Elegy of the Eighth World

The Weaver’s Gift

In the first dawn of the third world, when mountains still remembered the hands that shaped them, there lived a weaver named Ashley. Her craft was peerless- she could spin light into thread, and from it make garments that shimmered with memory. Kings came to her for robes that sang their victories; mourners came for veils that whispered the names of the dead.

One day, she found a wounded serpent tangled in her loom. Its scales were cracked and bleeding gold. The creature looked at her with an intelligence older than fire, and Ashley, moved by pity, freed it and wrapped it in her own shimmering cloth. She tended it until it healed.

The serpent thanked her. “You have unbound me from pain,” it said, “and I owe you a gift. Speak a wish, and I will weave it into the roots of the world.”

Ashley asked for something simple. “Let my cloth never fade. Let my threads endure so beauty may outlast sorrow.”

The serpent bowed, and with its tongue traced a circle in the dust. “So it shall be,” it hissed. “Your work will never die.” Then it vanished into the wind.

At first, the blessing was wondrous. Ashley's tapestries resisted fire, rot, and time itself. Her art spread across kingdoms. Generations later, her fabrics still gleamed as if newly woven. They were treasured, hoarded, fought over. When kings went to war, they draped their standards in her cloth, believing themselves immortal beneath its glow. When tyrants rose, they clothed themselves in her garments, declaring their rule divinely woven.

And as Ashley's creations refused to decay, so too did the empires that wore them. Nothing could fall. The world grew stagnant. Cities turned to mausoleums of beauty that would not die, their people trapped in an age that refused to end.

The serpent’s gift had fulfilled her wish- her art endured — but so did everything it touched, including sorrow, cruelty, and the endless hunger for power.

When Ashley, long dead, was remembered, her name was spoken not as that of an artist, but of a curse.

The Shepherd’s Mercy

Centuries after Ashley's loom fell silent, the world had grown heavy with stillness. The sun moved reluctantly. Grass no longer withered; rivers no longer overflowed. Death itself had grown tired.

In this quiet world lived a shepherd named Riad, who found a wolf caught in a rusted snare. The beast’s fur was white with age; its eyes glimmered with strange, familiar gold.

Riad, thinking it cruel to let anything suffer, freed the wolf and bound its leg with his cloak. “Live, old hunter,” he said. “There’s peace enough for both of us.”

The wolf licked his hand. “You speak mercy,” it said, “and mercy shall answer you. No living thing shall harm another in your sight.”

The promise seemed divine. Riad's flock multiplied without fear. Predators kept their distance. But soon, balance began to rot. The wolves starved. The hawks fell from the sky. Fields teemed with sheep that grazed the earth down to dust.

The world’s silence deepened into hunger.

When Riad realized what had happened, he searched for the wolf, but found only its tracks burned into the soil like runes. He followed them until they vanished at the horizon, and there he lay down, his shadow feeding the roots of the last green tree.

The Scholar’s Penance

A thousand years passed before anyone spoke of the serpent again. The age of stillness had ended, but the world was scarred — dry seas, hollow skies. In the ruins of an old library, a scholar named Kelly unearthed a fragment of Ashley's tapestry.

She studied it endlessly, hoping to unlock its secret. When she finally did, the serpent appeared once more — this time coiled in the dust of her candlelight.

“You seek what she wove,” it said. “Ask, and I will restore what the world has lost.”

Kelly's voice trembled. “Then bring back all that has been forgotten — every story, every truth lost to ruin.”

“So it shall be.”

Overnight, the world filled with memory. The air thickened with whispers of the dead, languages reborn, songs resurrected. But memory was not gentle. The living could no longer think without drowning in the grief of ages. The dead returned in the minds of the living, demanding to be heard, seen, avenged.

Kelly went mad, her mind a library on fire. And when she took her final breath, the serpent watched quietly, and the echoes of her wish spread through the ages.

The King’s Redemption

At last, the serpent came to a king whose heart was broken by the ruin of his people. “If mercy brings death, and knowledge brings madness,” he said, “then give me forgetfulness. Let me free the world from pain.”

