The Goddess stood there, in the middle of the largest battlefield Existence had ever seen. The world, previously so full of life and wonder, was now a burnt husk. The skies were red with the blood of Gods, the soil was black with ash and wet with the life of mortals.
Behind her was a forest, still on fire. The distant screaming of a maddened, pained beast rang through the wasteland.
Gray clouds moved overhead, blocking out what little light passed through the bloodied sky.
The Goddess looked down at herself. Her armour was covered in all kinds of blood and grime, organs and flesh clinging to the sharp bits. The metal covering her arms was charred and her knuckles bled profusely. Her beautiful, ever-shining spear was cracked and shined no more, as the soul of a God and his innumerable followers were now trapped inside it.
She looked around. Her body didn’t move, but her heart did. These plains had once housed one of the great races, but now all it housed were ruins and the mutilated bodies of everything she knew.
Her heart hurt. How had it all come to this? Where did they go wrong? Why couldn’t they stop themselves? Why didn’t she do more?
She let go of her spear and it fell onto the dead soil, joining the rest of the world.
The Goddess felt her eyes water as she walked through the field. She found the body of her Sister, broken and laying on a mound of her attackers. She saw the body of her Brother, his own stuck stuck through his gut, it seemed like he couldn’t take it either.
She saw her family torn to shreds in this field, this beautiful field. She saw friends, foes, followers and monsters fight and die here. She had fought here as well, she had killed some of her brothers and sisters. She was a monster, too.
The distant screams of the pained beast died down. That added another brother to the list of those she’d killed that day.
She looked at her hands. Mangled as they were, dirtied with blood, guts and tears as they were, she saw them for what they used to be, for what they were used to achieve in the past. Just then, as her eyes focused past her hands, she saw them.
The one family of mortals she had sworn to protect, these were the people who no matter what, always cared for others. They brought shelter, food and work to those in need. When things got bad, she promised them that she’d keep them safe.
Oh, how wrong she was.
There they were, in front of her. A man lying on the ground, dozens of stab wounds on his back and a sword impaled into his heart. He was on top of a child, a little girl no older than three. Her expression was eternally twisted into one of terror. She’d seen her father murdered, was bathed in his blood, and then murdered herself when the sword used to impale her father impaled her by coincidence.
“Why…” the Goddess asked as she sunk to her knees,
“Why…” She repeated, covering her face with her mangled hands. Warm tears escaped her eyes and slipped through her hands onto the bodies of her friends. She sobbed, alone in a dead world. Then she bawled like a newborn, wrapping her arms around herself. There was no comfort in the act, though.
A voice rang in the distance.
The Goddess perked up. That wasn’t possible, everyone was gone by now. She was the last one.
Its echoes returned and the Goddess blinked to see a great Door in front of her, just a step away from the bodies of her friends.
The voice rang once more and while the Goddess wasn’t able to make out the contents, she felt the warmth that came with the message. She toned down her bawling after some effort and watched as the ground beneath the Door turned into pearly sand. Her tears kept falling, but now her sobbing had stopped s well.
As quickly as the Door and sand appeared, though, they were as quick to leave. When she saw them beginning to vanish, the Goddess stretched her wounded arms toward the Door and was blinded by a flash of light.