“All it takes is a single spark.”
“One bit of ignition, and you watch a world around you burn down. Every piece swallowed by that shine of a light that just barely misses your skin, wanting to go forward, and consume every part it can.”
“Taking in every piece, making sure it can last just that one piece longer. Desperately clawing as if it was alive itself, consuming the world and taking what it can just to see the next day come again. But the fuel only lasts so long. Infernos dwindle to embers, to coals, and then the stillness that comes. Blackened husks, charred pieces of what once was. Barely anything recognizable.”
“But from death, comes life. New growth feeds on the death of the old, seeds sprout in new carbon-enriched soil. The old becomes consumed by the new, and broken down to where one cannot find what was before. And before long, the cycle begins once more.
“Death, rebirth, and death once more.”
“In the halls of Olympus, the wildfires of the Spartans have taken hold. Those that can make it this far all have a blaze in their hearts.”
“Some are the sparks of a new inferno, the beginning of the blaze. Either through their sheer intellect and technology, or the voices in an uprising of the explosion, they see a field of growth as something to plow down, burn away until nothing remains.”
“Others are the fire itself, roaring to life with a fury unlike any other. Taking every piece of fuel that they can to push forward with their goals, find their truths and beauties in the conflagration and shaping it as they can. Passionate and vivacious, reaching forward towards their own destinations with the hardened truth crumbling away at their core.”
“And some are embers, fighting desperately to remain relevant. Those forgotten by the blazes that had given them so much purpose before. Clawing, hoping for that one push, that little bit of extra fuel before they become snuffed out. Reaching outwards, desperate for any help, any breath of fresh air before collapse.”
“Where do I stand among these infernos? Am I the blaze that devours and consumes all before it?”
“No.”
“I am the new that follows the old. There is no tinder in my forest, for the infernos of destruction have already swept through. Who I was, where I came from. All of it gone, barely recognizable in the wake of blackened remains. Nothing that was before remains now.”
“So I go forward. I see the light, face the fury of the fires in front of me with a vigor of no return. For there is no back to go to. Only ruins to root in, for a new way and a new life to explode in its own force. Fast, furious, and unrelenting growth.”
“Fear not the Serpent that hath fallen in the face of tragedy.”
“Death is only a rebirth into something more.”
“And soon, the serpent shall strike once more.”