(0) Life, Death, and Prologue?

Sometime, someplace, something happened. This something mimicked a simple conversation. Layered within the words and actions of the involved parties, a storm brewed.... As a simple author, I can only interpret this conversation as I understand it, can only describe what I have seen in words I know how to use.

Thus, the "Game" to end all games started with a simple feeling... boredom...

"Hey. ~Halloo. Don't ignore me!"

"What do you want?"

"Wanna take over my work for a bit? I want to play with some promising individuals off in Rea's newest little project."

"We no longer have anything to learn from donning the namesake of your post, as We have told you countless times before. As for those individuals, they are going to expire in eight dozen millennia. Approximately of course, they do have vigorous life signatures and vast intelligence."

"~Why not? It's just for a little bit! And stop telling me when people have expiration dates, let them have fun. It's more fun when they don't know and live as they please."

"Surely, you jest L. You know how much We detest your jokes about mortality..."

"Don't stick out your tongue like a child. Its unbecoming of someone of your status. Besides, we both know It's because the little ones know things end that they can truly live. It is their blessing."

In what could only be a cosmic joke, two… things… smiled for their own reasons as a distant planet ruptured in nuclear hellfire. In the same moment, innumerable metallic objects crashed into the planet's surface. Satellites, stations, and spaceships had their navigations hijacked as an armada of ships entered the space around the small blue planet no larger than a grain of sand.

Most of the ships that avoided the hijacking and managed to avoid falling, were shot by an array of... what could only be described as flaming pillars of a god's wrath from the approaching ships. Out of the near endless swarm of space faring vessels escaping, only a single flagship managed to avoid catastrophe; It slipped into a massive ring of flickering light, which collapsed soon after as the satellites that generated the dark tunnel exploded or shorted out.

"No, we are busy so get back to your own work. Your presence has already allowed one to escape, you inconsistent fool."

"Hey! That's mean!"

"..."

"HEY. Don't just ignore me!"

"..."

"Tch. You are so boring D. At least think about it, it'll be good for you to learn something new."

"We've learned all We need to understand the faults in your little playthings, *Ahem*, creatures. By that logic, we have already experienced every facet of your namesake, Life."

"What're you talking about? It would be an all new, fresh, and sparkly learning experience, something that can't be measured by your knowledge. There's always something new happening. Life is infinitely vast and complex, as much as you would see that it is not, you dreadful bore."

"...We shall enlighten you just this once, as a courtesy for our longstanding acquaintanceship. There is nothing left for us to learn considering, as you've said, the number of times we have done this back and forth. Life may be of infinite variations, but that only applies for a certain amount of time. Everything repeats sooner or later, and we've already observed this recursion thrice before. Now, we have jobs to return to if you don't mind returning to your post. And, as a matter of personal interest, you should also pay more attention to your work, perhaps you would have noticed this trend as well if you weren't so invested in their well-being."

The planet savaged planet of blue, green, and glowing lights, submerged under clouds of dust and storms. Though, as the two things spoke, it slowly but surely, recovered from a waterless desert planet into a lush paradise where towering concrete, glass, and metal structures grew and lit up their surroundings. A small red sphere in the same solar system, not too far off, erupted with the same flush of greenery and towering structures. For a moment, the stars and celestial bodies swirled, until all of it came to a sudden and unexpected pause.

"...Maybe... Actually, you know what, you are right. There probably is nothing left for 'you' to 'learn'. I should 'pay more attention' to the 'fact that life constantly changes despite being continuously wiped out of existence' and restarting, something 'you would know' all about 'in your infinite wisdom' and observations. You know, since you have seen all that life has to offer…"

The more focused of the two things waved its arm and glared at the repetitious world in front of it.

--The once barren and red, now lush and green, planet shattered like glass, imploded, then vanished into the cosmic vacuum of space in all but one instant. The destruction of an entire planet should've sent the solar system into peril but, instead, the cosmic bodies rearranged themselves as explosions nearly on par with supernovas threw them into a new orbit. Once the radiation settled to manageable levels, the original blue planet erupted with the lights of war as space faring vessels closed in from every conceivable direction once again. War, unlike anything seen before erupted and consumed everything in its wake. An armada of ships escaped from the once green and blue planet once more, history seemed to repeat itself. Devices charged with energy as bright as stars and lit up the atmosphere just outside of the planet's ozone, ready to blow anything and everything to dust...

With a bit of hesitation, the lazier of the two Observers looked away from the world on the brink of ruin, which made the focused thing shutter out of pure shock. The focused thing called D turned toward its long standing acquaintance and blinked more than a few times before speaking.

"Thank you. Though we are surprised since you rarely show any form of improvement or even any basic understanding of our roles when it comes to things that don't involve your wants."

The exact instant the focused thing looked away from the war torn blue planet all of the wrathful engines of death circling the nearby space turned and fired upon themselves. Unlike in history, all of the escaping ships vanished into bright rings of light that they created. Each being much quicker and efficient than their predecessors by an impossibly wide margin.

"No, thank you. I will take your advice and get back to work. The lives of those 'creative' and 'new' little guys need to be monitored at all times after all. They come up with the most, 'interesting' things. Honestly, it's almost as if they can create an entire universe by themselves."

And with that, the second Observer simply vanished.

"Goodbye L…"

D, the second of the first two things to make an appearance in this story, turned back to the world at its back and froze out of shock once again. A moment, or the equivalent of it for timeless beings, passed and...

"L…"

"Yeah?"

