Life and Death

It began with a bang.

From nothing, a great cacophony of light and sound erupted into the unknown to form the known. The Universe was born.

And with it, a concept. At first it could only scream and writhe, confused and unsure of its surroundings, of itself. But after the first few seconds, when the newborn universe had cooled and slowed down just a bit, the concept came to know itself and to know what was happening around it. The birth of the Universe, the first birth, had created the concept of Life.

And so, for millions of what we call years, Life surged forth and created more. Stars, nebulae, black holes, quasars, all manner of space phenomena for which we do not have names. The beauty and the horror of it all was beloved alike by Life, whose great curiosity and intrigue could be matched by none.

Until one day, when it happened upon a supernova. The first supernova, spewing hot gas and plasma into the cosmos, giving birth to new nebulae and stars, but only after first destroying the catalyst star and all of the planets that orbited it. This destruction birthed a new concept, in a sense. The concept of Death. Life was perturbed, or as close to perturbed as it could be without consciously being able to experience it. It was also curious - of course. So Life turned its eyes away from the growing Universe for a while to watch Death, who stalked the cosmos and blew out stars like candles. More perturbation, more curiosity. Death ignored Life, and so, after satisfying its curiosity, Life returned to create more.

It is not known when the first waters formed. Life was fascinated by it, for it was not hard like the rocks on which it formed, nor did it glow like the fires of the stars. Life idly swirled itself through the water, stirring up small atoms into complex molecules, until the very first life-form was made. Further fascination! The tiny organism grew, then replicated itself and grew again, and again, and as it grew more tiny changes began to occur. Death was not interested in much, but even it had a glint in its "eye" when it saw these beings. One of them, was it the first(?), shuddered and perished beneath its gaze. Life could not abide, so it scooped up the primordial soup and flung it far and wide into the cosmos.

And thus began the cosmic struggle of Life and Death, with the former finding a way to anywhere and the latter never far behind. Life and Death, while everywhere and no where at once, mostly avoided one another, though they were not hostile when their cosmic paths crossed. Until one day as Life watched over a bustling and busy planet on the brink of collapse, it experienced a different surge of curiosity. What if...? Life reached out to Death with a suggestion - the pair of them ruled over the natural order of the cosmos but they did not know what it was to be alive or to die. Could their be any harm in seeing what it would be like? Death was apathetic as ever but agreed.

And so, Life and Death descended to the first world.

The pair decided to stay together for this, their first, journey into the known realm. Finally, the time was right. Life selected a soon-to-be mother, at a time when she was not aware of the life she was carrying - or lives, for what grew within her were identical twins. These twins were only just a few minutes old and only just started dividing, so they were not yet inhabited by souls. They would do perfectly! And so, Life took Death by the "hand" and together they squeezed their expansive "souls" into the two tiny clusters of pre-life.

Life and Death never slept, but the warm, dark waters of the womb inclined them to it. Such a pleasant sensation they had never felt before. The rhythm of their mother's heart and the feeling of being so small, for once, was soothing. And so they slept entwined for nine months, unaware that their parents-to-be delighted in the knowledge of their arrival.

Nine months later, Life and Death experienced their first birth. It was an ordeal, to say the least. Life intended to introduce itself- herself to her parents, but all her underdeveloped vocal cords could do were scream. Perhaps it was for the best, after all their parents would not understand. They were named Alexie and Alexa, or Lexie and Xanda, short for Alexis and Alexandra respectively - it was in reference to something, but Life and Death never understood what. Life, as Lexie, and Death, as Xanda, shared a conspiratorial look as they fed from their mother, experiencing taste for the first time and relishing it.

After their first feeding, their father took Xanda while their mother kept Lexie. They each gently patted their backs and cooed at them in a language neither of them understood yet. Lexie spoke to Xanda, in a language that sounded like meaningless baby gargle to their parents but that Xanda could easily understand. "How poetic that the first thing we should eat would be the breast milk of our mother? And it was so delicious!" She wriggled about in pleasure, before the back pats induced her to vomit slightly. "Oh, that was not pleasant," Lexie mumbled. "Mother, that was not pleasant, do not do that again." Her mother only shushed and comforted her, for to her ears she was crying.

