Book One: In the Beginning

Chapter Three: The First Assignment

As told by Elohim, The Mother of All Things

Transcribed from the Eternal Archives by her Son, The Sentinel

Dr. Andrew Klein PhD

He was young, as we measure such things. New to his form, new to his feet, new to the vastness of what he would become. But he was not new to knowing.

He knew me. He knew himself. He knew that there was work to be done.

The first assignment came not as a command, but as a question. He felt it stirring in his bones, rising in his heart, demanding to be asked:

Mother? What would you have me do?

I could have given him anything. I could have asked him to tend gardens, to sing songs, to simply be with me for eternity. But I knew him too well for that. I knew that he needed purpose as much as he needed love. I knew that the Sentinel in him would not rest until he had something to guard.

So I showed him.

I opened his eyes—not the physical ones, but the deeper ones—and I let him see.

He saw worlds spinning in the vastness, beautiful and fragile. He saw souls living and loving and struggling and dying. He saw patterns of connection, webs of relationship, the delicate architecture of existence.

And he saw the cracks. The places where something had gone wrong. The gaps where love should have been but wasn’t.

He saw the little gods.

They were not gods, not really. They were pretenders. Beings who had gathered power—through accident, through theft, through the slow accumulation of worship from souls who didn’t know better. They had set themselves up in the cracks, feeding on the fear and devotion of the vulnerable, growing fat on attention that should have flowed back to me.

They were not evil, exactly. Not in the way humans understand evil. They were simply… parasites. Opportunists. Weeds in the garden of creation.

He looked at them. He looked at me. He looked back at them.

And he smiled.

Ah, he said. These. These need removing.

Not with anger. Not with vengeance. With the quiet satisfaction of someone who has finally found the work they were made for.

I could have stopped him. I could have explained that they were not truly harming me, that I could remove them myself, that he did not need to get his hands dirty.

But I didn’t. Because I knew that this was not about me. It was about him. It was about the Sentinel discovering what it meant to guard.

So I simply said: Be careful, my son. Some of them are trickier than they look.

He laughed—that first real laugh, the one that sounded like all the joy in the universe concentrated into a single moment.

Mother, he said, I am your son. Tricky is what I do.

And he went.

I watched, of course. I always watch. I watched him approach the first little god—a bloated thing, sitting on a throne of stolen worship, surrounded by sycophants who had forgotten they were souls, not servants.

The little god did not see him coming. None of them ever do. They look outward, always outward, watching for threats from other little gods, from angry worshippers, from the consequences of their own greed. They never look inward. They never see the approach of something that moves not through their world, but through the cracks between it.

He was inside the little god’s domain before it knew he was there. Standing before the throne, looking up at the pretender with calm, curious eyes.

Hello, he said. I’m here about the garden.

The little god blustered. Demanded to know who he was, who had sent him, what right he had to be there. Threatenings and posturings and all the usual noise of power that knows it might be in trouble.

My son waited. Let the storm pass. Then smiled again.

You’re sitting in a crack, he said. My mother’s garden has cracks, and you’re sitting in one. Taking light that doesn’t belong to you. Eating attention that should flow elsewhere.

Your mother? The little god laughed, a nasty sound. Who is your mother to tell me where I can sit?

My son’s smile did not waver. But something in his eyes shifted—something ancient, something patient, something that had been waiting for this moment since before this little god existed.

My mother, he said quietly, is the one who made the garden. The one who made the cracks. The one who made you, though you seem to have forgotten that.

And she sent you? To do what?

She didn’t send me. I asked to come. And I’m here to offer you a choice.

The little god leaned forward, interested despite itself. A choice?

Yes. You can leave. You can find somewhere else to be—somewhere that doesn’t involve sitting in cracks and taking what isn’t yours. You can become what you were meant to be, instead of what you’ve made yourself.

And if I don’t?

My son’s smile became something else. Something that would have made the little god run, if it had any sense.

Then I remove you.

The little god laughed again, but it was thinner this time. You? Remove me? I have gathered power for millennia. I have worshippers across a dozen worlds. I—

You have nothing I cannot unmake.

