Eternity ((Kamukoma Short Story))

Part One [The Light and the Death]

From the beginning, there was light. The beginning of everything began with a brilliant burst of light, and the stories told of a single goddess with hands of life.
Also known as Mother Nature, she grew the plants and raised the mountains. It was her that painted the sky blue and cried rain for her animals to thrive.
But then she became lonely, for as much as she cherished her animals, she was lonely, so she created another god, name lost to the ages, but called by humans simply Father Time.

Father Time gifted all creatures the ability to reproduce and age with the beautiful chance of death for their end.
Mother Nature and Father Time loved their universe, but they felt something was lacking, so they created their final gift to the world together, and that was the first human baby.
The first human had no powers, but to make up for that, it was given brilliance.

That was only the beginning. Eventually, more gods breathed life and the work to maintain the world was split between them.
Mother Nature was the hope, Father Time was the end, but as more and more Gods stepped in, they faded into mere legend among mortals as they became less needed.
A God to rain upon the lands, a god to set fire for the forest to begin anew, a god to walk the spirits of the dead to their finale, a god to turn the change of seasons, but the love between the gods became too much, and the ones being born had no work to claim as their own.

As Gods did not age, they did not die, and a fight broke out among the young ones to claim the duties they so desperately lacked.
That fight wiped out almost all of humanity, causing a forced restart and the rage of Mother Nature.
She declared Gods were to be banned from loving one another again, else it could wreak havoc if any more were birthed.
That was almost six thousand years ago, but before that decree, two baby Gods were born.
The first one, a small God of light, given the shared duty of pulling the sun over the horizon each morning, and lowering it for sunset.
The second, a distant descendant of Father Time himself, cloaked in darkness and who guarded the souls of the dead in the hollowed underground.
The two baby Gods grew up with their jobs, and their vastly different lives were never meant to cross.
Yet, fate would find the two together on a single day.

The sun peaked the horizon, with the cluster of struggling deities pulling the sky into the sky with a struggle.
The youngest of the Gods gave a heavy grunt before releasing his rope and wiping the sweat off his forehead.
"We finally did it," His bright smile was met with scowls from the other Gods,
"Obviously. You make it way more complicated than it needs to be, Komaeda," His sunkissed blond hair nearly sparkled as he raised an eyebrow. "You're young, but even for a young God, you're really pathetically weak."

"I know," Komaeda bit his lip and averted eye contact, "You remind me every day, Byakuya, I'm only six thousand years old, I know someone like me can't even begin to compare to the other light gods. It wouldn't really make a difference if I didn't help the sunrise anyway!"
He tried to laugh but the others only kept their stonecold glares. Byakuya scoffed as he released his own rope,
"You're not getting out of your duties that easily. Just go somewhere you won't be a bother until dusk."
To Komaeda's surprise, he was never so quick to wave him off. The young deity was used to scorn for being the last-born baby before love was forbidden among the gods, but even still, he was never outright sent away.

He found himself moving a bit closer to Byakuya and cocked his head like a puppy,
"Are you going somewhere?"
Perhaps he was being pushy, but it wasn't as though one could kill a God for being annoying, even as someone whose existence was so worthless.

"Actually," Byakuya crossed his arms, "Yes, we are. The autumn festival is being held today and as you can obviously see, you weren't invited." With a small wave, the god ushered the others to go on ahead of him before catching eyes with Komaeda. "Just guard the sun until we get back, the moon deities shouldn't be here until after sunset, you don't even have to greet them. You can at least manage that, can't you?"