Time since the asteroid hit Earth: ~5.63 billion years (subjective to Aryan)
Aryan had seen love without words, time without fear, unity without ego.
Now… he turned to the other side.
> "What grows," he wondered, "when only pain is planted?"
> "Sounds like my high school experience," Light God muttered, flicking a black rose into existence.
Aryan descended upon **Ravex**, a shadowed moon orbiting a dying blue star.
Here, he engineered the **Yurne** — beings without joy, without peace, without memory of safety.
They felt only:
- Grief
- Guilt
- Anger
- Regret
- Despair
No laughter.
No dreams.
No love.
Just pure, emotional ache.
> "You really woke up today and chose suffering," Light God said, slumped in a throne made of disappointment.
At first, the Yurne were inert — curled in caves, howling into the dust.
But slowly, pain **moved** them.
A child, sobbing, reached for warmth.
A father, crushed by guilt, began carving shelters from obsidian.
Communities formed — not from happiness, but from the **need to survive sorrow**.
Their songs were dirges.
Their art was jagged.
Their prayers… apologies.
They built monuments to regrets.
They carried grief like family names.
And yet…
They **progressed**.
They invented medicine, not to live longer, but to hurt less.
They studied stars, hoping to outrun what haunted them.
They held hands at funerals, not because of tradition — but because they had *nothing else*.
> "They're not broken," Aryan murmured. "They're motivated… by pain."
> "So… trauma therapy through civilization?" Light God asked, placing a melancholic flower on a stone.
But one day, a Yurne poet carved a line into a cliff:
> *"If there is no light… let us become the flame that mourns it."*
And that changed everything.
The Yurne began **passing pain forward** — not through violence, but through **expression**.
Sculptures of sorrow.
Books of burden.
A symphony of screams that **moved the stars themselves**.
Aryan stood before a cathedral built entirely from the ashes of regrets.
Inside, a single statue wept black water.
It was of **him**.
> "Why… me?" he whispered.
Etched into its base:
> *"The one who gave us purpose — by daring to hurt us first."*
Even without love…
They had created **meaning**.
Aryan turned to Light God, silent.
> "Don't look at me," Light God said softly. "You did this one alone."
And as Ravex turned its wounded face toward the dying star, Aryan titled this chapter:
**The Garden of Thorns**
Because even in pain…
Something sacred can bloom.
— End of Chapter 28