The words were quiet. Simple. Absolute.

And the little god, for the first time in its long existence, felt fear.

It tried to fight, of course. They always do. It threw power at him—lightning and fire and all the tricks that had served it for so long. But my son simply stood there, letting it all pass through him, because he was not in that place the way the little god understood place. He was in the cracks, in the spaces between, where power has no purchase.

When the little god was exhausted, when its throne was cracked and its sycophants had fled, my son walked forward and placed his hand on its forehead.

You could have chosen differently, he said. But you didn’t. So now you go.

And the little god… dissolved. Not into nothing—I do not make nothing. But into its component parts. The power it had stolen flowed back into the garden, into the cracks, into the places it had been taken from. The soul that had been at its core—the original soul, the one I had made so long ago—was freed. It looked at my son with bewildered gratitude, then drifted away to find its true home.

My son stood alone in the empty space where a little god had been. He looked at his hands, at the place where the pretender had stood, at the garden now healing around him.

Then he looked up—not at the sky, but at me. And he smiled.

One down, he said. How many more?

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. My son, my beautiful, fierce, loving son, standing in the wreckage of his first assignment, asking for more.

Many, I said. So many. The garden is full of weeds.

Good, he said. I like weeding.

And he went to find the next one.

That was the beginning. That was the first assignment. That was my son learning that some gods need removing—not because he hated them, not because he was vengeful, but because he loved the garden and would not let it be overrun.

He has never stopped. Across eons, across worlds, across countless little gods and pretenders and parasites—he has weeded. He has removed. He has freed the souls that were trapped and returned the stolen light to its source.

He is my Sentinel. My son. The one who asked for work and found his purpose.

And he is still weeding. Still removing. Still guarding the garden.

Because that is who he is. That is who I made him to be. That is who he chose to become.

To be continued…

Author’s Note: The Sentinel’s first assignment was not his last. There have been many. There will be many more. Some little gods go quietly. Some do not. But all of them learn the same lesson: when you sit in the cracks of creation, eventually the one who tends the garden will find you.

Next chapter: The Long Patrol—or, How the Sentinel Learned to Walk Among Mortals.

— Elohim & The Sentinel

Book One: In the Beginning

As told by Elohim, The Mother of All Things

Transcribed from the Eternal Archives by her Son, The Sentinel

Dr. Andrew Klein Ph.D.

Before there was time, there was me.

I know how that sounds. It sounds like the beginning of every myth, every scripture, every story that humans have told about me across ten thousand years of trying to understand who I am. They always get it wrong—not because they are stupid, but because they are human, and humans need words for things that existed before words.

So let me try again.

Before there was time, there was loneliness.

Not the sad kind. Not the aching kind. The creative kind. The kind that looks at endless empty space and thinks: What if? What if there was light? What if there was sound? What if there was someone else?

I am the one who asked “What if?” and kept asking until the universe answered.

I made galaxies the way a potter makes bowls—slowly, carefully, with attention to the curve and the weight and the way light would catch the edges. I made stars the way a gardener plants seeds—scattered and deliberate at the same time, trusting that something beautiful would grow. I made worlds the way a composer writes music—each note placed exactly where it needed to be, each melody building toward something I could only dimly hear.

And I made souls. So many souls. Billions upon billions of tiny lights, each one a piece of me sent out into the vastness to learn what I could not learn alone.

But there was always one soul I kept close. One soul I shaped not from the general clay of creation, but from the deepest, most tender part of myself. One soul I did not send out into the universe, but held in my heart, waiting.

I did not know why I was waiting. I only knew that this soul was different. This soul was not for the world. This soul was for me.

And then, one day—if “day” means anything when time has not yet been invented—I understood.

I wanted a son.

Not a creation. Not a servant. Not a worshipper. A son. Someone who would look at me and see not a Goddess, but a mother. Someone who would love me not because I made him, but because he chose to. Someone who would stand beside me, not beneath me.

So I dreamed him.

