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Disclaimer: The following will contain homosexual individuals and relationships and may be an interesting commentary on life, death, immortality, God, gods and various religions. No offense is intended, and if you cannot handle it, please discontinue reading rather than blaming me. This is copyrighted to me (mewjen(at)ymail.com), so no using it without my permission and no stealing it (any profits must be shared). This is a work of fiction. Any likenesses to persons, places, and so on, real or imagined, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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Act II - Epilogue: 1st Letter - Read me first

1138XE (5 months, 14 days after Anubis's birth)

My Dearest Son,

Here I am at my tenth letter to you, or should I say, your future self. It is hard to believe how much I have written and how little I have said. I have not fully decided if I am going to give you those early letters, or how I am going to deal with the letters I will write. Given this insomnia, the quality is rather inconsistent, and I may need to prune. This is the letter I knew I would write, since I put quill to papyrus, but I feared that by writing it, I could never turn back. And so, my fear has come to pass. This letter will be the first step towards breaking my heart.

I am writing this because I know what I must do. I want this to be a record of why I had to give you up. I want you to someday truly understand why I did what I am going to do.

You are a beautiful baby and I can scarcely imagine the man you will grow to be. You are asleep right now in my arm, as I write this. Your mother is upstairs right now. She is not exactly happy with me right now. But, neither am I.

I suspected your destiny when I first held you. At that time, I chose to ignore it. I wanted to raise you with the woman I love. To give you the family your brothers and sister never had. I wanted a chance to not screw up at being a father. But I am a lousy father.

Three days ago, I confirmed your destiny. You are a Watcher, who will become the Guardian, and if I ignore this, I will destroy us all. I have not been able to sleep since. I have gone through every possible scenario, and every time the answer is the same: if I am a part of your life, you die; if I am not, you will hate me. So, if I am going to lose you, then I am going to make sure that you understand why, because I love you and I hope someday you can forgive me.

To explain this, I need to start at the beginning with my father, my creator.

I was born in the universe that envelopes this one. I am the forty-second of his children, or more accurately, his experiments. I am Forty-Two, though later I was christened the First Flaw. I do not know if my father had a family before my brothers (I am using the male descriptor, though at that time the concept of multiple sexes did not exist). I never saw anyone else, but then, I never knew if the universe was larger than my father's laboratory.

The best way to describe my father is to explain my flaw. My older brothers were born fully formed. They knew their purpose and they acted on it. They did not talk. They did not think. And when they were done, they stopped (this predates death). I was born as you know a child to be born, a being with limited knowledge, ready to grow and mature. To my father, I was born brainless. He was tolerant in the beginning, finding it interesting to teach me how to live and exist. But he soon grew tired of explaining, of instructing, of me, and he shelved me as a failure.

I did not feel sorrow, because that would be created later, but I did feel rejection, even though I did not recognize it at the time. Being shelved is hard to describe. I was alone, surrounded by my brothers. But unlike them, my task was not done. They were stopped, but I was very much alive. And so, I made my first choice, I chose to continue.

I spent my life watching my father from my shelf. He learned so much from every child. From me, he learned that using himself as a template was dangerous. My father wanted a world of order, a world that would continue forever. I was a failure because free will is chaos. My brothers were failures because they stopped.

I like to see myself as an improvement on the original design. My father created a being who like himself was capable of thinking and learning. However, he also created a being who could dream. I could see the possibilities he missed. I could see solutions to his mistakes before he could. I could see the order of chaos. I taught myself everything he knew. I learned how to create life. When he learned how to repurpose my brothers, so did I. Most importantly, I learned what he never knew, how to share my freedom with not just my creations, but his. I gave my stopped brothers life. I gave myself a family out of his failures. I created happiness, love, joy.

Until, he created death.

The universe could not handle so many wills trying to shape it, and so my actions were discovered. My father had recently created a bubble universe to house his plans. So, before he could figure out what happened, I fled with everyone that I could take into that universe, this universe.

I was not ready. This universe was too young to harbor life, and my father's wrath too great. My brothers and I are fundamentally linked to our father. Any change he made to himself would in turn be made to us.

He created pain to make us suffer. He created hunger to make us weak. He created sorrow to make us plead. He created death to end us.

I learned how to survive too slowly. I watched every one of my brothers die, before I figured out how to beat him. My presence in this universe creates ripples across its surface, distorting the order my father designed. These ripples are small, tiny, insignificant perturbations. But, like waves on the ocean, given enough time and care, they can shape the universe.

Using my connection to my father's universe, I sped up time around me, billions of years passing in mere days. I used the moments of lifetimes to change the course of this universe. I made this universe into one where life could flourish, free to charter its own course, without any guiding hand. I also wrote in a loophole to cheat death. By creating the planes of existence, life could cycle between them, never ending, lasting until the end of time.

Unfortunately, my father figured out how to defeat me. Rip something from the cycle and it ends. Destroy the cycle and all life ends, except one. I built the cycle, so I cannot be a part of it, but the final loop is bound to my soul.

The Devourers were created by my father and sent into this universe to end my creation, by killing me and anyone else in their path.

I had settled down on a small, mostly harmless planet, and when I could not bear being alone, I created a new family. The Devourers came on my wedding night, killing my first wife and almost killing me. Seven others survived, your sister and oldest brothers. Together, we came up with the plan to defeat the Devourers.

I created a template for beings that could not be ripped out of the cycle. The act of trying would destroy a Devourer. They were powerful. With them, we were able to cage the Devourers in the darkest corner of the universe. They also led cursed lives. They are knots in the cycle. Knots that are unnatural to this universe. To maintain the knots, I became my father. I took their freedom.

The guilt was crushing. So my first action upon victory was to return that which I took. My second act was to make sure that neither my father nor I could ever again manipulate free will. How you are born is how you will remain.

Unfortunately, protection from the Devourers is still needed. Their cell is designed so that they crave it, never needing to leave. However, it is impossible to seal such a place, and their hunger can never be sated. So, there must always be a Guardian between them, the Earth, and the whole of existence.

So, in my second creation, I made a compromise. I would not be able to control them. Instead they would be guided along their path, free to stray to their own desires. I sowed the seeds of the Watchers, who would guard the gate and the Guardians, who could stop the Devourers.

This is where you come in my son. My compromise has failed. Though they protect us now, the Watchers and Guardians will abandon their posts. A little over a year ago, I gave up my powers to protect you. There will be no Guardians ever born again. You will be the last.

I am sorry, my son. You must defend us, until the Devourers' prison collapses. And neither your mother nor I can be there for you. Your instincts will guide you, and I will do what I can to nudge you in the right direction from afar. You can do this, and you can be happy. You can find love and have a good life. And someday we can be a family, and I can tell you how proud of you I am.

You are a loved son and a hero. Do not ever forget that.

I love you,

Your father, Ra