The Abyssal Veil
It is said that before there was anything, there was Him.
He created the heavens and the earth.
Then, from the depths of His imagination, He brought forth all living things.
He created the angels to enact His will and watch over His creations.
And among all that He had made, He named humanity His greatest creation.
To us, He bestowed a gift.
A power born from within us.
We call it—
Drive.
But in every light, there must exist darkness.
He was all-knowing.
Yet even He was betrayed by one of His own creations.
Lucifer.
Satan.
The first to turn against Him.
And from that rebellion came another creation.
Creatures born from His understanding of what the world should never become.
Monsters.
Creatures of countless shapes and sizes.
Some possessed seven arms.
Others eight eyes.
Some had mouths where no mouth should ever exist.
They were creatures unlike anything humanity could comprehend.
We came to know them as—
The Unholy.
And they were confined to a place known as the Abyssal Veil.
A realm from which they could not escape.
Lucifer, however, believed himself worthy of standing as an equal to his Creator.
Oh, what a fool.
Humanity, too, was prideful by nature.
We refused to bow.
We refused to accept the existence of creatures that threatened our world.
So we took up the gifts we had been given and declared war upon the Unholy.
And for a time—
we always won.
That was before we became monsters ourselves.
"Professor?"
The voice pulled him from his thoughts.
He blinked.
For a moment, the classroom around him had disappeared.
Then reality returned.
Rows of students.
A chalkboard.
The quiet hum of the air conditioner.
And dozens of eyes staring back at him.
A student raised his hand.
"Professor, we already know all of this. Why do you keep repeating it?"
The professor smiled faintly.
"Do you?"
The student hesitated.
The professor turned toward the board.
"Very well, then. Allow me to present a theory that has intrigued me for quite some time."
He picked up a piece of chalk.
"Everything in this world possesses an opposite force."
He wrote:
DAY — NIGHT
Then:
LIFE — DEATH
And finally:
GOOD — EVIL
"Everything has its counterpart," he continued.
"So tell me…"
He turned toward the class.
"If everything possesses an opposite…"
His eyes narrowed.
"What is humanity's opposite?"
Almost every hand in the room rose.
The professor pointed toward one student.
"You."
The student stood.
"That one's easy, sir. The opposite of humanity is the Unholy."
A few students nodded in agreement.
The professor smiled.
"Wrong."
The room went quiet.
"Well…"
He tilted his head.
"Not entirely wrong."
The student frowned.
"Then how?"
"You are correct if we are speaking of humanity in the physical sense."
The professor gestured toward the students.
"Two eyes. Two arms. Two legs. A mouth. A familiar shape."
He then drew a crude figure of an Unholy creature on the board.
"Now compare that to them."
He added several limbs.
Multiple eyes.
A grotesque mouth.
"The Unholy are our opposites in appearance. In behavior. Perhaps even in nature."
He paused.
"But that isn't what I'm asking."
The chalk stopped moving.
"I am asking about our opposite…"
He underlined a single word.
DRIVE.
"…in the aspect of Drives."
The room became silent.
"Imagine a world populated by seventy million people."
He turned back toward the students.
"Every single one of them possesses a Drive."
He smiled.
"To all of you, that seems perfectly normal."
He placed the chalk down.
"But doesn't that strike you as strange?"
No one answered.
"We are all different."
"Different desires. Different ambitions. Different personalities."
"And yet, in this one particular aspect…"
"We are all the same."
He folded his arms.
"So where is our opposite?"
Silence.
The professor slowly walked between the desks.
"God created humanity and gifted us Drives."
He stopped.
"But what if…"
His voice lowered.
"What if He also created those without them?"
The room remained silent.
The professor smiled.
"Interesting, isn't it?"
He returned to the board.
"Of course, without evidence, this remains nothing more than a theory."
He looked at the students one final time.
"But I know one thing with all my heart i can be sure."
His expression became strangely serious.
"This world.
is incomplete."