the five that remained, of a once formidable civilisation, stood holding hands in formation - in the pattern of a pentagon they braced their fragile bodies for the onslaught as the oceans rushed towards them in waves massive and without clemency yet stood unafraid and resolute, ready for impact it was their first time and they'd done it without a guide only the light within, which they had cultivated for millennia served to illuminate the delicate path of their ascension the transition was not at all as they had expected at first they didn't grasp what had just happened the leader blinked, looked at the others, and slowly they turned to him and towards each other in puzzlement their shared consciousness reviewing the calculations within their small hearts, a sort of stress emerged their vertical pupils opening, as if the world had become darker and then, out of the corners of their eyes, they saw them at first as sparks, scintillae barely perceptible then as reflections that slowly took shape, forming the terrifying image they both long feared and revered - the winged creatures guardians of the stairways the keen eyes of the eternal beasts saw not five but five trillion souls, the vestiges of a planet remnants of a legion species that slithered and wiggled and crawled their way to the light, through the agony of karma with hearts longing for home, each a torch seeking reunion five vessels stranded on the shores of the great void crumbled and dispersed that day, releasing their precious cargo to vanish, lost in the blinding brightness of the primordial flash [15-I-2013]