“We are born to experience. Existences at the top of the five worlds. Creators of everything that there was, there is, or there will be, including ourselves, omnipotent paradoxes, yet we have a mission. To experience it all”, Badger said, raising one black-gloved hand up. “The sweet, the heat, the soft… All the pleasures one can imagine”, he continued, and the congregation of us rejoiced, immediately creating an explosion of colors all around and making rivers of flowers flow upward, herds of strange animals burst all around and run through our immaterial bodies. “But how many times have we seen the creation of the universe? How many times have we tasted the water of the immortals? How many times have we felt the apex of bodily pleasures? An infinite amount. And each time is slightly less impressive than the last one”, the billions of us exchanged concerned glances. Boredom was a taboo, a creation that initially propelled us, but would inevitably lead to our fall. “So, how? How can we appreciate our creations as if it was the first time forever? How can we not get tired of creating itself?”, Badger glanced over the crowd of eighty-six billion of us from under the dark that hid its face. “The answer is simple. Contrast”, hustle. “To not only be aware that you experience pleasure, but to be aware that there is something opposite to it which you’re free from. A greater and endless source of delight!”, euphoria. “And for this… I cast my vote”, he raised both hands, and pulled a pebble from the sleeve of his black mantle.

“What is this? This isn’t right…”, my eyes went wide and sweat started to sprout from my forehead.

“Coyote, I don’t like this… I don’t want this thing to be created!”, she held firmly onto my arm, her eyebrows curled up, her limbs shaking.

“Neither do I!” I stepped forward and willed myself to be at the front of the crowd in an instant, and so there I was, facing the spokesperson. “Badger! That isn’t a good idea. Please, think again before casting this vote!”

“I already did it, a trillion times over.”

“And so did we”, everyone behind me and her spoke in unison.

“And we already chosen our mark bearer”, Badger threw the pebble into the pool, and as soon as the little stone sank beneath the waters, he said. “To one feel pleasure… it must exist [pain].”

Instantly, an abstract black mark was burned on top of my left hand, not unlike the marks all around the stone ocean, and I experienced the newest creation of our kind physically, mentally, and spiritually in its purest form, the very essence of pain.

I lost control over my muscles and fell on my stomach, contorting myself all over, crying and gagging on my own vomit, the supreme consciousness of mine unable to even cease operation. I wasn’t made of flesh, yet I rotted, I didn’t have a body, yet I was being torn apart, I wasn’t a floating mind, yet I was ecstatic.

“Look at him…! So miserable! So unhappy! It makes you delighted just for not being him!”, Badger said, tightening its hands into fists and shaking them, elated.

And then the other votes were cast.

“[Impotence]!”, someone threw their stone into the pool, and another mark was burned into my skin, making me feel my body weight more than all worlds combined.

“[Shame]!”, another pebble, and I tried to hide my face behind my hands, even though it hurt so much to move myself.

“[Weakness]!”, I was barely able to breathe, I felt as if my existence was constantly at risk of stop being.

“[Fatigue]!”

“[Discomfort]!”

“[Fear]!”

“[Hopelessness]!”

“[Hunger]!”

“[Agony]!”

Barraged from all sides by all sorts of extreme opposites of pleasures, I dragged myself across the ground, towards her. In the world of essences, my very being had been irreparably and intrinsically altered, but if I still could have her… Maybe, maybe I still had something to combat those sensations, something stronger than me alone.

Right as I was about to touch her helping hand, however: “[Imprisonment]!”, another vote was cast, and she vanished right before my eyes.

“[Loneliness]!”, yet another pebble sank into the pool of creation, and suddenly, I was at the middle of nowhere.

I was at the stone ocean, my hand extended to no one.

I tried to wish myself back to close to her, but the new creations imposed on me impeded me from doing so. So, I got up and dragged my feet towards the Voting Tower. But before my foot could even touch the ground, another creation was shouted and its name reverberated throughout the entire world: “[Space]!”

Then, I was so, so, so far away from the Voting Tower. Entire galaxies could fit in between me and the place, and then I was but a container of suffering barely kept together by my own indestructible nature.

I tried to create an arm long enough to reach for the tower, but my limb extended merely a few hundred meters, before falling limp on the ground. I tried to create a portal in between the two places, but the thing just flickered and showed me worlds still in the womb, below my own reality.

There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could do, and so my mind lost all logic and coherence it once had, and I was lost in a whirlwind of terrific sensations not meant to exist.

“[Time]!”, a voice rumbled, and from that moment onwards, I couldn’t simply will myself to the point in which that nightmare ended.

And so, I was kept in such a relentless state for eons. Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of years.

There was nothing I could do but suffer to make other’s pleasures elevated.

Then, as I lay down on my back, contorting myself on the ground, eyes bloodshot open from the impossible-to-overcome creations, something fell from my elk clothes. A pebble.

There was nothing I could do. But one thing.