They came at the end of the world. Not the cause of it, but because of it. They’d been waiting. How long even they couldn’t say; time wasn’t relevant to them anymore, hadn’t been for eternities. They’d been watching since the beginning, hovering all around us. They are what we would call dark energy.
They are the oldest beings in existence, having been around since the early years of the universe. They’ve stopped evolving since there was nothing left to evolve to. They were beings of pure light now, evolved past the need for a physical body, sustenance, or even emotions. They exist everywhere in the universe at once, living in the dark matter, a hive mind of unimaginable knowledge.
Only, there is one thing they do not know anymore: love.
Eventually eschewing emotions as a product of a limited brain and their own imperfect physiology, they no longer felt – though they still had the capacity for it. Anger made for destruction; fear for mistrust; happiness for complacency; sadness for pain. They all had their costs. Except for love; it was deemed the only beneficial emotion. But it too was lost, no longer necessary as they became immortal. Without other emotions to keep in check, to balance, the need for love was gone.
Soon they forgot how to create it, and they missed it, as one would a lost toy. They felt incomplete without it. So with all their vast knowledge they decided to create life capable of love, and cultivate it. This is how life on Earth was created, how most life in the universe is created. They formed us, watched us grow, made rules for us to follow to ensure that we would love.
And they basked in it.
If you know where to look, what to look for, you can find stories about them, usually in religious texts. But they rarely interfered in our affairs, never truly made their existence known. They didn’t want to influence us, lest we start taking after them. This was an unacceptable outcome. We were not to take their path, for then we would cease to produce love for them.
Very few species successfully reached the end of evolution and joined them. Usually they unwittingly decide their own demise, as it was on Earth. It was just as well, since we were embarking upon a dangerous journey. The birth of true artificial intelligence could have gone two ways; it could have united mankind in glorious transcendence, or destroy us. It chose the later.
So they came to Earth to begin anew, to restart the cycle. They knew it would happen eventually; it wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last. Even if nothing survived – which it always did; destruction at the atomic level was never absolute – they could recreate the life they needed. It would take time, but that did not matter. Their desire for love would not go unsupplied; they had sources all over the universe.
If you look up into the night sky you might think you’re seeing the dark, empty vastness of space. But space is not dark, nor is it empty. It is popularly believed that light is white, but this is not true. Light has no colour; it is merely the absence of dark. When you are looking into the abyss of the universe, you are actually looking at them.
They have gone by many names since the dawn of time, but they call themselves the Keepers.
The Chris Effect 