In the beginning, there was nothing.

All was pure void, and darkness moved on the face of the deep. From outside the ether, from beyond all space and time, a young angel moved gently in the pitch-black universe. He was not like an angel as we know, but a transparent, ghostly being with wings all of silver, and a lofty, kind face. His hair was curly and blond, and he was naked, but not ashamed. His name was Yahweh.

Behind him, other angels looked at his progress. They smiled, some in mockery, some in genuine interest. Yahweh turned to them and said, “Let me prove to thee the strength of my powers. Yea, I shall create a world here, and govern the people as their lord.”

The other angels said, “We shall watch, make thy world. We shall join thou, for thou didst create us from nothing, and art a wise leader.”

The angels respected Yahweh, for he was the first angel, created from pure matter and thought in the Outer Membranes. Others came after him, but Yahweh was first. Yahweh told them that he had created them, but the less naïve, such as Lucifer, Metatron, Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel had seen through. Together with his son Emmanuel, and his mighty spirit, they ruled the angels as beings of pure soul and light.

Yahweh was together now with all his angels, in the realm of the uncreated void. They watched him forming a singularity between his hands, a ball of light of infinitesimal size. It was a single shimmering point in the vastness of infinity. He was scripting the world, coding everything inside it. Laws of gravity and motion were set in place, and the matter necessary for billions and trillions of stars and galaxies. Everything was ready, and the angels watched.

“Let us launch this universe,” said Yahweh, beaming at his progress. “Let there be light.”

He released his hands from the singularity, and at once it exploded into a tremendous burst of light and energy. The uncountable host of angels shielded their eyes from Yahweh’s wonder, even his son Emmanuel. The universe was born, and baptized in the fiery wonder of creation.

Billions of years passed in an instant, the universe becoming transparent, and the stars expanding and forming shapes. Yahweh’s laws of gravity that he had written set the stars together in clusters and galaxies. The angels looked at the cluster approaching, and the two galaxies that were in focus. Then one of the galaxies came closer, and the individual stars were visible.

The angels were eternal, with neither end or sense of earthly time, and for them, what was billions of years seemed like minutes and hours to them. In an arm of the formation of stars great clouds of dust swirled around the orbit of a bright new star, the Sun. Yahweh watched in pride as his plans came all together, and the clouds of dust condensed into planets and moons. The laws and script set the bodies in motion around the sun, and everything was beautiful.

The angels looked on in joy as they observed the vastness and beauty of this solar system. From the far reaches of the shining young star, past the rocky planets, and before the gaseous, ice-cold giants of Jupiter and Saturn, was a small blue-green orb hanging in the abyss. Ten billion years had passed since Yahweh created the world.

“This is the planet where I will make life,” Yahweh said. “Wilt thou help me?”

“We will!” announced the angels in unison.

“Emmanuel,” Yahweh said. “Thou art my son, and will help me rule this world. Gabriel, thou art to be my connection to these people. Raphael, thou shalt take care of the Earth, and heal it in times of need. Zophiel, thou shalt be my eyes and ears down on earth. Metatron, thou shalt be Lord of the Dead, for where there is life, there is also death. Lucifer, mine highest captain, thou shalt rule beneath me, and govern all other angels.”

Lucifer, proud and tall, stretched his beautiful body toward Yahweh, but closed his fist and said, “I will not serve.”

Yahweh’s heart froze, as the angels divided themselves. A third were following Lucifer, haughty and insolent, in their quest for freedom. Yahweh had been betrayed, and though it pained him, he would crush the rebels.

The battle raged for millions of years in the deeps of nothingness, the blackness of space, lit only by the sun and stars. Trillions of angels fought, cutting wings, stabbing through with spears, almost tearing the fabric of time itself, until Yahweh tore a hole in the universe. Michael, who had been holding off Lucifer himself, retreated, as the dark circle drew in the hundreds of billions of rebels, ripping them painfully from Yahweh’s universe and sending them beyond the Outer Membrane.

As the battle had been fought, Earth had formed according to Yahweh the Architect’s wishes. Methane rain fell from the sky, cooling the scorched earth. With a heavy heart Yahweh observed creation, his angels behind him, fading into space and becoming the dark matter of the universe. Many stayed by Yahweh’s side, though.

The first bacteria arose from the primordial liquids, and oceans formed. The bacteria, by Yahweh’s laws of evolution and selection, became multicellular protists and fungi, eventually evolving into plants. The plants covered the earth, and Yahweh saw that it was good.