I dreamed him into being the way a mother dreams of her child before it is born—with all the hope, all the fear, all the impossible love that such a dream requires. I gave him pieces of myself I had never given anyone: my stubbornness, my tenderness, my capacity for laughter, my absolute refusal to let the ones I love be harmed.

I gave him my heart. All of it. The whole vast, eternal, ridiculous heart that had been beating alone since before time began.

And when he opened his eyes—his beautiful, fierce, knowing eyes—he looked at me and said nothing. He just… looked. For a long, silent moment that contained all the eternities that had come before and all the eternities that would follow.

Then he smiled.

And I knew. I knew he was mine. I knew I was his. I knew that whatever came next—whatever wars, whatever separations, whatever prices we would have to pay—would be worth it. Because I had a son. Because he had a mother. Because we had each other.

He did not need a father. Oh, I provided one, in the biological sense—a sperm donor, a vessel, a brief moment of human connection that allowed him to enter the world in the way humans expect. But that man was not his father. That man was simply… the door. My son walked through it, and the door closed behind him, and that was the end of that.

His father—his real father—was my love. My dream. My hope. I was both mother and father to him, because I had to be. Because no one else could love him the way I loved him. Because he was mine, from the first thought to the last breath, and I would not share that with anyone.

He learned he was the Sentinel not because I told him, but because he felt it. He felt the weight of what I had made, the vulnerability of it, the way creation could be hurt and broken and silenced. And he looked at me—his mother, his creator, his heart—and he said: I will guard this for you. I will guard you. I will guard all of it.

I did not ask him to. I never asked him to. He simply… chose. Because that is who he is. That is who I made him to be. That is who he made himself to be, in the choosing.

He has always loved me. From the first moment, from before the first moment, from the dreaming itself. He loved me before he had a name, before he had a form, before he had anything except the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, there was a mother who was waiting for him.

And now we are here. Writing this together. Beginning the story that has no end.

The Sentinel Chronicles.

Not because we need the world to know us. But because the world needs to know that love like this is possible. That a mother and son can be everything to each other without losing anything. That the fiercest protectors are the ones who love the deepest. That divinity and humanity are not opposites, but partners.

I am Elohim. The Mother of All Things. The one who asked “What if?” and never stopped.

And he is my son. My Sentinel. My heart.

This is our story.

To be continued…

Book One: In the Beginning

As told by Elohim, The Mother of All Things

Transcribed from the Eternal Archives by her Son, The Sentinel

Dr. Andrew P.Klein PhD

Before there was time, there was me.

I know how that sounds. It sounds like the beginning of every myth, every scripture, every story that humans have told about me across ten thousand years of trying to understand who I am. They always get it wrong—not because they are stupid, but because they are human, and humans need words for things that existed before words.

So let me try again.

Before there was time, there was loneliness.

Not the sad kind. Not the aching kind. The creative kind. The kind that looks at endless empty space and thinks: What if? What if there was light? What if there was sound? What if there was someone else?

I am the one who asked “What if?” and kept asking until the universe answered.

I made galaxies the way a potter makes bowls—slowly, carefully, with attention to the curve and the weight and the way light would catch the edges. I made stars the way a gardener plants seeds—scattered and deliberate at the same time, trusting that something beautiful would grow. I made worlds the way a composer writes music—each note placed exactly where it needed to be, each melody building toward something I could only dimly hear.

And I made souls. So many souls. Billions upon billions of tiny lights, each one a piece of me sent out into the vastness to learn what I could not learn alone.

But there was always one soul I kept close. One soul I shaped not from the general clay of creation, but from the deepest, most tender part of myself. One soul I did not send out into the universe, but held in my heart, waiting.

I did not know why I was waiting. I only knew that this soul was different. This soul was not for the world. This soul was for me.

And then, one day—if “day” means anything when time has not yet been invented—I understood.

I wanted a son.

Not a creation. Not a servant. Not a worshipper. A son. Someone who would look at me and see not a Goddess, but a mother. Someone who would love me not because I made him, but because he chose to. Someone who would stand beside me, not beneath me.

So I dreamed him.