The serpent bowed. “A fitting wish. You shall have it.”

And so it was done.

Grief, hatred, love, and joy all dissolved. People forgot the past, their names, their gods. The world turned tranquil once again — but this time, empty. Humanity slept with open eyes, and the serpent, seeing no one left to speak to, devoured its own tail and disappeared into silence.

The Loom of Dust

At the end of all ages, when the last starlight faded, a spark kindled in the void. From it, a child emerged — a child with no memory, no history, and no name. In her hands was a thread of gold.

She began to weave.

Somewhere, in the darkness, something stirred that had been both serpent and mercy.

And the world began again.

The City of Glass Hearts

In the Fifth World, beings were made of transparency. They were called the Lucents — shapes of light given thought. They had no need for speech; they felt one another’s emotions as ripples through their crystalline skin.

Pain was visible. Love was blinding. There were no secrets.

One Lucent, known as Jorrae, was born flawed. A single cloudiness marred their core — a small patch of opacity. Others pitied Jorrae, for the blemish hid their emotions from sight. Pity turned to distance. Distance turned to loneliness.

Wandering the city’s edge, Jorrae found a dark shape coiled within the reflection of a fountain. It was not quite a serpent, nor quite a memory of one.

“You carry what they lack,” it whispered. “Shall I help you share it?”

Jorrae nodded. “Let them feel as I feel. Let no heart be hidden from another.”

The shadow smiled through the water. “So it shall be.”

And the next day, every Lucent’s glass heart shattered — not destroyed, but multiplied into countless shards. Each shard held fragments of every other’s emotions. They felt everything at once- joy and grief, hunger and terror, love and hate. The city became an orchestra of unbearable empathy.

In their agony, the Lucents dimmed until they became dust. But in that dust, new constellations formed — the first stars of the Sixth World.

The Dream That Bled

Those stars gave rise to dreamers. They were not bodies, but minds adrift — consciousnesses swimming through a sea of thought. They built no homes, but shared dreams, sculpted of desire and memory.

One such dreamer, Alex, wandered too close to a wound in the fabric of thought — a scar that pulsed with old myth. Within it, a voice whispered-

“Every world before you has been broken by mercy. Do you wish to end that chain?”

Alex, filled with compassion for the forgotten, said, “Then I will dream of a world where kindness cannot cause harm.”

The scar widened, and from it poured color, form, solidity — Alex's dream became reality. They created the Seventh World- a place where intent and outcome were one. Every good act stayed good; no evil could twist it.

It was perfect. It was unbearable.

For in this world of flawless cause, nothing could grow. Every act was predetermined in its goodness; no mistakes, no learning, no surprise. The inhabitants became statues of righteousness — beautiful, empty.

And in the end, Alex awoke alone in their dreamless sea, weeping colors that formed a new scar — the one that would birth the Eighth World.

The Pilgrim and the Mirror

In the Eighth World, mortality returned. But the laws of the cosmos had grown self-aware — history now looped, half-remembered myths whispering through the blood of every creature.

A pilgrim named Dave sought the ruins of the old serpent. He carried no offerings, only questions. For his world was haunted by echoes of the past- glass dust that gleamed like Lucents’ remains, voices of forgotten dreamers murmuring in the wind.

At last, Dave found a mirror standing in the desert, half-buried in sand. In its reflection was not himself, but a vast coiling shape, luminous and sorrowful.

“I have watched every kindness undo itself,” said the reflection. “What will you give me now?”

Dave thought a long while. Then he said, “I will give you indifference.”

The serpent paused. “Explain.”

“Kindness binds. Cruelty destroys. But indifference lets the world breathe. I will love nothing so much that it breaks.”

The mirror rippled, and the serpent smiled — a weary, knowing smile. “Perhaps that is the final mercy.”

Dave walked away, leaving the mirror blank. Behind him, the desert bloomed.

No one could explain it. The flowers had no scent, no color, but they swayed as though whispering- This time, maybe.