Destruction and Creation

After studying Destruction and Creation for a while, Angel saw that several backgrounds appeared more often than the others: a burning landscape full of crudely carved fires, a landscape so barren and lifeless that nothing could be seen apart from the outline on the wall, a great city standing tall with towers and buildings, then crumbled ruins.

In fact, in one day all four of the backgrounds appeared six times, and although not next to each other in appearance, it was always six times every day.

Angel listed this down: Fire; Barren; City; Ruins; six times every day ?

He felt his sixth sense telling him that the piece of information he had gathered was important in some way.

The book on the twenty-eight senses had depicted how when your sixth sense gives specific information, such as that the information was important instead of just the feeling that something was important, the more certain it was about something. After all, the sixth sense was essentially another part of yourself, albeit one that merely looks and sees further than you, putting all the pieces together before you can. If it felt that something was important, then it was most likely important in some way or function.

If it gave you details on what was important, then it was absolutely certain of that thing, which was why Angel decided to trust his instinct.

So he continued on watching Destruction and Creation, but after a few more days he felt that he was starting to understand the wall, almost as if it were alive.

At the start it showed a world surrounded by glinting stars, then the stars diminished and died, leaving only one left. Then the background changed to one that was lit aflame but never burned, the world regenerating itself as it was being burned away. Then it changed to a land surrounded by mountains and rivers, and beautiful trees and animals in all directions. A world engulfed in fire, the remains of a tree barely surviving, then it too was gone. Back to a beautiful mountain with rivers, waterfalls, giant trees that stretched to the Sky and plentiful wildlife. Back to fire, now burning nothing. Then everything vanished and a line symbolising the end of the World appeared, anything that was in place now gone.

It was a story. A story of a world that was once rich in stars and lights, until the beautiful creatures died because of an unknown disaster, leaving only one of their species left. The perspective of the story changed and now it showed the world the star and its kin had tended to before the rest vanished.

Everything was fire for as far as one could see. Flames flickered and settled, never diminishing as they struggled to keep burning the life they found. However, the life had a desire to live and protect so strong that the flames could do nothing, and so it persisted.

The fire tried to burn the life, and the life tried to survive the fire. It was a cycle that could continue on forever.

The rest of the world was a beautiful place, yet untainted by humans; everything was fair and just in its simple mechanisms, and everything and anything could be plucked from the branches of its trees, anything fished for in its waters, and the most exciting of adventures found on its mountains.

One need simply ask, and anything could be plucked, fished, found and placed at their request.

However, the fire kept spreading and spreading, and slowly the beautiful trees turned to ash and the rivers evaporated, leaving only death in its wake. The fire continued spreading, until finally the tree that had first been lit and was the hope and life of the world turned into ash, and then nothing was left.

But apparently the fire had not yet spread everywhere, as mountains full of beautiful rivers, waterfalls and life remained, serenely beautiful and everlasting.

That too, however, would not last. Soon even the last sanctuaries and beauties of the work turned to nothing, and then the fire too was gone.

This was only a part of a magnificent tale of someplace that could last for a hundred years if written.

Angel wrote all of this down, and because his sixth sense told him so, he continued to view Destruction and Creation, absorbing its stories one by one, and with each day his understanding of the First Wall of the Temple of Sky increased.

For a week he was restless, up at all hours of night and day, constantly watching the wall, never moving his eyes from it.

He learned a great deal during that period: that although the stories were told in pictures, the pictures were in fact words, and although they meant one thing on the surface, underneath they actually meant something else. For example, the background of the fire openly meant that the world was burning, however, it could also be symbolising something else, such as argument or restlessness within the world.

The fires often didn't mean actual fires, although they could, such as in the Tale of Life, the name Angel bestowed upon the story of the world of life and the burning landscape.

In order to understand the meaning behind the pictures, a great many of them had to be seen to have the entire sentence fit together.

There would always be something Angel missed, causing him to never understand the sentences at all.

This was also the week in which he learnt the most of everything, causing all his senses to work to a hyperactive level that it had never reached before and making everything so much more clearer and memorable than it usually would be.

Because of this, Angel had a peculiar dream.

—————

'Ah. I suppose clear does it, then?' The figure was shadowed by the light of the lantern he held up. The light bounced off of the walls, showing a beautiful collection of tapestries that all held together made one big web, all of the tapestries that it was made up of deeply detailed with even subtle carvings as to the depth and soul of the characters depicted on the wall.

One particular tapestry stood out, showing a great Tiger Shark captured in a cage where it constantly thrashed, moving its tail and body, trying to escape. However, it was unable to and the cage held. Beside it, outside of the cage lay hundred upon thousands of keys, glinting in massive piles.

Then the tapestry next to it could be seen, depicting a sea. However, underneath the seemingly calm waters lurked enormous creatures whose fur moving as it swam could be mistaken for seagrass it was so long and moving so fast.

There was a similarity between all the tapestries: all of them showed a dangerous but calm situation. All of them showed morals or a lesson for a situation, almost as if prepping for the actual situation. However, all of them were at the same time the least dangerous things there were, as long as you abided by the rules they laid out.

Don't let the Tiger Shark Free.

Don't step inside the water.

Hundreds upon thousands of similar, subtly dangerous situations were laid across the massive collected tapestry.

The figure seemed to be smiling, although his back was turned. 'Hmmm. Yes, subtle but clear does it. Such a wondrous piece of work indeed.' Then he praised himself in various languages and tongues, many ancient, some new, but most made up.

—————

Angel's first thought after he woke up was to wonder at how strange the artist of the works seemed to be, for the image of the man complimenting himself was still vivid in his mind. He pondered over this for quite a bit before he remembered about the tapestries that were across the wall.

He had already forgotten most of what he's glimpsed during the brief moments the entire collected tapestry was shown, but the two described were still fresh, so he drew them down as well as wrote an explanation for himself later on, in case he couldn't remember what happened in the tapestries entirely.

After that, Angel prayed to the Being of the Nights and Days.

Then he took his notebook and headed to the library to find out more information about the curious man in his dream.