Prologue

Billions of souls soared through the bleeding sky. Glittering like stars, they swam in great rivers, uncoiling and streaming towards the darkening west, winding between wounds gouged into the heavens like gashes of red torn into dark canvas. Showers of scarlet spilled in crimson cascades that descended down to an earth steeped in shade.

Across the mountains to the east, a red tide was rising. Frothing waves crested over snow-capped peaks as the sanguine tsunami came crashing down, to drown all that stood.

It would have been the end of the world, had the world not already ended.

Only one person moved through this world in twilight. She walked through golden fields that lay cracked with craters and cast with corpses�"men in armor lying in grass, stained with crimson and scarred with ash; split swords and cannons, broken wands and staffs. The smell of sweat and smoke overpowered fading flowers and springtime meadows.

She stood with the poise of a queen, dressed in black, a regal dress for the grandest balls, her lace skirt billowing out in many layers like the petals of a blooming rose. Raven hair spilled over skin pale like moonlight. Silver eyes shimmered beneath the brim of a broad sun hat as she stared with indifference towards the coming wave.

Then, as if carried by the wind itself, a man stepped forward. He appeared out of nowhere, yet seemed to come from everywhere. He was clad all in white, a spotless suit embroidered with gold, leaning on a thin ivory cane, a faint smile beneath his well-trimmed beard. He stood next to the woman. First, he looked towards the sky, at the rivers of souls pouring from the east. Then, at the cascades of blood flowing down from the sky. At last, his gaze settled ahead, at the coming wave.

It drew ever closer, filling the horizon from sky to sky. Finally, he spoke. 

“So, she failed again.”

Ahead, the wave approached an already lifeless land. Cities and towns stood still and silent. Where once they had coursed with merchants and crowds the air was now only a void of sound. With gray, dusty skin and blank, lifeless eyes, the dead filled every street as though frozen in time. Some still stared upwards, towards the heavens, pleading for help with eyes deadened. Some looked to each other, bodies clinging closely, perhaps finding solace in each other’s company. Others gazed downwards, hands folded in prayer, hoping against hope for another savior. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors, foes and lovers. 

All consumed by the coming wave. 

The woman’s gaze dropped to the corpse of a young soldier at her feet. A hole the size of a fist ran through his chest, yet his hand still clutched an obsidian gem. Teardrops glimmered on his cheeks. Gently she bent down and wiped them away, his blood staining the lace of her gloves. 

“How many more times must we do this?” she asked. “How many times has it already been?”

“Sorry, I lost count long ago.” His voice was light, as though speaking of a casual hobby.

Suddenly the skies burst with light as many suns flared into existence on the horizon behind them, rays drawing long shadows across the ending world. From these suns emerged gargantuan golden starships, shaped like shining swords, each encircled by a great sunburst halo. Resplendent in such majesty that surpassed all mortal beauties, the divine arks blotted out the light of their suns, soaring into the seeping sky.

“They’re here,” the man said, his head half-turned, glancing behind. “And so the time has come to sleep once more.”

The woman merely stood and faced the wave again.  “For you, perhaps. For me, this is the dream, and it is time for the waking.”

The man laughed. “That’s what you said last time, too.” He brought two fingers to his forehead in salute. “Well then, until your next life.” He stepped back and vanished as he came, seemingly disappearing in every direction at once.

The woman sighed. Her dress fluttered in the growing wind. The air was filled with a deep, bass roar now, the soil shuddering with a tremulous quake. She extended one hand outwards, as if to command the coming wave.

Surely, there was a way to the sun.

Surely, there was another path.

What meaning could there ever be, if life had nothing else to see?

Even if it would cost her an untold eternity�"

�"Out of all of infinity, there only had to be one.