Days clouded by shadows - The short story

Prologue

Understanding the concept of the Big Bang led many to study cosmological oddities in an attempt to find deeper meaning in our existence. That process of evaluating our knowledge drove us to wonder complex questions such as "if a painter slipped off their ladder whilst the ladder is floating in space, would the ground move towards them, or would they move towards the ground?"

Said question changed our understanding of the universe in subtle ways. It provided the opportunity to rephrase our problems in a relative experimental frame, even though the end result would be a loud 'splat!', followed by extremely colourful language that could only be digitised as a long chain of special characters resembling a strong password.

These thoughts propelled deeper, more meaningful questions such as:

Could we know the state of survival of a cat placed in a sealed box with radioactive-poisonous elements in it?
If the galaxy is called the milk way, is there a galactic cow roaming around lactating the cosmos?
Is the universe by itself in the cosmos, or is it just bad body odour and nothing else wants to be close to it?
Did the Big Bang sound like an actual 'Bang'? Or could it have been like the annoying sound of an overly entitled person asking to speak to a manager because the parking spot was too narrow for them to get out?

Eventually, scientists theorised about what is beyond our universe: a multiverse of infinite possibilities.

Whilst our pocket of the multiverse contains four fundamental forces of nature governing every aspect of our existence, in some other dimensions these are balanced by two additional forces. One of them was magic.

In some pockets of the multiverse, conditions failed to hold onto their magic. Gravity shaped the stars and planets, whilst the other forces allowed the matter to interact with itself, creating structures leading to cells, multi cells, animals and people.

In other pockets of the multiverse, conditions were just right to hold onto the elusive force magic is.

In one of them, the magical force shaped planetary formation around the back of four colossal elephants standing on the back of a cosmic turtle.

In another one, it shaped society to separate magical people from non-magical individuals. They would chase golden balls whilst flying on broomsticks, tattoo lightning bolts on their foreheads, and constantly scream at each other "Expelli-leviosa"... or something like that.

But the universe we are interested on happened in a tiny-wee-small sleeve of the multiverse, an intersection between pockets if you will. A space so odd and quirky that magic influenced the formation of life itself, manifesting itself as the plasma irradiated by nearby stars, floating through space until it found a watery planet where to rain down on the land.

It is understandable if you doubt such processes, in which plasma, little balls of fire, can become sentient, but in this multidimensional intersection it did. It found the pulsing rhythm required to have a... Well... Pulse for a heartbeat, the processes of breathing, living and moving as an independent entity. Its principles are simple if you include enough magic, a pinch of chance, and we all ignore anything else leading to failure.

In any case, these lifeforms danced with the intensity of sparks from a high voltage cable after a car crashed onto the pole holding them and moved with the promptness of rocket fuel igniting during take-off. They raged for a while and slowly calmed down, mixed with the elements on the ground, emerging in winged-humanoid forms. Or we should say they were born as flying people; so, we can stay away from any theological arguments.

Their numbers grew with every passing day. They rained like an ocean over a desert... thought that mental image could be horrific and catastrophic.

They rained like pissing cows... no wait, this would be disgusting and somewhat rude.
They rained like cats and dogs... Ah, this is too cruel.
They rained like... like... like shooting stars if shooting stars rained like heavy rain.
The children grew to become wingless men and women, as age usually tends to ground us in reality whilst locking away our innocence.
They organised into settlements, the settlements into towns and villages, then into a nation.

Their adults sought the leadership of those experienced in the aspects of life, choosing six individuals with the strongest affinity to magic they could find, and when they did, they called them The Primordials.

One of them pulsed with the music of the water.
One of them danced to the rhythm of the air.
One of them learnt the harmonics of the earth.
One of them felt the melodic tune of the fire.
One of them imbued life.
One of them tasked to take life away.

The Primordials reigned over their bountiful little nation, though they did not like the word 'reign', as they didn't consider themselves kings or queens, they worked hard to protect their people, providing order to their nation. At that point, they chose the name Celestials for all the children raining down on their little planet.

The name stuck around as more accepted their cosmic origin. This was reinforced by their unusual long lives, many lasting eons, outliving any creature from their little planet.

Living that long gave them a different perspective to their everyday struggles. It also made them experience grief as many who rained down, couldn't put a tight grip on the force of life.

This sense of grief grew stronger on the Primordial of Death, who tasked with the duty of releasing the consciousness from the dying body, developed frustration and resentment towards his role. These negative feelings seeded disagreement and discord within the Primordials, driving them to conflict and eventually, the dismissal of these first leaders.

The celestials were lost, fearing the path ahead without their guides. Out of that fear, they picked new guides. People who just like them could see the road they needed to take to live in harmony, to live in an idyllic society.

Their new guides represented aspects of their own personalities.

One represented the innocence in our lives, that made us naive when taking our first steps. He governed the realm known as Dawn.
One represented the cheekiness and playfulness before we must mature. He governed the realm known as the Gentle Prairies.
One represented the struggles for our independence, as we forge our own tastes, likes and dislikes. She governed the realm hidden from the rest of the world, known as the Misty Forest.
One represented our pride and satisfaction of achieving our own goals. They ruled over the competitive realm known as Triumph.
One represented responsibility and the value of work well done. He governed over the desired Golden City and guarded the entrance of the Vault of Knowledge.
One represented the admiration, investigation and preservation of knowledge. She was the dean and ruler of the Vault of Knowledge.

They built nations around those principles. Those nations expanded into realms.

It wasn't a flawless existence, but it was darn close. But despite their days overflowing with happiness; shadows creeped in, stealing their light away.