"You got off easy," Lexie said telepathically. "Wait until the liquid comes, it does not taste of milk and burns my mouth. Oh, I have a mouth now. And hands, and feet, and toes, and..." And thus, they lived on. Lexie became known as the louder and more active of the two, while Xanda was quieter and calmer, almost worryingly. At least Xanda would copy her sister so, while she was behind her in everything - walking, weening, language - she was at least developing normally. As they grew and learned the language, though, Lexie became quiet like her sister. Their parents would swear they communicated telepathically, because they seemed to share things without anyone else hearing. It was unnerving to say the least. It was probably their fault for naming them after the Grady twins, honestly. Still, their parents doted on them hugely and the pair could not have led a more idyllic life. They didn't have any friends from nursery or school, because of how oddly silent they were, but they didn't understand that this was an issue.

[Lmao Canada.] "Yes," Lexie agreed. "I also think it's unusual for us to be so advanced mentally and psychologically, when our bodies are not keeping up." While they were both highly intelligent and articulate, they still inhabited the bodies of clumsy five years old, evidenced by a bandaid on Lexie's knee and bruises on Xanda's elbows. "Perhaps we should observe our peers and only do what they can do."

"If we both start following someone around, they may possible become frightened," Lexie cautioned. She had seen some documentaries about animals with her "father", and stalking behaviour was considered predatory on this world. "Perhaps you follow one and I follow another." Lexie left Xanda to do her own thing and went off in search of a suitable candidate. It turned out to be a boy in her class, his name was... Oh, Maui. He was always so full of energy but not too boisterous, and his skin was a nice warm colour. Lexie went and sat next to him as he read a book to a girl in a headscarf, Padma, whose reading comprehension was behind everyone else.

The one who's name started with E, a female, looked up at Xanda and scowled. Xanda and Lexie were scary, she didn't like them, so she turned around on and ignored her. Lexie blinked a couple of times and then nodded. "Yes," she said. The long pause probably came across as creepy, but she'd had trouble processing if he'd said 'weeding' or 'reading' with a speech impediment. It took her a moment to use context to figure it out. "What are you... Weading?" she asked Maui.

The E female turned to look at her male companion and grinned. They were going to get free cookies? Lexie shook her head and slowly sat down next to Padma, with graceful movements more befitting of a balletic adult than a bumbling toddler. Very creepy. "I don't. Can you... Wead it to me too?" Padma didn't dislike the twins but, like everybody else, they gave her the heeby jeebies, so she shuffled away from her a couple of inches.

The girl whose names began with E looked horrified. “We’ll get in trouble,” she hissed to her friend, grabbing his hand and pulling away from Xanda. She thought Xanda was going to grab a handful of cookies, not the whole box. Now their caretakers would definitely notice they’d been taken. Padma had grown bored while Maui read the story, as children were prone to do, and had begun to play with some Lego blocks she’d found nearby. Lexie remained transfixed on Maui though. He was so cute the way he confabulated words and struggled with his impediment.

"Let's go," Elvira huffed, grabbing the sleeve of the boy and dragging him away from Xanda. She didn't want to be told off again, her parents always punished her when the teachers told them she'd been naughty. Padma looked up at the two of them and nodded, but then only handed them one piece of Lego each. "You have to share more," Lexie reminded her. Pouting, Padma shuffled over to let the pair of them sit down next to her and play making Lego houses.

Lexie tilted her head. "Did you steal those?" she asked. How cheeky. "You should put them back. Or..." Glancing down at Maui and Padma, who were both drooling at the sight of cookies... "Put nearly all of them back."

"Snitch!" a child hissed from across the room. It was Elvira, who hurriedly went to hide in the play tent with her male companion. Padma saw the commotion brewing and hurriedly stuffed her cookie into her mouth.

Lexie shrugged slightly. "I assume things are only 'bad' if someone in authority says they are," she surmised within their thoughts. For truly, the act of sharing cookies among friends was not bad. Murder, assault, torture, those were bad - and murder this was not.