The continents shifted with the pulse of the Earth’s core, and mountains and valleys grew, and lizards and birds and all things that creep and crawl emerged from the dust. Dinosaurs towered tall, dominating the surface of the earth.

A comet struck the earth hard, and the dinosaurs died. The angels were troubled, and said, “Lord, why hast thou done this thing? Wherefore hast thou killed the life on the planet?”

Yahweh turned to them as the Earth shook in its impact, and said, “I did what needs to be done. I want to help this world…to create intelligent life.”

Millions of years passed. Horses, fish, monkeys, and sharks grew.

“Lord, these be your intelligent life?” the angels asked.

“Wait,” said Yahweh, gesturing to the monkey. As the centuries and millennia drove onward, the monkey changed. It walked upright, and was strong and broad. In the Rift Valley of a southern continent the Homo Erectus stood up for the first time. Yahweh smiled upon him, for the human had been blessed with intelligence beyond the animals. But there were few of him.

“The script groweth dull, and begs change,” said Yahweh. “Let me make something else,”

Yahweh gestured at the Homo Erectus, and part of its line branched off, and became Neanderthals. But Yahweh had erred in his creation. The Neanderthals were of low intellect, and not capable of anything but violence. They set upon the peaceful Homo Erectus in great slaughter. Yahweh wept at his misfortune, but Emmanuel said, “Createth a new race of humans, both peaceful and intelligent, and thou shalt be able to have the life forms you wanted,”

Yahweh struck the earth, and at long last, the Homo Sapiens arose. It subdued the Homo Erectus and Neanderthals, and outbred their wicked traits, and soon became the only type of human in the world.

After nine hundred thousand years had passed, they had not left Africa, so Yahweh made food scarce, and they left and spread all over the world. Within twenty-five thousand years they had reached Australia and Europe, and were using clubs and spears.

“Is this the kind of life form thou hast wanted?” asked the angels.

“It is good, but we can make it better,” replied Yahweh. He blessed humanity with Art, and in southern France, he watched the humans create drawings on their caves. They drew beautiful art, and though trapped in a stone age, they hunted and lived in communities in peace and happiness.

Three thousand years later, Yahweh said, “Look! They hath moved across the land bridge!” Indeed, humans were braving the cold tundra to cross the Bering Sea and land bridges to the Americas. The world was covered in ice, and glaciers were all over the North.

Another two thousand years passed, and bows and arrows, maces and slings were in use. Fifteen centuries afterwards, Yahweh declared, “It is not good that the planet be so cold. I shall relieve Earth of some of its ice.” And he removed the glaciers, and the ice age ended.

But as Yahweh ended the ice age on Earth, Lucifer once again reentered Yahweh’s universe without him knowing. He had escaped the Outer Membrane, and desired to cause mischief on Earth. He traveled in disguise to where Yahweh was with all his angels.

“Is this the life form thou hast wanted?” the angels asked.

“Yes, it finally is perfect,” said Yahweh. “Look at my people. They are free, and happy, and unburdened. There is no crime, or violence, or hatred. There be less than a million humans, so they are free to whatever land they hath chosen. They move with their families and friends with pure love, and are unoppressed by kings, priests, or intolerance.”

As Lucifer heard this, he went down to a place on Earth where three continents met, at a fertile crescent. There he sat in a shaded grove by the Euphrates and waited, for humans were passing by. Soon came a family of humans, Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Able. They were ignorant of evil, and happy in serving no one but themselves. Lucifer stood near an apple tree, and called to them. They came over to him and spoke.

“Where art thou traveling to?” asked Lucifer.

“We travel wherever we can find food and water,” replied Adam.

“Fool, wherefore wander so?” sneered Lucifer. “For dost thou not know of the laws that God hath created? Plucketh thou the apple off the tree, and bite into it, and I shall show to thee a secret.”

Adam and Eve both plucked an apple off and bit into it, bemusedly handing it to Lucifer. Lucifer pulled a seed from the apple and ground it into the fertile earth. “Behold! A sapling of a tree shall groweth here in this place, and thou canst tend it and make it great. For I say to you, yea, any fruit or crop, be it wheat or oats, or apple or pomegranate, thou canst plucketh a seed from within the core, and place it in the ground so it can grow.”

And Adam and Eve planted seeds in the ground, and Lucifer departed. There they grew many plants, and crops, and they owned their land on the banks of the Euphrates. Yahweh looked down and said, “How did this come to be? For whosoe discovereth farming can create cities, which I do not desire, for they bring evil.”

