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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/lord_chuckchanka666 on 2024-11-04 19:18:35+00:00.

“I will give you some time to think over this problem, and then I’ll proceed to solve it myself”

The room was silent, save for the scratch of pencils and the occasional frustrated sigh. The lecture would be over in ten minutes, the last problem of the day. Some students stared blankly at their notebooks, stumped, while others looked close to a solution. He stood at the front, hands clasped behind his back, observing them with a familiar mix of amusement and contemplation, a slight grin touching his face. He always let them try first, watching as they pushed their limits, waiting for the moment when he’d step in to show them the way.

“All right, for those of you who didn’t get it, don’t worry, and for those who did, 20 credits say that your answer is wrong! Now, let’s get on with it.”

The proverbial 20 credits had been won and lost a million times over by this point, with no transaction ever materializing, obviously. That wager had been tossed around in his classroom countless times, a lighthearted tradition with no real consequence. And so he solved the problem, as he always did, and the students rushed out as the bell rang, their hurried footsteps and chatter drowning out his voice as he tried to wish them well.

“As this was your last lecture, all the best for your finals…”

But they never waited for the whole message. With a sigh, he let the words fade away, watching them go. It hadn’t always been like this. There was a time when his students lingered, eager to hear what he had to say. Being a high school teacher hadn’t been his plan; he had taken this role for the joy of watching young minds awaken to the mysteries of the world, of guiding those who would grow up to shape it. He had seen it before—a student surpassing expectations, reaching heights they hadn’t known were possible. They would go on to great things, and perhaps they’d remember his lessons fondly. Yet lately, the gratitude he’d once felt from his students seemed absent, and loneliness crept in

Loneliness, he realized, was a strange sensation for one like him.

Soon, he thought, he would have to abandon this avatar of his, throwing it away like an insect sheds it’s skin; as he had done countless times before. He had been many things, a soldier, a king, a poet, a hero, an angel, a god; and yet had also been a thief, a tyrant, a monster. Years went by like the seasons, and yet he continued shaping the past, present, and future of these people. They were nothing more than animals when he first saw their kind, huddled together in dark, damp ditches, with nothing more than the fur on their skin to protect them. They walked awkwardly, had close to no semblance of civilized behavior, and were no better than the rabid beasts that roamed the land, preying on their kind. Yet, they weren’t altogether ignorant, the brighter ones amongst them had figured out rudimentary aspects of intelligent life, for they began using their environment to their own benefit. Along came chiseled rocks, clubs and other such feats of primitive craftsmanship. He had found them then, in the same place where eons ago, his ancestors once stood. They had no one to witness their growth on their home world, growing up as orphans, stranded on a tiny island of life amongst a raging ocean of stars. But He could be for these primitive folk what his own people had never had. That was the reason he was sent here to this world in the first place. His people had risen from their humble abode and conquered the very heavens for themselves, their empire stretching far and wide across space. Yet, as is perhaps the fate of everything that takes birth in this universe, it was certain that the age of their empire was drawing to an end, for they had far surpassed the desire to rule and conquer. They were now in the pursuit of something higher, something that would lead them to ascend beyond the plane of existence mortals could comprehend. Doing this would mean the end of them as they were, and they would leave behind a galaxy strewn with ruins and empty worlds. They had been the only ones of their kind, the first ones to wake up while the rest of the realm slumbered. They were the first lamp of civilization to spread its rays across the stars, and if their legacy were to be lost to the void of forgotten time, all their work would be for naught. They hadn’t gone through all those trials and tribulations, those ruinous failures and catastrophic implosions, only for someone else to go through them all over again and destroy themselves. They wouldn’t let another species be immature, brash and childish as they had been. They wouldn’t let the other ones, the ones who were still blissfully asleep, to go astray, to stumble as they had. They would guide them, from their first day, so that the nascent ones would never have to go through the suffering they had. Someone had to stay behind and teach the ones who would come about the ones who had come before, and impart to them their wisdom and lessons. With this thought, as their empire slowly faded away, as entire worlds ascended beyond the veil, the first ones sent out the best amongst their ranks, on perhaps an eternal quest; to shepherd the nascent ones, to guide them, from their waking, till their eventual enlightenment, to be by their side till they had grown old and wise, to be the parent that the first ones wish they had.

And so he had descended upon this world, a long time ago, when the stars in the night sky were different and the creatures of today were yet to see the light of day. In those early times, when the first people walked upon the land, when the first wheel rolled down a hill, when the first fire was started not by nature, but at the will of those who now walked upright, and when the first civilization on this world took birth, he had always been there, always watching and guiding them along their path towards the stars. He had been their first god, their first chieftain, their first emperor, their first hero. He had lived more lives than there were stars in their night sky, guiding them from the shadows, his influence woven into their stories, their myths. He taught them to make the first bread, forged for them their first sword, fought with them their first war, sailed with them, aboard their first ships; The names kept changing, so did the faces and the bodies. His people had endowed upon him the seemingly unnatural abilities deemed necessary to carry out a mission of such grand a scale. Yet, increasingly so, he felt a tiredness take grip over his mind. For about six millennia, he hadn’t stopped or taken a rest, constantly moving, constantly doing something. The last time he sat down for a good while and had rested his eyes was perhaps before this species knew what fire was. And so, believing he had given them enough, he retreated to the sidelines, letting them find their way. He thought his mission complete, that he could finally witness what they would create on their own. But instead of flourishing, they faltered. They were always given what they wanted, he had held their hand from the dawn of time. Somehow, he felt they had become dependent upon him, for as he disappeared from their tales and legends, a stagnation befell them. Their greatest empires, while at their zenith, began to fail and fall into a state of disarray and chaos.

A ‘dark age’ had begun, which saw the death of civilization and spread of barbarians and savages, destroying much of what had been built before. At first, he blamed himself for abandoning them. But then he understood—his mistake had not been stepping away, but rather staying too long. He had sheltered them, protected them from hardship, and in doing so, he had stunted their growth. He had given them answers, but never taught them how to find them. This time, he would let them struggle, without the intervention of some legendary hero, some divine incarnation of god. He had taught them everything but how to learn and adapt and this is what had brought about this end of times, where all knowledge was burnt to ashes and the world echoed with the sounds of clashing swords and bursting cannons. From then on, he decided to never be a messiah as he had for so long, letting the nascent ones grow and learn from their own mistakes, while he silently remained amongst their ranks, quietly watching from amongst their crowds. And soon, they learned; from the ashes of the old world they built a new one, one that was stronger, bolder and more connected than ever before. They stumbled, sure, and it took many more centuries until the world as it was today could finally take shape, but they had done it, not with the help of some divine angel or a god, but they had sculpted this world of theirs in their own image, with hundreds of years of blood, sweat and tears, and the lives of millions that came before. And as they marched forward into a new age, He remained among them, no longer their hero or their god, but one of their own—a teacher in a classroom, watching as the world evolved and grew, watching them learn for themselves. Slowly, he felt, his mission was coming to an end. He had been a high school teacher in one of the largest countries on this planet for a few decades now. While he predated the recorded history of this world, at long last, he felt that he too, was nearing the end. This life as a teacher he had lived had been his most fulfilling one thus far. He had decided to live as a normal individual of the…

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