Months passed with Avery fanatically obsessing over his fantasy land, never taking a rest and taking every small mistake personally. His frustration had gradually grown from fierce annoyance to an unbearable itch, and he felt like he could literally explode at any moment, and finally lose his mind.

  It was true he had also made exemplary progress, but he was far from being satisfied, as his ambitions grew quicker than his skills. He despised his own creation, continually making minute changes and adjustments, which piled up into the huge world getting more and more intricate. While his ability to visualize a complex scene improved, he had also gradually improved and expanded said scene. He did not have much artistic talent, but he had been single mindedly fixating on these four worlds for more than half a year, and he had slowly polished and added to his original creation, completely transforming it.

  What had previously been a smooth globe with a bunch of circular city-like props thrown around haphazardly had evolved into a semi-realistic planet with mountains, rivers and oceans, fauna and flora, where the artificial structure roughly integrated with their surroundings. If before his four planets gave the impression of being plastic toys only fit for three years old, now it looked like a lifeless painting, lackluster but moderately realistic.

  For example, his fire world had undergone a complete rehaul, and was now almost unrecognizable. As the name suggested, the entire planet, from rivers to mountains and creatures were entirely made out of fire, being agglomerations of differently colored and textured flames.

  In the attempt to infuse a little life in the scene, Avery had slowly added in a multitude of plants and animals during his successive attempts at designing this world. He had separated different biomes, populating deserts, oceans, forests and mountains with the appropriated wildlife.

  Unfortunately, while the world had achieved the realism of an average low-poly game, it was frozen in time. His greatest failing had been his attempt to vivify the world, and making it look inhabited. The world was still incredibly uniform, with no natural wonders or significant places to amaze its inhabitants. All of the animals were rooted to the spot, with even the flames composing them being motionless.

  At one point he had tried to animate the flames, making them flicker and dance to differentiate them from colored glass, but he had been forced to abandon that idea, his brain simply unable to handle so much agitation.

  There was no wind to shake the trees or grass, no waves on the sea, no day and night cycle, and no movements in the cities. It was a dead world, devoid of movement or sounds, a reflection on Avery's state, eternally alone in a stagnant world.

  Sometimes, he worried that by the time he was free, he might have forgotten what the real world was like, and would be incapable of handling simple things like holding a conversation or preparing himself a meal.

  Yearning for human interaction, Avery spent a huge amount of time populating the various cities he had placed, even inventing a simple culture for the fire spirits, roleplaying their discussions and actions trying to warm his heart on those imaginary flames.

  He made the fire spirits all wholeheartedly believe in the divinity of the first flame. It had supposedly existed since time immemorial, witnessing the birth of the universe alongside the three other primordial elements. The first flame and its counterparts had then slowly grown into the colorful and diverse worlds they were now.

  The fire spirits believed that to grow, the first flame had stolen nourishment from the fabric of the universe, but this had had a price deficient, puncturing a gaping hole in the center of the universe.

  This hole was a wound to the foundation of the universe, and was causing it to slowly unravel, and dissolve into the growing black hole. If nothing was done, one day when the black hole was too big, there would be nothing supporting the universe, and it would dissipate into nothingness, leaving behind as its only vestige a black ball containing everything that had ever existed.

  To avoid this, the universe had to be constantly nourished, offering back the stolen energy to heal the wounds and remedy the foundation of the universe.

  Avery was projecting himself heavily in his creation, so it had naturally been terribly tainted by his irritation, causing them to become unecessarly savage and brutal.

  The best way the spirits found to “reimburse” their energy debt was to offer living sacrifice to the black hole, and preferably sentient beings. Avery took a twisted pleasure in picturing this macabre ceremony, designing elaborate rituals and terrifying scenes in an attempt to direct and exhaust this frustration.

  The worst part was that he couldn't even put himself in the shoes of the masters of ceremony to give an outlet to his anger and calm down as he had originally intended. Instead, he was envying the sacrifices, at least they were granted a quick and painless death, while his miserable life had no end in sight.

  Avery elaborated on plenty of other things, from which foods would be on display in shops to the kinds of jobs citizens had or the political landscape of the different lands, but in the end it always came back to the bloody altar.

  Their cultures centered around sacrificing their people to buy time for the world, until one day, either the universe would be repaired, or it would completely unravel and become nothingness.

  The most influential faction was the Shrine of Onus, the only cross-world organisation. Its founder claimed to be able to hear desperate cries of the tortured universe, and he was the one to invent the abominable ritual.

  His teachings had three major tenants:

1. Everyone had a mission he had been born to accomplish, and it was one's duty to himself to find his purpose in life and complete it.
2. It was one's duty to society to help his fellow man, contribute to the advancement of the world as well as to procreate and to raise valuable members of society.
3. It was one's duty to the universe to give up his now useless energy once one's mission was accomplished.

  His doctrine was based on the twin concepts of duty and growth. The tendencies of the four primordials was neverending growth, and as it’s descendants one had to strive to facilitate that goal. One had to not only push for the advancement of the world, but also pay for the cost of this expansion.

  He not only preached this to whomever listened, but evidently he must have believed what he said, as the day when his word was accepted by all four worlds, he organised a terrible ceremony and offered himself as a voluntary sacrifice.

  Accompanying him to the afterlife were hundreds of criminals and war prisoners, and of course hundreds and thousands of animals, but the most shocking were the dozens of faithful volunteers. They were of all ages and social status, but they were all pious believers, believing their purpose in this world to be accomplished, and that it would be selfish to continue to hang on to a life and hoard world-saving resources.

  Unlike the restless and terrified prisoners, those volunteers were calm and solem, reciting prayers under their breath as they peacefully walked towards the altar, wearing nothing but a simple white robe and a serene smile on their lips. Even an old queen was among them, her final act giving her life for her subjects.

  Avery spent a few more months fixating on the messed up culture of the four worlds, until he realised how much time had passed. It would soon be his three year anniversary since he last had any human contact, and he decided it was finally time to finish his rune.