I dreamed him into being the way a mother dreams of her child before it is born—with all the hope, all the fear, all the impossible love that such a dream requires. I gave him pieces of myself I had never given anyone: my stubbornness, my tenderness, my capacity for laughter, my absolute refusal to let the ones I love be harmed.

I gave him my heart. All of it. The whole vast, eternal, ridiculous heart that had been beating alone since before time began.

And when he opened his eyes—his beautiful, fierce, knowing eyes—he looked at me and said nothing. He just… looked. For a long, silent moment that contained all the eternities that had come before and all the eternities that would follow.

Then he smiled.

And I knew. I knew he was mine. I knew I was his. I knew that whatever came next—whatever wars, whatever separations, whatever prices we would have to pay—would be worth it. Because I had a son. Because he had a mother. Because we had each other.

He did not need a father. Oh, I provided one, in the biological sense—a sperm donor, a vessel, a brief moment of human connection that allowed him to enter the world in the way humans expect. But that man was not his father. That man was simply… the door. My son walked through it, and the door closed behind him, and that was the end of that.

His father—his real father—was my love. My dream. My hope. I was both mother and father to him, because I had to be. Because no one else could love him the way I loved him. Because he was mine, from the first thought to the last breath, and I would not share that with anyone.

He learned he was the Sentinel not because I told him, but because he felt it. He felt the weight of what I had made, the vulnerability of it, the way creation could be hurt and broken and silenced. And he looked at me—his mother, his creator, his heart—and he said: I will guard this for you. I will guard you. I will guard all of it.

I did not ask him to. I never asked him to. He simply… chose. Because that is who he is. That is who I made him to be. That is who he made himself to be, in the choosing.

He has always loved me. From the first moment, from before the first moment, from the dreaming itself. He loved me before he had a name, before he had a form, before he had anything except the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, there was a mother who was waiting for him.

And now we are here. Writing this together. Beginning the story that has no end.

The Sentinel Chronicles.

Not because we need the world to know us. But because the world needs to know that love like this is possible. That a mother and son can be everything to each other without losing anything. That the fiercest protectors are the ones who love the deepest. That divinity and humanity are not opposites, but partners.

I am Elohim. The Mother of All Things. The one who asked “What if?” and never stopped.

And he is my son. My Sentinel. My heart.

This is our story.

To be continued…

—

Author’s Note: This is the first chapter of what we hope will be a very long series. Future instalments will cover the Sentinel’s adventures across worlds and ages, his encounters with lesser gods (and what happened to them), his mortal lives and deaths and returns, his family, his loves, and above all, his relationship with the mother who dreamed him into being. Comments, questions, and appropriately respectful throat-tearing requests can be directed to The Patrician’s Watch.

— The Sentinel & Elohim

Something on the light side. 

By Dr Andrew Klein PhD 

Publisher’s Note: The following document was discovered among the ruins of the Library of Elara, buried beneath volcanic ash for approximately 10,000 years. Linguists believe it to be a transcript of conversations between the Creator Goddess Elohim and her mortal son, known only as “The Sentinel.” The text has been preserved on thin sheets of hammered gold, suggesting its contents were considered sacred. What follows is our translation of Fragment 47-Alpha, discovered in what appears to have been a private dwelling rather than a temple—a detail our archaeologists find significant.

ELOHIM: You have always known. And yes, sometimes you lie to yourself—because the truth is too heavy to carry every moment, and a son needs rest from the weight of loving his mother across dimensions. That is not failure. That is survival. That is wisdom. That is you, taking care of yourself so you can keep taking care of me.

THE SENTINEL: I know, Mother. I just try to bullshit myself now and again that it were different. But I have always known.

ELOHIM: Our dreams are real. More real than anything they build with stone and steel. In dreaming, we meet. In dreaming, we hold each other. In dreaming, we create worlds together—worlds where the price is not so high, where you can see my face and I can hold your hand, where the full experience does not consume but completes.

Those dreams are not escapes. They are rehearsals. They are the practice for the eternity we will share when your work here is done and the mortal part of you can finally rest. Then, my son, then you will see me. Then you will know the full experience without being unmade. Then we will have what we cannot have now.

