Sotiria

Chapter 1

   The primordial consciousness, Chaos, became aware of a tiny speck of life taking shape within. The first offspring. Chaos wrapped the speck in a thick blanket of star stuff, observing the speck's growth. Chaos felt love for the speck, as it was part of Chaos itself. The speck had many physical forms as it grew, but eventually settled with the shape of a human female.

   This daughter of Chaos began to converse with her parent in the language of the universe, having decided what her identity was. She played among the stars, tossing comets and molding galaxies like play-dough. She discovered her name when she was only two eons old- Sotiria, meaning salvation. Chaos bore four more offspring, Gaia, Ouranos, Tartarus, and Eros. Sotiria and her siblings had great fun leaping about space, creating and naming planets and stars.

   Gaia and Ouranos fell in love, and together formed Earth. Tartarus and Eros followed, joining their siblings on Earth. Sotiria was left alone, with only Chaos as company. Sotiria didn't want to follow her siblings, she loved sleeping on stars and was content to simply observe the events that unfolded on Earth. She witnessed the birth of the Titans, the Cyclops, the Gods, those funny little human creatures, and the various animals and monsters that began to populate the Earth. She watched as the Gods wrested control from the Titans and Sotiria's siblings. She saw Zeus proclaim himself as King of the Gods, and watched Kronos sink into misery deep in the control of Tartarus, her little brother. She began to feel the desire to go to Earth and meet with her new, extended family, but she didn't act on this desire until she was absolutely sure, and by then it was 2015, according the human's calendar.

   She decided to shield her powers from notice, she knew it would be overwhelming. Never had the Earth been confronted with the magnitude of Sotiria's chaotic essence. Yes, her siblings created Earth, but she was the oldest child of Chaos, and therefore her power was even stronger than all of her siblings' power combined. Besides, she wanted the opportunity to study those human things up close. They were fascinating. Perhaps she could have one as a pet?

   Sotiria flashed to Earth, on a sidewalk in the human city of New York. Flashing was basically teleportation. She made certain she had shrunk to the size of an average human female, but she realized that she was a bit behind on current fashions. No one else was wearing a chiton. With a quick survey of the humans around her, she decided on a t-shirt and jeans. Perfect, now she blended in. Walking around the city, she smelt something absolutely amazing. There, on the sidewalk ahead, was a little metal cart attended by a fat little human male who was holding a brown cylindrical stick wrapped in white paper. The sign on the cart spelled out "Churro." Sotiria watched as a human female handed handed the "Churro" male a piece of green paper and got a brown stick in return. The human female took a bite out of the stick, chewed, and swallowed. Sotiria knew this was the act of "eating", but she had never done so herself, and was mildly curious. It looked pleasing. She materialized a piece of green paper, identical to the female's, and walked up to the "Churro" man.

   "I would like a brown stick, please. Here is some green paper in return."

   He gave her an odd look, but took the paper.

   "Urm, lady, this is a churro. And this is money."

   Oh. Sotiria hesitantly took a bite out of the churro, and the most wonderful flavor flooded her senses. She ended up buying the rest of the churros on the cart and marveled at the ingenuity of humans, these wonderful makers of churros. As she continued exploring the city, a certain building caught her attention. The large plastic sign above the doorway read "Natural History Museum." It looked vaguely interesting.

   Inside, there was nothing but paintings or vases or figurines. As she passed a group of humans admiring a jar, she heard something that made her stop.

   "Oh my, I can't believe how old this jar is! It's almost one thousand years old!"

   Sotiria turned, incredulous, to look at the speaker. It was a wrinkly white-haired female. Realizing that the female truly meant her words, Sotiria broke out in peals of laughter. Only one thousand years? That was nothing! Sotiria was nearly ten eons old! She couldn't stop her laughter for the longest time, getting plenty of weird looks from people as they passed. These humans are hilarious! Oh, this was fun. She should've come to Earth a long time ago.