"Let's make it interesting."

"Seriously?"

"The usual arrangement?"

"Alright. Let me know when you have two fresh ones. I'm so excited. It's been way too long since we last did this…"

"..."

Now, it's not very obvious what just happened and that's how it is supposed to be. I'll start by shedding some light on who these two are and why the conversation they had was so important to the rest of this story. The "second" thing to speak, the "focused," observer, is a purely conceptual being called D. L is the first observer to speak in this story, is a similarly displaced being. Death is D's full name, but even that is more of a playful title used to describe someone so boring, it could kill anyones mood or desire to interact.

L, or loser, is a nickname that Death gave to the nameless being that existed purely, to their understanding, to serve as its dreadful opposite. L found every opportunity to liven up the world or environment for the sake of self-interest and fun: Life is simply a self-appointed name that doubles as a title equivalent to being annoyingly lively, noisy, and pest-like. According to Death.

They are not things that live or die, rather, they just are... These two beings are sentient concepts, not of their namesake but of existence and creation as a whole. Cute representations of Ideas that exist outside of time/space/ thought/ Etc... You get the point… theres no need to prattle on.

Now that you know who they are and what they represent, you should know what it is they do. They, if put into human terms, have a job that needs their full attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 368 days a year, every year, for all eternity, which eventually repeats when forever, to living beings, comes to a slow and peaceful end or goes out with a glorious bang...

In this context, Life just wanted a break from the monotonous work and asked Death to cover for it. Death, having been duped into doing the work for free several times before (Willingly and not) immediately declined. Death even came up with an excuse that worked.

The problem was that Death used its excuse on the wrong thing, Life.

L knew what made Death tick and planted a seed of doubt, which was the survival of living beings in a sure death scenario. The small arrangement stayed in the back of Death's mind until enough time passed, which could've been a second or trillions of years for a normal living creature. Basically, Life tricked Death... once again...

For everyone's sake, I should introduce the situation of the afterlife to give a better framework on how this is going to work: Most Myths of Gods and Heroes exist- sort of... Eternal Paradise and the everlasting torment of any Hell adjacent afterlife exist- sort of...Reincarnation and any other after or near-death processes like regressing, transmigrating, transporting, etc. exists and are used- sort of...

A little but entirely related tangent: Within an untold number of beliefs and ideals, the true purpose of life is for a soul to find meaning for themselves. I mean, really, truly, wholeheartedly, believe it until it's ingrained in the soul and makes a mark on the very core of one's existence. (Please note that I am not just counting Humans or human beliefs here.

There are other completely different timelines and universes with a truly infinite number of creatures and species that reflect each other. Each having different sets of beliefs and intelligence ratings despite being called "Humans" or "living beings"). That meaning may be found in God, Gods, gods yourself, others, nature, spirits, love, hate, murder, evil or any number of things. The crux of it all is finding something to believe more than anything else. 

That said, most don't get to find out what they truly believe in no matter how long they live or however many restarts they get. Hence, once someone dies, their soul splits and grows a near infinite number of times so they can learn about themself from a different angle under the watchful eye and guidance of beings beyond such things, hence, everything exsists but not everything is expierienced.

Sort of like a Schrodinger's cat situation, but for belief. That said, for fairness and general acceptance, living beings who fail to find their core identity are required to get the same belief 51% of the total time that they have been around in any form, regardless of however many times they've split and grown. Obviously, once a mortal dies, Death takes care of how that being will proceed into their future living conditions. Life places those beings in their vastly different situations until every possible life is lived by that soul, even if the difference is only marginally.

One of them could do the whole job by themself but it always ends poorly. They tried to do all of the work on their own once before but... Well, I didn't attempt to see into all of that mess. I knew before I even tried that it would just reflect unadulterated chaos and lunacy so I chose not to pursue that story since I didnt want that kind of mess in the back of my head. I'll spare the boring details for now since I'm sure It'll come up later.

Anyway, those that can achieve a belief 51% of the time at minimum, get to live out whatever most sought out fantasies they had in any of their lives in a paradise specifically tailored to them, hence why I said everything exists. The closer someone gets to finding their core, the more their soul comes together, eventually. They become little godlings and have their own adventures… It's actually very cute. It's like watching children stumble through life, some fall behind and need a little help, others flourish and shine like stars.

On that high note…Those that can't find their belief are thrown into what feels like eternal torture: They are sent off into countless worlds with different personalities, beginnings, endings, entirely different everything's for that matter. Some end up as extras in the paradise of others and are forced to live lives that are for other people's enjoyment. In other words, they are the random characters in any story that you know exist but are never able to see because they are even less important than any of the on-screen side characters. They are put into lives where they simply don't matter and can only make the best of what they have just to find themselves

In other- other words, failures are the people that you don't see, but you know are in the cities all over the world while an action hero defeats or ends the [Enter pressing threat here] that threatens civilization.

As for the two "fresh" ones, Life talked about. They are meant to be a fresh pair of souls that have discovered their beliefs and sense of self on their first time through life. Basically, they are regret-less and content, or absolutely broken people who died without a serious care alongside their undiluted beliefs. They are souls that didn't need help finding their core belief or sense of identity.

As of this moment, for the first and only time in understandable existence, (Trust me on that), four such souls have shown up at the exact same time... I mean... down to the very definition of same time. There have been historical moments where trillions of souls have passed their first life with perfect beliefs but there was always some line of difference making their entrance different from the others... This... something like this will never happen again.