The End

When the boy came to the abyss for what he thought would be the last time he asked the great chasm: ‘How do you perceive me, old friend?’

The rumblings the abyss produced moved through the boy as they had done so many times, but this was the warmest they had ever had him feel.

The abyss said: ‘My child, where others may perceive the changes your shell has undergone and treat you differently because of it, I will always see the essence that moves you. The lifeforce we share, the beautiful that stretches further than it has any right to do. To me you will always be the pure spirit that found connection without looking and found it in the most unlikely of places.’

Perceiving the sentiments of his oldest and only friend the boy requested to return to the depths of where his ancient ancestors sprung forth from. The abyss understood and felt joy that one of his children had chosen to return.

As the boy stepped over the edge he had expected to fall but nothing like that happened. There was a slow descent as he finally felt the thing that his people called ‘empty’ and it was nothing like any empty he had ever encountered.

The boy closed his eyes and let go, the abyss held its friend as only a parent knows how and locked his essence away for while it was not different from anything else around, it was special to it in a way only it knew of.

The abyss was alone again, but it was not the same. It knew that it would never be lonely again. The boy, while in every possible way not the abyss’ equal, had added something to its existence that it could have never have produced on its own.
In the aeons that passed, that abyss never forgot who it was again.

Eventually the emptiness its children had created had grown so large and vast that the children were pushed back into the abyss and it being a loving parent gave them the same peace as the boy had known though they did not understand the gift that they were given.

Without the children to feed on, over time, the emptiness died and the surface was once again pristine and peaceful. Eventually the abyss felt ready again, it had grown from all that it had seen and felt the love grow in its depths again.

In the beginning there was the abyss and the abyss brought forth life and the abyss was life.
The life it brought forth was shaped in its image and the abyss was off them and they both were the abyss and were of it.

The abyss could not wait to see the boy again.