illphated
Only Love a #shortstory by #illphated dot com
Elias Thorne wasn’t just heartbroken; he was atomized. The betrayal hadn’t been a single blow, but a meticulously crafted demolition. His wife, Lyra, the repository of his secrets and dreams, and his brother, Finn, his anchor in the tumultuous sea of life – they hadn’t just left him, they had plundered his life’s work, his reputation, and his spirit, leaving behind only wreckage and hollow echoes of laughter.
He retreated, not into drink or despair, but into his genius. Elias was a theoretical physicist and engineer of unparalleled brilliance, a man who saw the universe not as fixed laws but as pliable fabric. Fueled by a grief so profound it bordered on cosmic energy, he began to build. Not a fortress, not a weapon, but a world.
Years passed in his hidden laboratory, a place humming with forces beyond current human understanding. He bent space-time, coaxed exotic matter into stable forms, and ignited a miniature sun. He sculpted continents, filled oceans with waters that shimmered with bioluminescence, and seeded the land with flora that bloomed in hues of impossible beauty. He called it Aethelgard, an old word hinting at noble counsel and protection.
But Aethelgard had one fundamental, unbreakable law woven into its very essence. Elias, scarred by the duplicity he’d endured, engineered his world to permit only one core emotion: Love. Not just romantic love, but familial love, platonic love, love for nature, for art, for existence itself.
Hate, jealousy, betrayal, greed – these concepts were not just forbidden; they were impossible. The atmospheric composition, the resonant frequency of the planet’s core, actively neutralized the neurochemical impulses associated with negative, destructive emotions. Anger would fizzle into mild frustration before dissipating. Envy would flicker and vanish, replaced by admiration. Deceit was unthinkable, the mental pathways required simply wouldn’t form.