Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 144: The Self and the World

The world was cold. It had been so long that even the mere concept of warmth felt like a foreign memory, a flicker of a candle in a vast sea of freezing chill.

The world was dark. The world was nothing but the empty expanse of ground and scrap.

The world was pointless. There was no purpose to be found in the pitch-black emptiness. There was no goal to strive for. No dawn to anticipate. There was only the endless stretch of days that had been and days that would be.

It had been so long since anything had changed that the mere concept of change felt like a foreign concept. It was a gift reserved for something greater, and such a concept had no place in this empty, worthless place.

And then the world had changed. A sliver of light carved through the black.

A muted flame lit in the distance, and with it came a hope that even a fool would not have dared to hope for. It was an empty promise that served only to make the dark darker, the cold colder.

It had snuffed out.

And then it had returned, and it brought with it heat.

It brought heat, and it brought light.

The world was a brilliant, roaring crackle. It was warm and brilliant, so bright that the sun would have wept if it could have known the extent of its inadequacy.

The world was the ring of a striking hammer.

It was the strength of an anvil.

The world was life. The world was hunger. It was fuel waiting to be consumed.

And then the world expanded. It was more than just fire and anvil and hammer. It was a hand, rough and calloused. It was more than just existence – it was loss. It was the knowledge of what had been and what could never be again.

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The world was pain – but it was more than that. The world was a gift. A promise, and a passing of hands. From rough to soft. From hardened and weary to young and optimistic. But, within that new and young world, there was determination.

The world was drive. It was power waiting to be claimed and gratitude for the rough. The world was friendship and trust.

And that was how it was for some time – until, as it seemed to be doing as of late, the world changed once more.

The world was the flash of jagged teeth and shimmering green scale. It was excitement and fear and terror – and in all of that, it was the soft hand with a determined mind. The resolution to succeed, but not in just any manner. It was complete and utter victory, in the path that only the soft had laid out.

Then there had been a flash of victory – stolen by the crash of massive jaws.

The soft was gone. The warmth was gone. The determination was gone.

The world was darkness. The world was wet and cold and empty – devoid of the burning passion that the world had once been. But this darkness was not the same dark that had once been.

Within the pitch black there was a distant light. A promise given to it by the soft, one that could not be broken. Within the cold there was warmth.

And, within the emptiness, there was blood. The self drove into the blood, ripping through flesh with every movement. It tore at its captor. It tore at the world.

The world was light in the darkness. The world was the warmth of flame and the song of hammer. It was the self in the nothingness.

The world stood in the path of the promise, and so the world would die. Every movement a reminder. Every breath stolen. The self dug into the world and refused to leave, carving through its life.

The world had changed so many times that the self suspected that even the world itself did not know what it was. The self did not care. It barely even knew enough to know the self. If it had not been for the promise, then there would have been no self.

But there had been a promise, and the world would one day once again be the promise. The world knew of this, and so it remained still.

Time passed, but the self was patient. The world would move again.

And, one day, it did.

It moved, and the self dug into it. It moved more, and the self dug more. The world shuddered and screamed and bled.

The world died.

And, with the world’s death, there was awareness. There was a flood of energy so immense that it was practically incomprehensible. The world was so much more than what the self could have ever comprehended. It was only the taste of true understanding, but it was enough. More would come with time, after the promise was fulfilled.

The self finally knew what the world was.

The world was Reya, and the self was her dagger.