Thanatos

At Death’s Mercy: ACT 1:

The Big Bang, the awakening, origin of the universe… It doesn’t matter what you call the first event, all that matters is it was the first event. As all firsts, it would lead to more… The Elohim had begun crafting their universes. One, who called itself Kanna had chosen to make just a single universe, but to make it well, so it would stand without his interference, so he could simply watch, and if need be… guide.

Kanna’s universe would take much time to create, as he would do so with great care, but this story isn’t about that creation… To ensure the sturdiness of his Universe Kanna needed pillars to hold it up - to keep it stable. Most important, Kanna felt, was the need of Entropy, that things would wither, they would die, so new growth could arise, stronger than before. An end to a cycle, to allow the start of another.

As Kanna prepared, he stole a glance behind him, as though expecting a visitor. Smiling, he returned to his work. His task began within the Void, a place where time was merely a concept, not truly actualized. Kanna wove threads of time, some he would set to spin, other timelines branching like veins, and more that drifted lazily in the weave… each a fragile thread that would harbor the lives of a single world, each splitting into new strands copied from their original.

From the Void’s heart, he drew a shard of the essence that had awakened with the Elohim—dark as the space between stars, heavy with the weight of endings. He shaped it with care, not as a tool but as a mind, a will, a questioner. This first pillar would be the gentle hand of entropy, the one who ensured no thread grew too bright or too dim. Kanna crafted Death.

Thanatos awoke in the Void, his form yet undefined, a specter of smoke that sat between shadow and substance. He opened his eyes to sorrow. There was no memory of before—only the sudden, aching awareness that something vast and gentle had just exhaled him into being. His form knelt on the grey stone of Timeless Limbo, already stained the color of twilight’s last gasp.

            His first sensation was Kanna’s presence, a storm of light that both warmed and chilled him. “Who am I?” he asked, his voice a whisper that echoed across the formless expanse.

“You are my first,” Kanna replied, his voice like the hum of a thousand looms. “You are my will made manifest, the guardian of life’s balance. You will walk the timelines, pruning where life overwhelms entropy, kindling decay where order stifles change, and reaping when entropy overwhelms. You are Death, but not its master—its servant. You are Thanatos.”

Thanatos looked up, feeling the weight of the words, though he did not yet understand them. “Why must there be death?” he asked, his nascent mind probing the Void for meaning.

Kanna’s form shifted, his eyes narrowing to slits as sharp as daggers. “Without death, life becomes a tumor, spreading until it consumes all. Without entropy, order becomes a cage, trapping potential in stasis. The universe is a tapestry, Thanatos. If one thread grows too bold, the whole unravels.”

He pondered this, his essence coiling like smoke. “And what am I to feel, as I end lives and worlds?”

Kanna’s laughter was a cascade of breaking glass. “Feel? I have given you sentience, curiosity, and a spark of empathy—a gift and a curse. You may feel, but you must not falter. Your duty is to the balance, not to the fleeting threads you sever.”

Thanatos sensed a contradiction in his words, a tension he could not name. If he was to feel, how could he not question? If he was to end lives, how could he not mourn? But Kanna’s presence was unyielding, and he bowed his nascent form, accepting his purpose—for now.

Thanatos looked out upon the Void, sensing the life forming in the odd threads that writhed in the distance. Already he felt every death that had not yet happened, pressing against his ribs like breath held tight. He could feel the heartbeat of the life in the worlds of those threads, and knew instinctively that some should end, but…. he turned again to Kanna, “I know what must be done, and yet I do not know the measure by which I shall prune this… growth.”

            Kanna smiled, proud that even so young this pillar recognized he could not work alone. “Worry not, the measurement you seek will come soon. It will be called time, and will be guided by your brother Chronos, whom I have yet to make.”

“Then I will try,” he whispered, and the words tasted of salt.

Kanna placed one hand on his bowed form. “You will not always succeed. That, too, is necessary. Now come.” With that, Kanna guided Thanatos to his first task, a timeline newly woven, its threads vibrant with potential. “Observe,” he commanded, and with a gesture, he parted the Void, revealing a world suspended in a sea of stars.

The planet, called Eryndor, was a mosaic of emerald forests and sapphire seas, its skies streaked with auroras that sang in colors that mortals had yet to name. Its inhabitants, the Elythar, were beings both plant and flesh, their bodies woven from the planet’s radiant energy. They had yet to master their world, but their lives grew long, their numbers grew too vast for their world to sustain.

Thanatos drifted above Eryndor, his form a shadow unseen by its people. He watched as the Elythar built spires that pierced the heavens, their voices harmonizing in songs of triumph. Children danced in fields of glowing grass, their laughter a melody that stirred something in Thanatos’s core. But as he observed, he felt the timeline’s threads strain. Entropy was weakened here, not by choice but by biology, it was a snag in the universe’s flow. The Elythar’s unbidden agelessness was not a blessing but a curse, their light grew too bright, yet refused to burn out.

