Genesis: Chapter One, “The Six Spirits and Their Sin”

A long, long time ago, back at the dawn of creation, when there were no people, no demons, nor any other living creatures in the world, there were six spirits who lived together in perfect harmony.

“Let’s go play in the fields!”

Fire, full of energy, ran off to the wide, wide grasslands.

Water chased after him. “If you keep running like that, you’ll get so hot you’ll burn the plants!”

Earth began to cry. “Hey! Please don’t burn up my grass!”

Lightning was quick to comfort her. “No more tears, Earth. If he burns them, I’ll blast him away.”

“I’ll go on and fly ahead of him,” Wind said, breezing through the air across the field.

“Everyone’s rather lively today, aren’t they?” Ice said, quietly watching over them all.

The six spirits often fought, but swiftly made amends. That’s why they were always smiling.

They were, however, the only six beings in the entire world. They enjoyed playing with each other, but they wanted to make new friends.

One day, Water asked everyone a question: “Do you think there’s anyone else out there?”

At the time, all six of them were resting underneath the shade of their favorite tree.

“‘Anyone’? What do you mean?” Fire tilted his head to one side, puzzled.

“She means like other spirits, right? Besides Fire, Earth, and the rest of us, I think,” Wind explained.

“We have a lotta fun together, but if we had more friends, then we’d have more fun, right?!” Water clapped her transparent hands with a splash splash splash as she smiled at the thought of having even more fun.

Everyone considered this idea. How could they make more friends?

Lightning crackled as he raised his hand.

“Come to think of it, does anyone have an idea as to how we were created?”

Everyone hemmed and hawed to themselves as they tried to think of an answer.

“I remember! The Gods created us.”

“But I don’t see any ‘Gods’ around...”

“That’s because they’re invisible!”

Earth raised both of her hands to the sky. “Hey, we have some power, right? Let’s work together and make some new friends ourselves!”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Sounds fun!”

“W-Wait!” Ice was quick to speak up against Lightning, Fire, Earth, and Wind, who were all excited about Water’s idea.

“We’ve always had fun together, right? Just us six? We don’t need to make any more friends as long as we have each other, right?” Ice, who always watched over the rest of the spirits playing together with a warm smile in her eyes, looked as though she was about to cry.

The other five spirits didn’t know how to react to this new, unfamiliar Ice.

“But, Ice—if we have more friends, we’ll have more fun, you know?”

“Water,” Ice said, “are you bored with our life as it is now?”

“Well, no, but...”

The next morning.

Ice was creaking and cracking the air around her with frost, in a manner not quite like she had every other morning until that day. The reason, of course, was the fact that although it was morning, she couldn’t see the sun.

In the sky, neither moon nor sun were visible. Every part of the heavens was covered in blood-red clouds. In the distance, she could see what appeared to be a tornado glowing a dark, deep scarlet, slowly spiraling downwards.

Ice searched for her friends.

But they weren’t under their favorite tree, or playing in the field, or anywhere else, for that matter.

After she’d spent some time looking for her friends and found not a one, Ice began heading towards the conspicuously ominous tornado. It was underneath its slow spiral that Ice first saw someone—or rather, something.

It was large, black, chaotic—a mess of arms, standing upon a single leg.

“Ice! Help us!”

All the other spirits had, in secret, created a new “friend” to play with. The five spirits had wanted to surprise Ice, and had created this new “friend” out of their shared curiosity for what they might be able to make.

They had certainly surprised Ice, just as they’d wanted. But this new “friend” of theirs kept trying to eat its creators.

Large, black, and withering every blade of grass it touched, their new friend groaned on and on in a most disturbingly low, violent growl.

“It’s gonna eat us!”

“I don’t wanna be eaten!”

No, this was no friend.

This Shadow spirit dimmed Fire’s flames, sent Water flying in droplets, and rotted Earth’s own vines. Lightning’s attacks had no effect on the thing, and Wind’s tornado had been turned back upon him.

After all, this Shadow had all the powers and abilities of the five spirits who had created it.

“ICE. COME TO ME NOW, AND I SHALL NOT HARM THE OTHER FIVE. TOGETHER, WE SHALL BECOME A POWER UNLIKE ANY OTHER.”

Ice, seeing that the other five spirits were trapped within the claws of Shadow, had no choice but to approach as commanded.

