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mx-metronome · 5 months

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Meditations on Eden 1

Writing for the sake of writing. Eden spoilers under the cut (also it’s long, oops)

Imagine you are a star in the sky, having only known the indifferent twinkling of your distant siblings and the loud silence of the universe.

Now imagine that you fall from such a comforting nothingness, at a blazing speed, towards a solid something below. You’ve been pushed out of your cradle of Light & Song and into a land of coldness and chaotic noise.

Imagine that you’ve been born. Would you not be angry? Would you not feel betrayed that a caring Mother would do such a thing to you, to remove you from your comfort? Perhaps that is why babies cry. Perhaps that is why many moths so quickly abandon their journey.

You settle into the terrible noise, learning the sound of the waves crashing on a shore and the sensation of wind whistling past your ears, and then out of the senseless noise you hear the tolling of bells and feel the vibrations resonate through you. Imagine that the star at your core trembles in response: it sounds like Her beckoning you back home.

All the while, you think, Why cast me out from the stars if only to call me back home again? What purpose does this serve? And yet She calls; and yet you trust Her.

So you follow.

You are told that all is given breath by starlight. Was I not breathing before?

You continue to follow Her voice.

Imagine that time passes, and existence becomes more bearable.

You find other fallen stars like you, other Children of the Light. Some are much taller, some much shorter, many in all shapes and colors adorning their vessels.

They sing songs of the Eye of Eden, the place of salvation, where Her Warmth proves itself true to those who have fallen to darkness. Have I fallen to darkness? Did she send me into this darkness, or was I dragged down by force?

The children gesture towards the Mountain crowned with a halo that She had been calling you to, an intense light extending from the summit back to the stars. That is where She is, She will save me and bring me home when I get there.

The children urge you to collect winged light, for these are the key to salvation. They caution that the Darkness wishes to reclaim these and that you must keep them safe. I will take these wings to Her to gain her favor.

So you continue to follow Her voice.

You pass through troubled lands devoid of the creatures’ songs, replaced instead by heavy air and the dead ground. Large creatures of not-Light swim through the thick air in endless circles, hunting for Her essences. They seek your winged light, your tickets home. You guard them jealously as you slip past, you refuse to give them up.

You ascend a mighty tower, full of graves and old stories and the dangers of hubris and ambition. The dreamlike void swirling with particles of light make you feel the closest to home you’ve ever been. These wings will surely be enough to get me home.

You continue to follow Her voice.

She leads you to the base of the Mountain, the Holy Site, irradiated with darkness, clouded in ash. Surely this must be a mistake? This doesn’t look like salvation at all!

And yet, in all your doubt, She calls; and yet, in all your apprehension, you trust Her. You continue to follow Her voice.

You scale this peak, cloaked in a storm of stones, patrolled by more of these dark creatures. You make a dash towards the open hallway, where She is calling from. You want to trust Her.

A gust of wind pushes you backward just a few inches, and your foot slips. Enough lost momentum for a torrent of rocks to pelt you, knocking you to your back. Helplessly you watch as the winged light that would surely bring you home scatter to the winds, dwindling and then fading to nothing, like candlelights in a hurricane.

Why? Why did She bring me here? This place is only pain, only anger. She couldn’t possibly dwell in a place like this, a place of absolute darkness. How could I possibly trust Her?

And yet, She calls.

You crawl between flung rocks and dragons’ eyesight towards Her voice, the loudest it’s ever been. You have no choice but to trust Her.

As you enter the hallway littered with winged light, you wonder if this is the salvation the children meant, the ultimate reward for your troubles. But it isn’t home. She beckons you further inward, Her sound is almost deafening now.

You hesitate a moment before continuing to follow Her voice.

You follow the voice into the Eye of Eden, the place of salvation.

A crystal of darkness so intense that it’s poisoned the land for miles around it.

A shattered palace whose tile floors are now strewn with the petrified corpses of children who came before you.

Imagine that She has brought you here to a place reeking of death, dissonant with the scraping of stone against stone.

A place that children sang about.

Now imagine, right then, that you can’t hear Her voice anymore. You call out, just in case you’re missing something, but you feel no response.

Would you not be angry? Would you not feel betrayed that a caring Mother would do such a thing to you, to lead you to the place where you’d die again with no further explanation? Was falling away from the warm stars not enough?? You tried your best, you brought the light here, you did as you were told. Why couldn’t you be saved? Why isn’t She here???

You let out your anger and pain in a fiery scream, but the red crystal screams louder. You feel the darkness begin to slow you down and the threads holding the winged light to you begin to fray. Resigning to your arrogance and greed for answers, you step out into the downpour of rocks and kneel before the nearest stone child.

As you succumb to the intense darkness, you feel your remaining winged light tugging you, as though it were reaching for the fallen child. Reluctantly, you cradle one of your precious light in your hands and place it against the statue. Immediately, a golden light peeks through the cracks in their stone skin as the winged light combines with the child’s soul. You see your winged light count fall by 1.

They sing songs of the Eye of Eden…

You understand.

…the place of salvation…

You cannot save yourself. That is not why She brought you here.

…where Her Warmth proves itself true to those who have fallen to darkness.

The winged light was never yours to keep. Your salvation was never yours to claim. Love was never meant to be taken.

Realizing that time is short and your light is waning, you arise to your feet one final time and trudge through the storm and the sludge, reaching out and touching the damned with the light you had protected all this time. One by one, the winged light shine gold through the cracks in the stone like an ore vein, and the rocks begin to rain harder, as though the Darkness is punishing you for daring to be selfless in this final act.

As you reach out to the furthest sky kids in the darkest places, you feel the polluted water burn the soles of your feet, the pointed stones in your lungs. Your winged light reserves grow emptier and emptier, and the darkness begins to seep into your eyes and your joints and your heart.

As a loose stone clobbers the back of your head, your last winged light violently tears away from you, shattering instantly against the intense radiation. With your core now devoid of light and your soul emptied of all your achievements, you feel the darkness coat your body like a thick skin. The vessel you took on becomes heavy and movements laborious. The searing pain is unbearable.

You feel so hot, like your body is burning away, and as your heartbeat slows to a crawl, you grow cold. Is this the salvation? Will I spend eternity in a void?

What will become of them?

And as you exhale your last breath, the cold dissipates, and you feel nothing.

It is almost like falling asleep.

It is almost like waking up.

Imagine you were a star in the sky, having only known the indifferent twinkling of your distant siblings and the loud silence of the universe.

Except now that twinkling is far gone, and the silence is even louder. You left your nonexistence and fell into existence. You left your cradle, learned to point, learned to charm the butterflies, learned to laugh, learned to cry, learned to dance, learned to fear, learned to pray.

And in your final moments of existence, you learned to love. Truly, wholly, and with wild abandon, even without the guarantee that it would benefit you somehow in the end.

Yes, another child comes along on the same pilgrimage and saves you too. You’re reborn, you get to reenter the world you’ve come to love again. But that’s not necessarily what this story is about.

Imagine that She is you. Imagine that you are Her. You are Her Warmth, Her Salvation made manifest, Her Guiding Light. You are the Voice that She led you along, and you are Her Kindness.

When the children sang the songs of the Eye of Eden, they were singing about Her, and they were singing about each other, and they were also singing about You.

#sky children of the light #sky cotl #thatskygame #sky spoilers #eden spoilers #meditations on Eden #sorry this is so fucking long lol #one of my resolutions this year is to write #and I’ve written about Eden before #I wanna write more #but I like Eden a lot #I understand why folks don’t and I explore those reasons #but I have a lot of feelings about Eden

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