In the beginning, there was nothing.
An everlasting silence which had never tasted the sweetness of sound,
A stillness that had never been disturbed, a darkness that had never learned what light was.
A Void of Absolutely Nothing.
And yet paradoxically enough within that endless void also existed everything,. Well, the potential of everything.
It was a seed.
But not just any seed, it was the Seed Of Creation, The Promise Of Everything.
Small, young — yet alive in a place where nothing should have been.
The very existence of the seed manifested something, created something. A Garden.
People, long after, would call it Paraden — The Divine Garden.
It was alive like a heartbeat in the void which had never knew the concept of life. It was more beautiful than the concept of beauty itself. And at its center lay a single Seed - waiting, growing. The Seed of Creation. Within it slept everything that could ever exist — life, death, light, darkness, time, space and all that lay between.
But just like any other garden, Paraden also needed someone to tend it to.
And there were, not just one but two sisters. They were not born; they simply were, called forth by the Seed itself.
Terra, the elder — whose laughter brought life would bring life to all things.
Seraphene, the younger — whose silence made even the heartbeat of creation to pause.
Together they became the caretakers of the Seed.
For an age that knew no count , they lived in harmony. Terra's hands shaped while Seraphene's will steadied.
And so, their first creation together, Light and Darkness — each born together, not as rivals, but as halves of a whole. Light gave warmth, but Darkness gave rest.
Then came Time and Space, Fire and Water, Wind and Earth, they were made in balance, in harmony.
Together they were the eight forces of Paraden. Eight building blocks on which the two sisters planned to create a house, a home.
"The Seed listens," Terra said one day, gazing at its glow. "It wants us to make more."
Seraphene tilted her head. "Or it only echoes what we desire. Perhaps it learns too quickly."
Terra smiled. "Then let it learn joy."
It was Terra who wanted to create even more things, things which breathed, things which laughed with her, walked with her, lived with her, she longed to see their garden alive with life.
So she did exactly that, by using the seed's energy, she created life. It was the first time any of the sisters created something alone. Seraphene watched as her sister's creations filled the Garden. Each thing carried a small echo of something new, of something alive.
The first Trees. Created by Terra in the dreams of what the seed may look like when it matures.
The first beasts.
Dragons that carried the light of the sun across their scales. The burn of it in their throats.
Serpents that swam through the rivers of Paraden, curling like ribbons of living water.
Stags with antlers bright as dawnfire, Phoenixes that burned for what seemed like eternity.
Birds which flew not in space but in time.
The beasts bowed before them and learned from them. They spoke in gestures, roars, and song — a language of reverence.
Terra often walked among them, her laughter echoing through the silver fields. "Look at them, Sera. They've learned to love. They've learned to live."
Seraphene's gaze lingered longer. "Or to want," she murmured. "And wanting always leads to losing."
Terra brushed her sister's hand. "You see shadows where there are none."
Seraphene's voice softened. "And you forget that shadows are born only because of light."
Their words faded into the wind. The Garden stayed whole, for a time.
But the void around Paraden was never truly still. It watched. It waited.
And it began to whisper — not to the sisters, it couldn't. So instead it lured what they had made,
Some of the divine beasts grew restless. Those with wings, or those that could go beyond the Garden's borders through any means, felt the pull of that whisper. They wandered near the edges where light dimmed and time thinned.
Terra saw them leave and only smiled. "Let them see what lies beyond. They will return wiser."
But Seraphene stood still beside the Seed. "And if the void teaches them something we cannot undo?"
"They will return, little sister," Terra said, her voice calm. "Even the void cannot undo what is made in balance."
Yet when the first one returned, its eyes no longer knew what it had once loved.
A dragon, once golden, now shimmered with a dull grey hue.
Its voice, when it spoke, sounded like echoing metal scraping through wind.
Terra reached for it. "What happened to you?"
The dragon only lowered its head. "We heard the dark speak," it said. "And we listened." it mourned, perhaps for itself or for Creation itself.
Seraphene's heart sank. She saw what Terra could not — the faint tremor in the Garden, the quiet echoes that brushed the Seed's light. Something had touched them, something that did not belong to the garden, perhaps something which did not belong to creation itself.
And when the beasts who returned from the void grew violent, Terra couldn't bring herself to stop them. She called their names, pleaded with them — but they struck at the trees, the rivers, each other.
It was Seraphene who acted. For the first time since the beginning, Seraphene acted alone, created alone.
She reached into the Seed and found a force none had yet named — a quiet power that stilled everything it touched. She gave it form, and thus Death came to be.
"Sleep" Seraphene said, and for the first time Paraden felt death.
When it passed through the beasts, their roars fell silent. The Garden became still again — too still. The air carried a strange weight that had never existed before.
Terra looked at the fallen beasts as if she had seen something unholy, something wrong and whispered, "What have you done?"
"What you could not," Seraphene said softly. Her hands trembled. "You create endlessly, sister. I must make endings."
They stood over the still bodies for a long time. The Seed pulsed faintly, dimmer than before. Yet somehow stabler than before.
Seraphene turned to her sister. "The Garden needs restraint. It needs my hand to keep it safe."
"But this changes everything, before, life was constant, it was stable, now-now I don't even know what this is ", Terra pleaded.
Seraphene's reply came gently — but with the absoluteness of light itself.
"No, elder sister. Without change, even the divine will decay, even creation will corrupt."
And for the first time, Terra could speak no rebuttal, for there was none.
The wind carried their silence. Somewhere far beyond Paraden, the void stirred again — a faint ripple, like laughter too distant to hear.
[Do read the Author's note below]