Single for Eternity
Chapter 111: Emergence

Chapter 111: Emergence

Tauriel maintained a composed expression, masking the rising turmoil within her chest. Her voice was cool, almost too calm. "Do you remember the future?"

Ebon’s head tilted slightly, an amused glint shimmering behind his dark gaze. "Remember?" he repeated, as if tasting the word on his tongue. "Isn’t that a strange choice for something that hasn’t happened yet?"

His eyes narrowed in mock contemplation. "How exactly does one remember something that’s never occurred?"

Tauriel rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh. "Don’t play games with me, Ebon. You know damn well what I mean."

His lips curled into a wider smile, not playful, but enigmatic. "Yes," he admitted, voice like velvet laced with thorns. "I know what you mean. And no, I don’t remember the future."

Her expression tightened. The illusion of composure cracked slightly as veins flared on her forehead. "Don’t you dare lie to me, Ebon!"

The smirk on his face faded like mist at dawn. His voice dropped, low and serious. "And if I did... then what, Tauriel?"

Her retort died in her throat. The fury faltered as something older, heavier gripped her. Guilt? Fear? Grief? She opened her mouth but no words came out.

Ebon raised a hand, halting her silence with his own. "Let me speak."

Reluctantly, she swallowed her fury and gave a small nod.

A trace of that wicked smile returned. "Good girl."

With almost tender care, he adjusted Priscila’s sleeping form on the bed, pulling the silken sheets up to her shoulder.

Then, with a mere snap of his fingers, Ebon vanished from the chamber and reappeared just inches in front of Tauriel.

"Follow me," he said simply, his voice commanding.

Without another word, Tauriel fell into step behind him. Silent. Watchful.

They exited through the arching marble door—not into a hallway or corridor as she had expected, but into a tunnel of warped dimension.

The air shimmered with unreality. The floor beneath them rippled like water frozen mid-flow, and the walls around them weren’t walls at all.

They moved.

With every step forward, the corridor morphed and twisted—mosaics coming alive, carvings reconfiguring themselves like ink in motion. Symbols bled into shapes, shapes into figures, and figures into scenes.

A tale began to unfold before her very eyes.

At first, there was nothing. A void so empty it swallowed even thought.

Then from the nothing, the Void itself was born—sentient and seething.

And from that chaotic cradle emerged the primal forces. Elemental seeds—some blazing red with fury, some glowing with the essence of life, others pulsing gold with divinity.

There were blue ones of intellect and water, green ones humming with growth and entropy, and strange hybrids—neither alive nor dead, yet imbued with an eerie stillness.

These elements spiraled in the eternal dark, colliding and weaving, fusing to form energy—the raw lattice of existence. And from that energy, the first world was birthed. Grand. Infinite. A masterpiece of balance and madness.

But it didn’t last.

The vision continued without pause. That first world splintered into fragments—shards of its original form. Each piece sealed within crystalline domes, like glistening orbs hanging in the endless void.

Realms born of necessity and separation. Domains of gods, mortals, and monsters alike.

Tauriel’s eyes widened as she took in the vast scale of it. It wasn’t just history. It was truth—woven through memory and metaphysics alike.

Through it all, Ebon walked ahead, silent, letting her drink it in without interruption.

The corridor never narrowed. It didn’t bend or break. It simply continued—timeless and vast, as if carved into the very skeleton of the cosmos.

Unable to contain herself any longer, Tauriel finally spoke. "Is this how the world was formed?"

Ebon looked over his shoulder, the smirk playing on his lips once again—smaller this time. More subdued.

"What do you think?" he replied.

She exhaled slowly, watching another swirling tableau form beside her—this one showing stars being swallowed by an ancient darkness. Her voice came softer now, uncertain but honest.

"I think this is how it happened. The real beginning. Not the stories we were told. Not the lies carved into scripture."

Ebon turned back to face forward, his voice almost teasing. "Good for you."

His nonchalant attitude was infuriating—grating against her every nerve. Tauriel clenched her fists at her sides, the tremble in her arms betraying her calm facade.

A thousand urges bubbled inside her, the strongest of which was to plant her fist straight into Ebon’s arrogant, maddeningly composed face.

But she didn’t.

Because she knew—without a shadow of a doubt—that striking him would be suicide. No matter how powerful she was, Ebon existed on a plane of reality above her own.

He wasn’t just a ragtag god. He was something more ancient. More... unbound.

So, she forced herself to breathe. Deep. Controlled. Measured.

She swallowed her pride and kept walking, eyes resolutely fixed on the swirling murals that danced across the walls of the corridor—a living narrative playing out before her.

The story progressed.

After the original world had shattered, its fragmented pieces floated like islands in the boundless void.

These shards, imbued with their own elemental balances, began to evolve separately. Distinct terrains took root—towering mountains kissed by celestial flames, oceans of liquid aether, floating continents bathed in eternal twilight, and forests where time itself bent.

And from those terrains, life emerged.

At first, it was simple—primordial, unformed. Then, gradually, beings began to crawl, walk, fly, and claim dominion.

Some were humanoid, beautiful and regal, shaped by symmetry and light. Others were formless, hideous creatures twisted by their chaotic births—wretched abominations that defied logic and anatomy alike.

Tauriel flinched as the grotesque figures slithered and shrieked across the mural. They were depicted in motion, shifting from one terrible form to another.

Tentacles. Fangs. Crawling limbs and empty sockets. The longer she stared, the more bile threatened to rise in her throat.

She looked away, forcing herself not to vomit. Not here. Not in front of him.

But the mural continued its tale, unbothered by her discomfort.

