Alone
The introduction to my story Collapsing Paradise, in which we finally discover the answers to many mysteries surrounding the Almarian race.
When the Universe was first brought into existence, it was utterly content. There could by no unhappiness or dissatisfaction because nothing was lacking. This state of harmony and peace lasted a relatively short time (though some would argue that time did not, as yet, exist). In any case, it was shattered in the second that the first sentient being opened his eyes and gazed up at the cosmos. For those first precious moments, all was good—and then that first man asked, “Am I it?”
Something in the universe shook. There had never been aloneness before. The problem was quickly rectified, but the echoes of that voice–“Am I alone?”– reverberate across the background of reality even now. Some words, spoken at a certain time and a certain place, can change the Universe, and these were some of those. No being in the twelve inhabited Galaxies was ever truly alone again.
Until recent Cycles, in any case.
The story of the first man (or cephalopod, or green slime-bug of Graxus VI) is more or less consistent from planet to planet and culture to culture. Variations arise here and there, as they tend to do. Still, some creation myths are truly universal, finding roots and facets in every culture because they ring true to every being who has looked up at the stars and wondered, “Is this all?”
Just one detail has changed from the original tale, which hasn’t been told in so long that no one alive today has heard it spoken aloud. In the first story, the real story, that first being was actually the first Almarian.
The significance of this can only really be appreciated if you happen to meet one of the remaining twelve members of the Almarian race in the Universe. They are infinitesimal pockets of alone in an otherwise occupied cosmos.
If you happen to stop by the space station Paradise near the transwarp that connects the Milky Way to the other eleven galaxies, you can actually meet two Almarians. It is, in official record, the largest gathering of their species in the modern history of the Universe. The mathematical probability of two Almarians being in the same place at the same time is just under 3 x 10-9 percent.
There is no explanation for their impossibly improbable meeting and eventual friendship. Except that if there is one thing that the Universe cannot tolerate, it is that anything—or anyone—should be alone forever. But Paradise is a place in which beings have bent reality because they have discovered that they cannot bend their lives.
For the Almarians known as Ano and Elim, it is somewhere that true loneliness can still be suffered, even in the company of others. This will not be the case for long. The Universe abhors a lonely being. It doubly loathes a pair of them.