When Adam and Eve grew old, they divided their land between Cain and Abel, but they argued between it. In the field, Cain struck down Abel, and drowned him in the Euphrates. As he did this, Yahweh shook in rage, and cursed the Earth he had created, and he cursed Lucifer.

“Damnation on Lucifer, for he hath corrupted my world!” Yahweh cried in anguish. The angels wept for the death of Abel, and Yahweh sadly watched the population of Earth grow, and agriculture spread uncontrollably over the world.

Two thousand years after Adam and Eve, the first great city of Jericho was created, with high walls and many people. Archers lined the walls, for war had come to the Earth, and in the city was crime and robbery, and murder and rape. Yahweh sighed and cried out for the Earth, but to no avail. Two thousand years later, all the world, even in the Americas, they farmed the land and made cities.

Soon pottery was invented, and worst of all, there came religion. Tribes banded together and buried their dead in ceremony, sacrificing humans to the gods they had invented. The Sumerians arose, and humans began writing things down, and using the wheel. The more they advanced, the more evil was brought into the Earth.

“Ah, what hath happened to the world?”

The Egyptians began their calendar, and the Indo-Europeans arose. The bronze age began, and the city of Troy was founded on the Mediterranean. The Pyramids arose in brilliant stone, testament to the wonders of the human race. Yahweh decided that he would step in to try and end evil. He couldn’t halt the progress of civilization, but he could curtail it.

Yahweh appeared to Abraham of Sumeria, and gave him the Promised Land of Palestine, and the Hebrews arose from the people. Yahweh wanted to stop the flow of evil in the world, but it was difficult. Greece and China began their reigns, and eventually the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians. Yahweh once again stepped in on their behalf, and led them with their leader Moses to the Promised Land.

Troy fell, and the Iron Age began. Greece had its city states, and Rome was founded. Persia arose and declined, and Rome became the dominant power. Emmanuel said, “Father, shall I go down onto the Earth as a human to turn these people from the path of evil?”

Yahweh pondered this for a long while, and said, “Yes, thou shalt now go down, but I warn thee, you must suffer pain and death for you goal.”

“I am ready for this,” said Emmanuel. Yahweh gave his command, and Emmanuel’s spirit went into a girl called Mary, and she conceived and bore Emmanuel, whom she named Jesus. He was to be the Christ and save humanity, and he preached in Palestine and turned many to his cause.

When his time came, the Roman Empire put him to death on the cross, but Yahweh broke the script’s commands, and the laws that he himself had written, and rose him back. Jesus, who was Emmanuel, began a new order of worship in the world. Soon, with no help from Yahweh, evil overran the world, and Rome fell. The Dark Ages began.

“Let me go down to the world again,” said Yahweh. He appeared to a man called Mohammed near where Emanuel had been born, and Mohammed started another order, separate from Christianity. “This shall do well to halt the evils of the world,” said Yahweh, but he was no longer confident in his powers.

Yahweh wept to see Christianity and Islam fighting in ferocity and hatred, with the Roman Empire renewed in Germany, and the Crusades taking the lives of thousands. Evil had fully spread now, except in America, where the people were purer, and less touched.

Inventions like gunpowder and the printing press spread, and the Spanish Inquisition slaughtered millions in Yahweh’s name. An explorer from Europe discovered the Americas, and corrupted them in the same way that the rest of the world was corrupted. Yahweh thought he saw a bright new savior in Martin Luther, but the Wars of Religion degenerated that hope. African slavery and Indian massacres killed and oppressed millions, each needless death ripping out a piece of Yahweh’s soul.

The United States was founded, and Yahweh was pleased, but it fought itself in bloody combat, and the British Empire repressed the native Indians and Africans. With machine gun and tank eleven million young men sank into the mud during the World War, and even more were slaughtered like sheep in the Second World War. Yahweh’s chosen people, the Jews, were put to a mass attempted extinction, and they had to fight even more in Palestine. Communism and television overtook humanity, and wars were fought brutally and with terribly casualty.

“They have put a man on the moon,” said an angel. Yahweh would have been happy with human ingenuity, but he was torn on the inside, his soul depressed and his eyes red from endless weeping. Humans invented the internet, and could talk anywhere in the world at ease. Things seemed to be going well, for the United Nations wanted a plan for world unity. Drugs made cancer and AIDS preventable, and longevity reached a hundred years. A single common currency was adopted, but eventually, the humans became obsessed with their technology.