“Ice! No! You can’t!”

“But—if I don’t, Fire, you and the others—”

“That doesn’t matter! We kept this a secret from you! It’s our own fault!”

Even as he was about to be eaten, Fire shouted at Ice to stay away. The others did the same. No one wanted to be saved at the cost of endangering Ice.

“N-No! I won’t let you eat everyone!”

“WHAT DO YOU—NGH?!”

Ice gathered all of her power and froze the great Shadow solid. It had been able to resist the attacks of Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, and Wind, but it hadn’t been able to defend itself against Ice, the only spirit whose power it did not possess.

Ice, who had used so much of her power, watched as the Shadow splintered into glittering ice crystals, which were caught by the wind and blown far up into the sky.

Drained, Ice had defeated the Shadow, but found herself disappearing, fading... and then she was gone completely. She was no longer in this world.

The Shadow, which had shattered into countless fragments, in time fell from the heavens like a storm of shooting stars, falling back to the ground and disappearing.

The five remaining spirits looked up at the sky, no longer red, and cried.

They cried and cried and cried.

Time passed, and then a cloud of Light descended from above to rest before the remaining five. “I felt Ice disappear from this world,” it said. “You five have done something that cannot be undone. It is easy to create, but it is very difficult to destroy something entirely.”

The Light before them was none other than the God who had created them.

The God was, to be sure, not angry at the spirits. They already knew that they had done something irrevocable, permanent—both in their creation of the Shadow, and in the loss of Ice.

The God spoke again. “In just a little while, I shall fill this world with more life. When I do so, be sure to share your powers with your new friends.”

“Share?”

“Our powers?”

“Yes. But for the dark spirit—no, I suppose we cannot call it a ‘spirit.’ It is nothing but a pale imitation of your own existence. From here on out, we shall refer to it as a Demon.”

“A Demon?”

“The scattered shards of the Shadow that have fallen across this world shall one day grow fangs again. In order to protect your new friends, you must share your powers with them so that they can protect themselves when that happens.”

“But Ice is gone!”

“No matter how many new friends we make, without Ice—without Ice, I—We—”

The God merely smiled.

“Take better care of her this time, won’t you?” At these words from the God, a small, faint light fell into Fire’s palm.

It was something very cold, cold enough to nearly douse the flames in his hands.

Fire had known a similar feeling before.

Once—just once—Fire had wanted to hold the hand of a certain spirit.

He had been happy, so happy, and had wanted to share that feeling with someone else quite badly.

Fire had only ever touched Wind, Lightning, and Earth before. If he touched those three spirits, they hardly burned, and they never hurt him either. Well, he did burn Earth a little whenever he touched her, but still, he was able to touch her.

But not Water or Ice.

If he touched Water, she would start to steam away, and he felt himself beginning to disappear as well. If he touched Ice, she would melt, and he would feel very weak.

“Ice! This is fun, right?!”

“Yayyy!”

Even knowing what would happen, however, in that moment he had wanted to hold Ice’s hand so badly he hadn’t cared about the consequences. Ice had been anxious to do the same, and while Fire had felt that his hand was moments away from disappearing entirely, he was happy.

“Listen: you can never leave Ice out of your fun and games ever again.”

Fire looked down at the Ice in the palm of his hand. She was very small, and hadn’t even opened her eyes yet.

Fire, despite being fire, found himself unable to stop crying.

“That little one is not the Ice you knew, but still—take good care of her, alright?”

One hundred years passed, and upon the land there appeared animals. All of the spirits gave some of their powers to each of these animals.

Another hundred years passed, and now humans appeared. The spirits, as they had done for the animals before, shared their powers with them.

As they did so, however, the shapes and forms of all the spirits became more and more transparent. The smallest of them, Ice, had given all she could, and looked about ready to disappear.

“Ice! No! I don’t want you to go away again!”

Earth cried when she saw her how pale Ice was.

“Thanks for all the fun, everyone.”

“You can’t go!”

“Even if I disappear, I’ll live on, inside the humans and the animals. And you’ll always have each other. So it’s not sad at all.” Ice smiled. “Let’s play together again, someday.”

Recently, Ice mages have grown fewer in number.

What might be the reason for this? Not a soul today can fathom why.

Excerpted from “Genesis, Chapter One.”