Liberi Reader

We peruse and interpret the past and future of our civilization, as a monk seeks a revelation from his god.

Humans enjoy talking about the possible futures for their civilization, do they not?

At first, we flaunted what little vestige of truth we managed to grasp, and attempted to converse with the 'gods'.

We were answered with silence.

Then, we began to observe the fates of our own kind—

Some were less advanced than us, some slightly more so... in the end, what we learned was that death was the inevitable end of all the creations of nature.

And so humanity inferred that this was the revelation the gods never spoke.

Towering statues made of unknown materials stand upon the vast expanse.

Ripples spread outwards in every direction, up towards the sky beyond the dark clouds, and down towards the grey-white ground.

She turns around to look behind her.

The land stretches as far as the eye can see, rippling like mountains extending infinitely.

She cannot see the end, nor any trace of Terra.

But she knows that the land is just within reach, if she only stretched out her hand.

The 'god' looks up at the megastructure and does not answer.

Then, a faint light breaks through a crack in the clouds. Looking upon the light, masses of people cheer and exclaim.

The Cautus feels as though she were among those masses.

Then, the ray of light bursts into a rainbow spectrum, as though the universe were painting upon a black canvas.

The gentle light accepted all, neither exploding nor fighting back.

The light followed its determined path, ignoring the agitated souls beneath, though chaos and death had already begun to spread amongst them.

The Cautus feels her vision climb upwards, over the agitated crowd, over the burning mountains, over the dark clouds.

She can almost reach out and touch the rainbow light.

Weapons powerful enough to destroy an entire planet fly past her into the light without a sound. Ships that can sail the stars fall powerlessly to the ground.

The Cautus finds herself gazing into deep space, at the broken remains of the celestial body.

It is like the sight that the Presence was gazing at, that she was curious about, when she gazed upon the Presence.

From whence did the doom come? Why did it come? Did it leave? Where did it go? What happened to all the lives—

Then she sees it.

Only broken remains are left upon the ruined surface of the planet, when the light of the star once again shines upon it. The planetary fragments break through the bonds of gravity and scatter to infinite space.

The Cautus witnessed the death of the gods, the powerlessness of the gods. For a moment, she even forgot how to fear.

The gravity of the dead planet begins to draw in guests from deep space, and it begins to be made whole again.