The walk back from Elder Harlen’s house was a long, suffocating stretch of silence. At seven, my legs were strong enough to keep pace with my father, but I chose to trail a few steps behind. I watched his shadow—a dark, distorted version of a man—clinging to his heels in the dirt.
Is nothingness everything? The question pulsed from the marble in my chest, rhythmic and cold. Humans feared the dark, yet they began in the blackness of the womb and ended in the blackness of the tomb. The "Light" the Hegemony worshipped was merely a brief, flickering interruption of the eternal Void. If the Void was the beginning and the end, was it not the only true reality? Why was the world so obsessed with the spark, and so terrified of the flame’s inevitable death?
"You're quiet, Satan," Kael said, glancing back. He was looking for a spark of "childhood" in my eyes, some sign of a seven-year-old’s wonder. He found nothing but the reflection of the road. "Still thinking about those old maps?"
"I am thinking about the definition of 'everything,'" I replied. My voice was a flat line, devoid of the melody of youth.
Kael laughed, but the sound was thin, as if he were trying to convince himself of his own joy. "Everything is what you can touch, son. The dirt, the grain, your family. That’s all a man needs to be whole."
Everything is nothing, I thought, looking past him toward the horizon where the sun was bleeding out into the sky. And nothing is the only thing that lasts.
If God was the creator of everything, then what was the space where God stood before the beginning? If every life ends only to restart, is existence just a loop of failed logic? Why does everything end? Why does the world restart? Why do humans feel these "feelings" that only serve to cloud their judgment?
I looked at my father’s back. He would do anything for me. He would break his spine in the fields to pay for my future. My mother, Elena, would starve herself to see me fed. They would try to afford the Institute for me, even if it meant their own ruin. But I didn't want their sacrifice. I didn't want their "love" to be the fuel for my ascent.
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Joran, my brother, was already following the path of the weak. He was aiming for a scholarship from the Church, begging for the charity of the priests to fund his growth. He was willing to be a debt-slave to the Light.
I refused.
I would not be a scholarship student. I would not be a son supported by the sweat of a farmer. If I was to go to the Aethelgard Apex, I would go as my own master. The Apex didn't care about a boy's background or the name of his village. It was a place for those capable of holding the Truth, regardless of their bloodline. If I was capable, I would be admitted. That was the only law that mattered.
As we reached the farm, I saw my reflection in the rain barrel. The water was dark, mirroring the onset of night.
Who am I? Am I Satan? Am I Aris? What am I?
The villagers called me Satan—a name of fear. My mother sometimes whispered 'Aris'—a name of love. But neither fit. I was not a demon, and I was not a son. I was a fragment of the Void housed in a biological shell, a consciousness trying to understand why I was here at all.
Love, grief, anger—these were just chemical reactions designed to keep the herd together. They were inefficient. They were loud.
I sat on the porch and watched the sun die. The darkness was patient. It didn't need to struggle; it simply waited for the light to exhaust itself. I had to grow. I had to become so logical that the world had no choice but to bend to my will.
To know my answer, I had to leave this well of Oakhaven. I had to step out from the shadow of my family’s protection. The gold would not be a gift; it would be a harvest. I would not depend on Kael’s plow or Joran’s Church.
I would sit in the dark and listen to the silence. Because in the silence, the Void spoke the only truth that mattered:
I am not Aris. I am not Satan. I am the inevitability that follows the Light.
