The Beginning of Time

Chapter One

The forest was completely green, to the untrained ear it was silent, but the young woman who was standing in a dense circle of trees with her head down could hear everything. The voices that were calling out for everything and from within the earth itself, they were calling out to her. She rarely came to this place; she had begun to when she was a young child who followed her mother to the same place. She and her sister had been "tested" by their mother to see if either one of them was different. Both girls showed signs, so she chose her eldest born to be her successor only to realize too late that the daughter she picked was different, but not like her. 

The young woman who sat now in the crop of trees was left untrained, now her mother was gone, and her sister was gone. She was left to figure everything out on her own. This forest had been the source of her mother's ability or so she thought, but it didn't end when she wasn't near the forest, the voices didn't stop at the forest edge. She was lost in her own mind as everything, everything called out to her, everywhere. She had come to ask something more significant than herself to help her, but she didn't even know how to do that. Her mother had only shown her the circle of trees, nothing about how to make things stop talking. She wasn't the chosen one she had been told; she didn't need to know. With the absence of her sister and mother, she had become the chosen one, and she knew nothing.

She had tried clearing her thoughts, that was harder to do then she had thought. With everything yelling for attention and her own insecurities she sat in the middle of the corpse of trees and began to cry. "Why?", she asked herself since no one was around for miles. "Why and how? I have no idea how to do this! Everything is too loud I can't stop the voices."

A split second later it was silent. It was utterly silent in the circle. "All you needed to do was ask.", she heard the voice come from behind her.

"What?", She said as she jumped up. She turned side to side looking around, but no one was there.

"Little one, we know of your pain. We sense it.", the voice continued, "We remember you."

"Who, who are you?", she asked still looking around. "Where are you?"

"We are the ones. We have no name really, a label given is often not correct anyway. To answer the where we are everywhere, the air you breathe, the wind you feel on your cheek, the grass under your feet, the trees surrounding you. Simply we are a part of everything.", the voice said.

"How many are we?", she asked.

"Ten, ten collectives, but there are many more like us.", the voice replied.

"What is your purpose?", she asked.

"To continue life.", The voice began, "When the world was created many holes were made on different planes of existence. We needed help continue to grow and help all the life on the planet, so we enlisted the help of a woman, many centuries ago. Hundreds of centuries ago. We gave her the ability to talk with us and the life surrounding her. With one condition she has at least one daughter, we should have had a few more, but that was our only one."

"Why?", she asked.

"That is not important.", the voice said. "however, the answer is in your blood."

"So, are you gods?", she asked.

"The term Gods is a human one, not one we created. By the human standards we are sort of, but by the standards by which we exist no, we did not create the earth we only help keep the balance.", the voice said.

"Where are you?", she asked.

"We told you that already. In this circle, we can talk more clearly, and as one, outside of it, we are more scattered. You will be drawn to other circles as well; it is in your blood as we told you.", the voice said. "However other things will also be drawn to you, things we cannot control, that is also in your blood."