As the ages passed, a war ignited—a silent, unwritten one. The "formed" began eradicating the "formless." No reason was offered.

No catalyst depicted. It simply happened, like an unspoken law had been enacted across the fragments of reality.

The grotesque creatures—once countless and free—were hunted and driven into extinction.

The murals showed their numbers dwindling, their cries swallowed by fire and light, their bodies cut down by blades and divine radiance.

Tauriel narrowed her eyes. Was it evolution? Natural order? Or something more deliberate?

Her instincts whispered the latter.

And then, the corridor’s energy shifted. The pace of the mural’s story quickened, the images blurring into motion like fast-forwarding through time.

Amid the endless void, a new presence stirred.

Something vile. Ancient. Wrong.

The mural darkened.

Tendrils of deep black began creeping from the center of one orb-shaped world, spreading like rot. Beings once pristine twisted into mockeries of themselves. Cities collapsed. Time fractured.

And then came the corruption.

It didn’t appear like an army or a conqueror. It infected. Crept. Spread like a plague made of madness.

The images pulsed as if alive, and Tauriel felt a cold shiver crawl down her spine. The air thickened, oppressive and stale.

The corrupted ones had no identity—only hunger. They weren’t grotesque like the early abominations. No, these were worse.

Hollow shells pretending to be people. Living puppets wrapped in stolen skin, eyes blank and smiles false.

The mural was no longer just a story.

It felt like a warning.

Tauriel’s voice broke the silence, softer this time, almost reverent. "What... was that?"

Ebon didn’t look back. His tone remained casual, but there was a steel edge beneath. "Corruption. The disease born of forgotten sins. It’s not life, nor is it death."

"It wasn’t in the original creation," Tauriel murmured.

"No," Ebon confirmed, stopping for a moment. "It’s an anomaly. A consequence."

"Of what?"

He turned his head slightly, and his eyes gleamed like obsidian stars. "That... is what I intend to show you next."

And with that, he resumed walking—deeper into the corridor where stories became truths, and truths threatened to undo everything she thought she knew.

Tauriel followed, silent once again.

But now her anger was gone—replaced with a gnawing unease.

The corridor ahead darkened further, as if even light dared not tread where they now walked. The living murals that lined the walls grew jagged and erratic. The graceful flow of earlier scenes had warped—now twisted, violent.

Tauriel kept her gaze locked ahead, though her heart thudded with each step. She knew she was on the brink of something dangerous—something true.

Then the corridor stopped.

Not ended—stopped.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling—they simply ceased. In their place stretched a yawning abyss. Not darkness. Not shadow.

But nothing.

An infinite void where no concept of light, space, or time existed. The edge of creation.

Ebon turned to face her, the flickering remnants of the corridor illuminating only part of his face. The other half was swallowed by the void behind him.

"It’s time you understood," he said, voice like thunder muffled by centuries.

Tauriel squared her shoulders. "Then speak."

Ebon extended a hand, and the void responded.

It bent.

Twisted.

And from that shapeless chaos, a vision unfurled—massive and godlike, hovering over the edge.

It showed a figure—not divine, not monstrous, but mortal.

A man. Clad in armor weathered by time. His eyes burned with passion, defiance, and pain.

Around him swirled storms of energy, pure and chaotic. Behind him loomed a fractured world—bleeding, groaning under unseen weight.

Tauriel felt a chill run through her spine.

"Who is that?"

Ebon’s answer was calm. "The First Defier. The seed of Corruption."

The mural moved, revealing the man raising his hand—not in conquest, but rebellion. He stood against a council of luminous beings, their features indistinct but divine.

They shone with golden aether, their presence commanding reverence.

The man refused to kneel.

Refused to obey.

Refused... to accept the fate written for him.

"The world," Ebon began, "was built upon order. Not morality. Not choice. Just balance. Each being was designed to fulfill a role. Gods to govern, mortals to worship, anomalies to be erased."

Tauriel’s brows furrowed. "And he...?"

"He broke that cycle. He refused his design. He stood against the gods. Against the natural flow. Against the cosmic script etched into the bones of reality."

The mural contorted, showing the man screaming, eyes wild, as divine chains wrapped around him—burning through his flesh and soul. The gods tried to erase him. Tried to rewrite him.

But something snapped.

The image shattered.

Out of the broken vision came black vines, crawling and writhing—infecting the very structure of the world.

And from the cracks...

Corruption was born.

"Defiance," Ebon said softly, "against divine purpose—against the very laws that hold existence together—gave birth to something the world could not contain."

Tauriel’s lips parted slightly in disbelief.

"He wasn’t a villain," she said, almost whispering.

"No," Ebon replied. "He was a mortal who didn’t want to be a puppet. And in doing so... he became something else."

The vision zoomed outward—showing the spread of Corruption. It didn’t conquer through armies or violence. It whispered. Infected hearts. Stirred doubts.

Made people question the world, their gods, their fate.

And when they questioned too much, when their will clashed with the grand design—their souls twisted.

"Corruption isn’t evil, Tauriel," Ebon said as he stared into the abyss. "It’s choice unshackled. Identity unfiltered. It’s the price of saying ’no’ to a world that demands ’yes.’"

"But it destroys everything it touches," she snapped.

"It changes everything it touches," he corrected. "Because the world fears what it cannot control."

The silence that followed was crushing.

Tauriel felt her heart race. Everything she’d been taught—everything about the gods, about order, about right and wrong—now stood on cracked foundations.

Ebon turned toward her, eyes glowing dimly. "So tell me, deity of love... are you still on the side of order?"

Her mouth opened—but no words came out.

Because for the first time...

She didn’t know.