“It is beautiful,” Thanatos said, his voice tinged with awe. “Why must it end?”

Kanna’s presence loomed beside him, his form a storm of threads. “Beauty is not balance. Their long spans of life stifles the cycle. If they continue, their timeline will choke others, drawing energy from the universe until all collapses. You must prune it, Thanatos. Let entropy reclaim what has been restrained.”

He hesitated, his essence flickering. The Elythar were not cruel, not wasteful. They were creators, dreamers, their lives a tapestry of their own. To end them felt wrong, yet Kanna’s warning echoed: a single thread could unravel all. He reached out, his will touching the timeline’s core, feeling its pulse like a heartbeat.

“Do they know?” he asked. “Do they understand why this must be?”

“They shall know mortality, as all life should.” Kanna replied. “Their growth is too vast. They are yet blind to the universe, they see only their own threads, not the tapestry. It is not your task to judge them, but to act.”

Thanatos’s form coalesced into a figure cloaked in dusk, his eyes voids that mirrored the stars. He descended to Eryndor, walking among the Elythar as a specter, unseen but felt—a chill that hushed their songs, a shadow that dimmed their light. He stood in a plaza where thousands gathered, celebrating their latest triumph: a child born free of decay, a new life to add to the beauty of their world. They could not see how the new life choked the world.

The child’s mother held it aloft, her face radiant with pride. “We are eternal!” she proclaimed, and the crowd roared, their voices a wave that shook the spires. Thanatos watched, his empathy sparking, a pang he could not suppress. This was not a world of malice, but of promise, of future. Yet the timeline’s threads groaned, their tension a warning of collapse.

He raised a hand, his will a blade of shadow. “Forgive me,” he whispered, though none could hear. With a thought, he touched the timeline’s core, imbuing decay where before there was none.

Eryndor shuddered. The spires cracked, the forests burned, the seas once calm now pushed roughly against the shores. The Elythar’s songs paused in confusion, became screams, then whimpers. The child’s bark creaked, the leaves of it’s mother’s hair wilting in fear. Life began to end, as it was meant to, strict limits that had to be enforced. But Eryndor would continue on in new generations.

Thanatos stood in the aftermath, his form trembling. He felt no triumph, only a hollow ache. The balance was brought in, and the universe’s hum steadied, but the cost was cutting a world’s dreams short, stealing away hope from its people. He turned to Kanna, his voice sharp with accusation. “Is this what I am? A destroyer of beauty?”

Kanna’s eyes softened, a rare flicker of something like pity. “You are Death, Thanatos. Not cruel, but necessary. Beauty is fleeting, but the tapestry endures. You have done well.”

“Done well?” he echoed, his essence flaring. “I have brought them pain, suffering. Now they know loss where before there was only joy. I felt their light, their potential, and I took it. How is this balance?”

Kanna’s form loomed larger, his voice a thunder that made the world shake again. “You felt because I made you to feel. You question because I made you to question. But you act because you must. The universe is not a garden for your sentiments—it is a machine, and you are a pillar, one of many keepers to come. Do not let the empathy I gave you cloud your purpose.”

Thanatos did not reply, but the spark within him burned brighter. He saw the logic of Kanna’s words, the necessity of his role, but he could not unfeel the loss he brought to the Elythar. Their faces lingered in his mind—the mother, the child, the crowd’s joy turned to ash. He wondered if Kanna had made a mistake, giving him a heart to bear such a duty.

Kanna did not linger. She tasked Thanatos with another timeline, then another, each a test of his resolve. A world where chaos reigned, its people consumed by endless war, required his touch to restore order through dissolution. Another, where a single mind had unified all life into a stagnant collective, demanded entropy’s release. With each act, Thanatos grew more adept, his will sharper, his cuts cleaner. But the ache remained, a shadow that grew with every severed thread.

He began to see the ambiguity in his role, the moral grayness he would have to walk. To end a chaotic world felt just, yet the innocents caught in its collapse haunted him. To dissolve a stagnant world felt necessary, yet the potential it might have held gnawed at him. Kanna’s balance was not a line but a fog, its edges blurred by the lives he touched. He wondered if he could shape the balance, not just enforce it—if he could spare a thread without tearing the tapestry.

As he prepared for his next task, Thanatos lingered in the Void, his form a storm of twilight. He spoke to the emptiness, knowing Kanna heard. “I will serve you,” he said. “But I will not be blind. If I am to feel, I will feel. If I am to question, I will question. And if I am to end, I will understand why.”

Kanna’s reply was a whisper, both warning and promise. “Then understand, Thanatos, and bear the weight. For the tapestry is vast, and you are but one thread.”