The Test Run

[fluo]

As told by Fiend

And so it came down to the choosing of a successor. He did not hoard power. He was not afraid of his children. Unlike others, he didn’t eat them right after their births although their salty eggs gave with such a satisfying burst. He loved them and gave them longer, sharper fangs, a wirey spine and powerful fins. He compensated for their shortcomings and blessed them accordingly. But it was time to move to bigger and better things. He set the foundation and he knew it was his time. Change was coming, darlings. He set forth a series of tests for his brightest offspring.

“What are my most stunning creations?”

“Watersnakes have retractable dicks."

“Rainbows have color in them.”

He asked another question.

And another.

And grew more incensed.

Unrepentant rage was a seductive flavor that rolled around in his mouth, curling to meet his eyeballs in tiny digging pricks. He was not taking responsibility for the destruction they would wrought in his absence.  He was just that responsible; not to mention he didn’t want to clean up after another mistake. It was natural for new gods to blunder in the beginning.

He slew them down, drowned them  in endless cycles. They fought back, their sharp fangs and tusks seeking purchase on his corporal form. He forgot about conveniences like low and high tides. He boiled them alive, snapped their spines and crushed their skulls with precise pressure. No more no less.  When the crimson clouds lifted and he came to, he brought them to life again only to  continue the massacre as his ire was not slated. He painted the tides a fitting red. He eventually slowed down after the landscape changed and his waters faded from crystalline blue to impenetrable brown depths, staining the walls of the cliffs. In his wrath he had  a clear, vanilla plan: he would destroy everything to start anew. Seductive, destructive, it was all the same. No harm no foul. Life would continue and this time he would play a more passive role. In his burnt out stupor, he rearranged some bones: a little bit of this, a pull of that, shorten the bones here and he was finished. These would have smaller teeth, too. Horns, not tusks. And they would walk the land; it would be easier to drown them. He lay down in the muddy waters, yawned his last breath of essence and dreamed. His final creations were malleable and without any directions. The air was stale, teetering on the edge of life.

Like daisies they sprang up, new life forms. Tell-tale red bands on the cliffs kept on happening though.