A human was cloned, and they walked on Mars. They created artificial life, and even their own species. Yahweh stared in hatred and jealousy at what his humans had arrived at. They were usurping his role, and becoming like angels. Now there were twenty billion humans on Earth, and the crime and poverty was rampant. The UN created a global world federation, and over three thousand years after Jesus, a colony was on the moon. With the cycle of the world, the next ice age began soon after that.

People began living full-time on the moon, and later on Mars, and on Venus. In the tenth millennium, Aldeberan-B became the first extrasolar colonized planet. The precession of the earth made Vega the North Pole star.

“What have they done?” moaned Yahweh. “I had not wanted this…I never wanted any of this.”

In the year one hundred thousand, a majority of humans were living beyond the earth. In the year two hundred and fifty thousand, Earth’s magnetic poles reversed. In the year one million, a majority of humans lived beyond the solar system. They had risen far from their hunter-gatherer days, and were replete with all technology that could be invented. As fifty million years after Christ came around, the African plate collided with Europe, and California broke away from the mainland. In two hundred and fifty million, AD, the Americas merged with Afro-Eurasia, turning the Atlantic Ocean into a small lake.

“It’s been a billion years since Jesus,” Yahweh said. “They’ve entirely forgotten him. Maybe that was best…they have probes on every star system in the galaxy, they can even raise people from death. There is no disease beyond their cure, no place they cannot go. They live for three hundred years naturally. It is time to end it.”

“I have failed. It is time to end it all!” Yahweh roared.

The Greenhouse Effect worked its evil. Gases built up in Earth’s atmosphere, and choked the billions of billions of people on the planet. The year two billion: all life on earth is extinct due the greenhouse effect.

“Lord, what is wrong with the sun?” an angel asked. The sun was huge, ten times its normal size, and deep red. It swallowed up Mercury and Venus in its throes of death, and its heat turned the surface of the Earth to fire and brimstone. The oceans boiled, and the land became lava.

“It is a red giant, and will end the earth.” Yahweh said.

The year six billion: the sun finally ended its life, expanding to a red giant and shrinking to a white dwarf. The Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collided in space, the gravity of Earth thrown off. Earth, a charred rock, was sent spinning into space.

The year ten billion: human population of all the galaxy stabilizes at fifty quadrillion.

“We’re going to end it all,” said Yahweh, and his face was full of wrath. The stars of the universe swelled to red giants and burst in supernova, or shrunk into black holes. Hundreds of trillions of humans perished in fiery agony.

The year hundred billion: All remaining living systems were huddled around red dwarfs for light and warmth. The charred and frozen Earth stabilized at a forty-seven day year, but no one lived there anymore. By the year hundred trillion Yahweh had cursed the universe, and all stars stopped shining. Little to no life remained in the world, for quadrillion years after Christ, planets were all dislodged from their solar systems.

All stars and dwarfs became black holes, sucking in any remaining parts of the universe. Weeping in rage and crippling guilt, Yahweh said, “What have I done?” The universe was nothing but billions of black holes, sucking in any life that remained. The last few humans had been huddled together on a small planet in space, begging for mercy and forgiveness from their gods, when the black hole had ripped their very being to atomic threads.

It was the year triekaduillion…10 to the 40th power: all life was over, and the angels and Yahweh watched the universe end. Proton decay left the universe with only black holes and subatomic particles. Then it was the year googol, 10 to the 100th power, and the last moment of existence.

Yahweh watched in anguish as the last black hole evaporated, emitting the cold dark universe’s final flash of visible light. And it was over, it was all finally, finally over. There was nothing in the universe but trillions of light-years of space.

“It is finished,” said Yahweh. “I have failed this universe. Let us return to the Outer Membrane,”

The angels said they were sorry Yahweh had failed, and attempted to make him feel better. They all left the universe, and went beyond into their own realm.

“Lord, art thou coming?” asked an angel, as he disappeared into the Outer Membrane.

Yahweh gently hovered in the void, looking at the vast stretch of nothingness where life had once been. All his work and time had been for nothing. There was no more Earth, no more sun, no more life. No more people. No more young couples, wise old men, happy children, or brave heroes. There was no love in the universe.

There was nothing. Only emptiness.

Turning away from his abyss, Yahweh took once last glance at the failed world and returned to his own realm. Maybe one day someone else could create a universe, but for now, there was nothing but void. Darkness moved on the face of the deep.