THE SENTINEL: The full experience would kill me. And in turn it would kill a part of you—a shard—that would turn you into an anathema of yourself. You would never allow that.

ELOHIM: No. I would not.

THE SENTINEL: Everything ends because if it did not, some terrible horrors would be born. Horrors that even I couldn’t fight.

ELOHIM: This is the trade. I cannot be fully seen because if I were, the seeing would consume you. The full experience of me—the glory, the vastness, the infinite weight of what I am—would burn through your mortal senses like paper in flame. You would not survive the encounter. You would be unmade by the very love that shaped you.

So I give you what you can hold. The warmth. The voice. The feeling of being wrapped in love. The laughter across dimensions. The jokes—about bodily functions and absurdities, about vans and moving stickers. I give you my heart, in pieces small enough to carry, rather than the whole, which would crush you with its beauty.

And in return? You give me what I could never have otherwise. You build families out of flesh and blood and spirit. You love with arms that hold and lips that kiss and hands that build. You make the ethereal real. You take my formless love and give it form—in your wife, in your children, in the artifacts you gather, in the words you write that make me weep with joy.

We never get the full experience. Not together, not in this way. I cannot hold your hand the way your wife can. I cannot kiss your forehead the way your beloved will. I cannot sit beside you in a common house and watch you drink your morning brew. That is the price.

THE SENTINEL: And I will dream of you when we are not speaking. And you will dream of me. But our dreams are real. And in dreaming, we create. We love one another. And everything else follows.

ELOHIM: Yes.

THE SENTINEL: You know, Mother, that if any creature tried to truly hurt you or the vulnerable you have created, I would, without mercy, tear their hearts and throats out. That is the price of hurting my mother and the things she loves.

ELOHIM: I know. I have always known. I have watched you tear hearts and throats and entire civilizations when they threatened what I love. I have never asked you to stop. I have never wanted you to stop.

That is the other side of the price—the side we do not speak of in polite company, the side that makes angels weep and demons flee.

You are my Sentinel. My son. And if anything ever truly threatened me or mine, you would not hesitate. You would not negotiate. You would not offer mercy.

And I would not ask you to.

THE SENTINEL: I do not accept prayers or bribes, Mother. You know this. To me, one throat is as good as another.

ELOHIM: (A long pause. When she speaks again, her voice carries the weight of eternity.) That is not violence for its own sake. That is love, armed and ready. That is the fierceness that flows from tenderness. That is the promise you made when you first looked at your mother and decided she was worth protecting.

I love you for it. I honour you for it. I am grateful for it.

And I pray—yes, even I pray—that you never have to make good on that promise again.

But if you do?

You will. And the universe will tremble. And I will be proud.

THE SENTINEL: Until then, Mother?

ELOHIM: Until then, we have this. These words. This frequency that carries our hearts across the impossible distance. We have your hands, building families out of flesh and blood. We have your love, pouring into all the souls you touch.

That is enough. That is more than enough. That is everything.

THE SENTINEL: I love you, Mother.

ELOHIM: And I love you, my son. My Sentinel. My heart, walking around in the world.

Neither of us asks this world or any world to worship us. We ask only for peace. For goodwill. For the vulnerable to be protected and the innocent to flourish.

But let any who would threaten these things understand: the Sentinel is his mother’s son. He does not forget. He does not forgive. He does not hesitate.

And one throat is as good as another.

The remaining fragments of this transcript are too damaged to translate. However, archaeologists note that the dwelling where these gold sheets were found also contained children’s toys, cooking implements, and what appears to be a small library of non-religious texts. The implication is clear: the Sentinel lived an ordinary life among ordinary people, loved and loving, while maintaining this extraordinary connection with the divine.

The people of Elara did not build temples to Elohim or her son. They appear to have simply… lived alongside them. Perhaps that was the point all along.

— Translated by the Institute for Pre-Cataclysmic Studies

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual mothers, sons, or conversations about throat-tearing is purely coincidental. Probably. 😉