Children of Khaos

Chapter Zero: Birth of the Four

Before men, before gods, before titans, and even the primordials themselves. Before time and space, peace and war, life and death...there was Nothing. But Nothing wasn't a void, a state of emptiness. It was "Nothing" in the sense that no thing could be compared to it. The sum total of all space and time would still not equal to the source of all that ever has been, is still, and can be.

The Nothing would be called many names by mortals and gods alike in an attempt to define it, to comprehend the mere concept of it, but the one used best is simply Khaos.
Khaos was without shape or end. A body as indescribable in appearance and substance as music is to the deaf and flavors to they who suffered from ageusia. So impossibly thin that it could not be felt yet with a bulk so infinite that it could not be weighed. Just looking at it would drive a creature of existence into utter insanity, or perhaps into infinite wisdom. No one save itself can know if this great being had any true awareness.

After what could have been countless eons or a single instant of perfect stagnation, Khaos began to change. At four points, Khaos began to bulge and warp as they pulled and drifted farther and further from the endless infinity.

At the first point, a great being of amber formed with many other shades, from dark as fertile soil to the brightness of the desert sands. The surface was tough and rigid, groaning and cracking as they pushed into the void.

The second was a glowing crimson mass of rubies and blood. It churned and oozed while letting loose an almost gurgling roar that vibrated through both Khaos and itself, the gestation ripping its body from its source.

Third was a dark blue creature, likened to liquid sapphire, with a smooth and flowing form. Unlike the other two, this one did not create a loud or violent sound. It emitted only a soft, vibrant moan as it fell from its creator.

The fourth and last to form from Khaos was the strangest of all. Perhaps, even, the greatest. Pure, impossibly dark blackness was its only color. The body was nearly as unending and amorphous as Khaos itself. So deep was its tenebrous depths that it seemed to wrap into itself to consume any and all that may enter. More unnerving than any sound was this one's silence as it peacefully slithered out from its father.

Khaos's children drifted in the emptiness. Immeasurable time passed as they all, slowly yet quickly, began to grow in shape and form. They made not a move, though, as if not yet truly born.

Khaos, however, wasn't growing or shaping. It was shrinking, dying as it faded from the infancy of reality. If it had any fear, or even the capacity for such emotion, it gave no indication. And as Khaos dissolved, the four beings that forged from it did something peculiar.

They began to think.

The first strings of consciousness to ever be pondered. How strange it must have been, to be of The Four at the beginning. To suddenly obtain true awareness in the nonexistence, knowing nothing else before themselves and nothing of what was to come.

As anyone else would, they had questions. They were unsurprisingly simple in nature:

Who am I?

Where am I?

Who are they?

What are we?

The questions of children, uncertain for the very context of their being; Each of the newborn Primordials received their own set of similar answers that came from seemingly nowhere. Perhaps they just knew the answers, having willed the knowledge into their minds. Or, just maybe, Khaos had supplied its children with what they needed. Who can truly know? None save Khaos.

To the question of 'where' they were, they were given only one response: 'With Khaos'. With sight beyond mere eyes, each turned to gaze upon the deteriorating mass beyond them and didn't need to inquire as to what Khaos was. And as the four stared back at one another, they knew each other's names.

The brown one was Gaia, the Earth.

The red was Tartarus, the Abyss.

The dark blue was Nyx, the Night.

And finally, the black one was Erebus, the Darkness.

For what they were, there was only one truth to be known: "You are Family; Brothers and Sisters."