Prologue
Zarya
I've always resented the phrase once upon a time... Time. It's such a fickle thing. It's the one thing I've never been able to get a hold on, even after eighteen thousand years. You can never take it back or get a re-do. It can't be stopped, not even by an omnipotent deity. Well... I guess that statement negates itself.
But back to time. You'd think it would be my friend by now. Instead, I find myself resenting it more and more everyday. You see, as a goddess, I was born and will forever appear to be around the age of twenty years old. As a cursed goddess, I am bound to Earth. I will have once chance to possibly break the curse. That one chance is dependent upon a prophecy that has no set ending.
So all I can do is wait. Wait until the prophecy is spoken. Wait while I watch every friend I've made on Earth die. Wait while I watch humans become consumed with self-righteous greed and corruption. Wait as fires and wars rage across the land. Wait alone with my curse as time passes.
My curse is complicated. It was cast on me... once upon a time... I was a young goddess living in the heavenly land my race of gods dwelled in. A majestical place called Albine.
Albine was breathtakingly beautiful with its cotton-candy skies and buildings made of glittering white marble. The grass was the brightest emerald green, the water was the clearest of blues, and the sun was the most golden yellow one could see. The three trunks looked as if they were made of copper and they contrasted beautifully against the cerulean blue leaves. The streets and sidewalks were made of bricks from the same glittering marble as our buildings. The grout between the bricks reflected its surroundings like a mirror. So the streets often danced with the changing colors of the cotton-candy skies.
My race of deity are called Brexan. Like most deities, our appearance and anatomy is identical to that of the human race. The Brexan are not deities of religion or creation. We are the divine of all extraordinary abilities. Essentially, the gods of superpowers. They use their different abilities to help each other and live in perfect harmony. And the only law is the prophecies spoken from the God of Future Sight.
Brexan are born from the origin of their ability, we cannot procreate. However, the king of the Brexans is my father, Hemlox, the god of strength. He was the first of the Brexans and emerged from the might of a giant sequoia tree. He represents that true strength is the ability to withstand the world around you while standing tall. He climbed that tree and found himself in Albine. The queen of the Brexans, Evamorphis, is the goddess of transformation. She emerged from the shed scales of an iguana. She represents that physical transformation is internal as much as it is external. My father sensed she was created and lifted her up into the heavenly Albine.
Most Brexan have similar origins. I am the only outlier. Ten-thousand years after the last of the 'natural' Brexan came to be, a prophecy was spoken. The prophecy would create the origin of the last of the Brexans. As demanded by the prophecy, each god and goddess had to present a piece of their origin. For example, my father brought a leaf from a giant sequoia tree, and my mother brought shed iguana scales. Once all the pieces from all the origins was placed together, a lightning bolt would strike the pile and start the heart of the the last of the Brexans - the Child of All Abilities (that's me). The king and queen of the Brexans took me in as their child as I learned to master the powers I was gifted.
Then one day another prophecy was spoken:
A second strike will cause the fall,
of the one who holds a piece of us all.
Until prophecy of a third strike,
the child will live a cursed life.
Bound to Earth with no way above,
watching the lives of the face she loves.
The third strike can break the curse,
One chance to break it or stay amerced.
I turned thirteen thousand the day that prophecy was spoken. The next day the colorful Albine sky turned black and the lightning struck. That day was the last time I saw a Brexan and the last time I was on Albine.
The lightning didn't hurt as it struck through my heart. I remember looking up with tears in my eyes as the hole my body created in the clouds was filled in. The glittering bricks magically reassembled, closing off my last view of Albine. Then the clouds covered the brick to conceal the heavenly place I called home.
I felt no pain as I hit the ground. I suffered no injuries. I wandered for a long time. I was lost on Earth and the human way of life was drastically different from the life I was used to. I used to repeat the prophecy over and over in my head. At first it gave me hope because all I had to do was wait for word of a third strike. But then, I met the face of the one I love. I had only been on Earth for three years when I met him. I remember that encounter more vividly than all the other first encounters with him.
It was sunny day in the period of Minoan civilization (about three thousand BCE). I was at a crowded local market when someone bumped into my side. When I looked to see the person who bumped into me I locked eyes with a young man who appeared to be around my physical age. He had big brown eyes that shimmered with gold flecks in the summer sun. He had curly, dark hair and stood around five foot eight. His name was Maros.
He quickly apologized and carried my goods as we walked through the market. The Minoans were matriarchal society, so by default he was super sweet and respectful. Something in me felt like it was cut free but being tugged down at the same time. We quickly fell in love but it ended just as quickly as it started. Within a year of meeting, he fell ill and died. I tried to save him but my healing abilities would never work on him - thanks to the curse. I left the Minoan civilization the day he died.
However, it didn't matter where I went. I always met him time and time again. His name always started with an M. He was Maximus when I met him in the Roman Empire. He was Meccus, Milo, and Melior throughout the middle ages in Europe. He was Malcom in colonial America. In those times, he usually died by a duel, war, infection, or illness. I started to try to avoid humans all together. But no matter what I did, I saw him. I met him. I fell in love with him. And I watched him die.
The only mercy the curse gave me was he never remembered his past lives and there were short time periods between meeting him. The easiest way to explain it would be reincarnation-adjacent. When he died, I would meet him again eighteen to twenty-two years later. So every time he died, he was born again somewhere else and I found him every... time. Stuck, watching the lives of the face I love.
Needless to say, time and I certainly have a rocky relationship. At this point I begged fate daily to speak the prophecy. I missed Albine greatly and wanted to escape the horrible torture of this curse. Modern times have caused the deaths of my love to be more... creative as opposed to disease or war. For example, in the 1920s, Mario was in the Italian mafia and killed by an opposing Italian mafia. They sent his body in parts to the home of the mafia boss. Each day I watched as a new piece of his dead body arrived. And surprisingly, that wasn't the worst way I've seen him go.
Approximately 21 years ago I watched Mitchell die. It was 1995 and we had been happily married for 2 years. Mitchell had the same brown eyes, dark curly hair and square jaw of his previous lives. His body was always a little different. When he was Mitchell, he was a six foot two string bean of a man. He was thin and scrawny but I loved him the same as every other time before.
It was a normal night for us. We had just gone to bed. Our house was a small two-bedroom ranch in mid-west America. In the middle of the night we heard someone break into the house. Before either of us could react, I was grabbed by a man. Mitchell was beaten up by another. They broke his knee caps with a baseball bat, punched and kicked him, and then pushed a dresser on top of him before they left the house with me. I struggled to break free from the man who was holding me. But like every other time my love died, my powers would not work.
I watched as one man doused the small house in gasoline and set it ablaze. I could hear Mitchell screaming for help from the inside. We had no close neighbors, there would be nobody to call for help. As the fire grew, Mitchell's screams became quieter until the smoke inhalation took his last breath. The men attempted to assault me but I was able to struggle against them. I remember fighting for my safety as I smelled the pungent odor of burning flesh. Tears in my eyes blurred the orange glow of the burning house. The men eventually stabbed a needle of drugs into my neck. I'm sure their intentions were to kill me, but I was awake and well a few hours later. I laid in my front yard and looked at the pile of ash that was my home and husband. I cried for a few hours before I willed my body to fly away.
Now everyday, I flinch when I see a man who might be my love reincarnated. I run away from the sound of male names that start with M. Any minute I could meet the newest version of my love. Every second, I could swear that time was just taunting me as I waited for my next round of torture.
