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By Henry, Year 9
In the beginning, the only thing in the whole galaxy was just an empty black void. The first primordial god was Chaos – a murky mist made up of all the cosmic matter in the world. At some point, Chaos became less chaotic. Rumours say that it was just bored. Naturally, anyone would be bored if they were just floating around with nothing to do but at some point, its cosmic matter bunched up and solidified into the earth which naturally developed a living personality. She chose to name herself Gaia, the Earth Mother. Gaia was the actual Earth – the hills, the rocks, the valleys, everything. Not only was she the actual Earth but she could take on a humanlike form and liked to walk across the earth in the shape of a mature woman with a flowery green dress, curly black hair and a comfortable smile on her face. This smile hid a vile personality which we will soon see for ourselves.
After being alone for a long time, Gaia stared up into the misty nothing above the earth and thought out loud to herself: ‘You know what would be nice? A sky. That would be more soothing than looking up at nothing. It would also be nice if he was handsome man I could fall in love with because, to be honest, I’m kind of lonely down here with just these rocks.’ Either Chaos heard her and decided to be kind and form a sky, or Gaia simply just willed it to happen. Above the Earth, a big dome formed – the sky. It was blue at daytime and black at night. The sky names himself Ouranos, which is another spelling for Uranus. This might be a reason for why Ouranos was cranky all the time. Like Gaia, Ouranos could take a humanlike form and could visit the Earth. In physical form, He looked like a tall, muscular buff guy with long-ish dark hair. He wore only loincloth for clothes and his skin changed colour like the sky – sometimes dark with a shimmer of stars, sometimes light blue with patches of clouds across his chest. You might even see him with a zodiac wheel, representing the constellations in the sky. Anyways, Ouranos and Gaia got married. Happily, ever after? No, of course not.
Part of the problem was that Chaos started to make a lot more creations. Soon, Chaos created all sorts of other problems – and by that, I mean gods. Water started pooling out of Chaos, which poured into the deepest parts of the Earth and formed the first seas, which, of course, naturally developed a consciousness – the god Pontus. Then Chaos started really liking the idea of creation and thought, ‘I know! How about a enormous pit under the Earth! That would be amazing!’ So came a pit being beneath the Earth, but this pit was dark and very evil as it was hidden away from the blinding lights of the sky. This became Tartarus, the pit of Evil. Another part of the problem was that the two newest primordial gods both had a crush on Gaia, which put some pressure on her relationship with Ouranos. A ton of other primordial gods also popped up but there would be too many to name all of them. Somehow, Chaos and Tartarus had a kid together called Nyx, who was the embodiment of Night. Then Nyx, amazingly all by herself, had a daughter named Hemera, who was day. The two never got along well because there were as different as…. well, you get the idea.
Gaia and Ouranos started having kids with contrasting outcomes. They first had twelve children, six girls and six boys called the titans. These kids were the better and improved versions of humans and were superior to them. Once the Titans were born, Ouranos and Gaia’s relationship started to fall apart. Ouranos spent a lot more time hanging out in the sky as well as never visiting and helping out with the kids. Soon Gaia became resentful and the two of them started fighting. As the kids grew older, Ouranos would yell at them more and overall becoming a bad dad. Sometimes, Gaia and Ouranos would try to fix and re-light their love for each other and Gaia thought that maybe if they had more kids, it would bring them closer together. She gave birth to triplets, but the problem was that these new kids defined the words ugly. They were as big and strong as the titans, except bulky, savage and hairy. The worst thing about them was that they had a single eye in the middle of their forehead. Gaia loved them and thought that they were cute and then named them the Elder Cyclopes. When Ouranos saw the triplets, he freaked out. ‘These cannot be my kids! They don’t even look like me!’
‘They are your children, you idiot!’ Gaia screamed back.
‘Don’t you dare leave me to take care of these children on my own!’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ Ouranos growled.
He stormed off and came back with thick chains made from the sky’s pure darkness. He then bound up the Cyclopes and tossed them into Tartarus, which was the only part where Ouranos wouldn’t be able to see them. Gaia screamed and wailed and threw a tantrum but Ouranos still never let them out of Tartarus. No one had dared to oppose his orders because of his reputation of being a scary man. Gaia threw a total earthquake fit, but she couldn’t see what else she could do.
Her first kids, the Titans, were almost adults now and they felt bad for their mother as they have seen firsthand what their father likes to do to their siblings. They also didn’t like their father much, but they feared Ouranos and felt helpless to stop him. I can’t let my kids see me like this, Gaia thought. Maybe I should try one more time with Ouranos. She arranged a nice, romantic picnic – candles, roses, soft music. Their old love must have been revived because a few months later, Gaia gave birth to one more set of triplets. The new kids were even more atrocious and freakish than the Cyclopes. Each one had a hundred arms all around his chest and had a cluster of miniature heads clustered on their shoulders but nonetheless, Gaia loved them anyways. She’d barely had time to name them when Ouranos took them and chained them, throwing them into the deepest part of Tartarus. That was it for Gaia. She screamed and wailed and moaned and even threw large earthquakes. The earthquakes were so long and strong that her Titan children came running to calm her down. They arrived on time to see Gaia very angry and not very forgiving. Gaia pulled the strongest metal, adamant, and shaped it into a curved blade about three feet long. She then grabbed a wooden handle made from a nearby branch and showed her Titan children her invention.
