie Hoogstad who has commented on every chapter of AN End of Gods & Dust, and who gave me invaluable encouragement and insightful thoughts after each read. She also tipped me on many chapters, further giving me the motivation to complete this project even when I doubted myself ( and to get me a few special coffees throughout the drafting process to keep me going <3 ). It's readers like you that keep authors like me from giving up.

Secondly, I want to thank friends and family who patiently let me talk ( yap like a nerd ) about this story for over a year, and who listened to me read out snippets for feedback, and who lent me advice and inspiration for the story throughout.

Mom & Dad; finally your daughter has a manuscript that's not fan-fiction she can actually publish. Thank you for providing me a roof to live under, endless patience for my goblin lifestyle, and unquestioning love and understanding as I navigate this new diagnosis. My only wish is to make you both happy.

Mitch; thank you for being the greatest friend and muse across the ocean a human could ever ask for. Our friendship is a miracle, a cosmic fluke even, but like the gods in this story we continue to dance to our own tune to transcend space and time.

Ryan; your belief in me has never wavered and for that I will be eternally grateful. Your kindness, patience, and equal passion for world-building and nerding out over games & MTG has healed me of wounds I never knew could be healed. At the end, I hope I can hold you in my arms.

Vocal; I know it's been rough lately managing the new changes to the website, dealing with constant cyber attacks, AI imposters, a backlog of messages and inquiries about bugs and site glitches, and an ever increasing uncertainty about our countries' economy, but I will never not be grateful for this platform. I truly believe you guys can turn this era around with the right people on your team and a more open communication between you and the creators who made this platform possible.