"You were there, weren't you?"
"Whereby?" he replied with a promising smile.
"You know?", a spark ran through her eyes. "At the Apocalypse! The final battle!
The end of civilization!"
"Well maybe, who knows?"
"Well you!?", she said excitedly.
"Well, I'd rather call it the beginning than the end of everything," said the old mad chuckle.
"No, it was an end! Where have they gone, the miracles of yore? The spaceships? The possibility of seeing the universe and beyond?!"
"They don't exist any more. And it's better that way."
"Why?!",as she got more and more enthusiastic.
"Tell me, have you ever seen it? Experienced it? The end of civilization?", the old one kept grinning at her, "Or have you only heard the old tales of glory and power?“
"So what?!"
"And despite the ending, here you are in near perfect shape!"
"Just please tell me what it was like. Tell me about the beginning, please."
She had lost the will to fight, it was useless.
"Okay."
"Really? The sparkle came back to her eyes.
"Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Do you know how they think it ended? A bang! But it wasn't, it was a whimper. At first it was bombastic, debris flying through the atmosphere, burning tears in the Heavens!"
The old one almost became euphoric, which only increased with every word.
"Tears! Tears everywhere! And with her, wonderful gifts! Or so we thought.
It should be the end of all suffering! But it never came to that. Our cities burned, and with every breath we took we could watch planets disappear! Millions of breaths. It took an eternity. Add to that the incessant hail of debris.
It was over, we just knew it, it was the end of humanity."
"And then?" she asked cautiously.
"You're alive, aren't you? It wasn't over, but we live without any chance to bring back the decadence",he turned to her with a crazy smile, "And without any possibility that humans will became gods!
Her eyes sparkled again:
"Really? There are many like me! Who want to became gods!
And you think we're not trying? Really?"