Dead River

She has been scarred beyond recognition. She is coupled over in exhaustion. It is all she can do to fight this poison, to not completely die under the hand of a powerful but mysterious force. She is confused because she can’t believe something made from her very body and soul could want to kill her.
She cringes when she hears her offspring’s chilling and cackling laugh. So confident in what, she wonders? What has come over this once beautiful child, this once humbled animal? She cries; she already knows what she has to do. It is natural, but she laments. It kills her to have to do it. It will seem so tortuous to her conscious and egocentric child. It will seem like an unbearably slow death, and it will undoubtedly drive the poor creature insane. First it’s soul will succumb to the weight of the consequence of it’s own actions, and this fury of self-righteousness that fed on itself will grow even larger. Then it will realize it’s mistakes, falling into endless depths of guilt that were before filled by ignorance. Then it will be time to die.
Viewing the exponential ruin her own child inflicted on her has forced her to look evil in the face. It has forced her to come to terms with the reality that if her progeny had this force within it, and was made of her elements, then she must also be occupied by such an abysmal and loathe entity.
But why did it wait so long to show itself? She wonders and thinks of the millennia of satiated creatures, their forces aligned with hers, all of them concurrently strengthening the web of life she spun so carefully. She can’t reconcile that memory with the actions of her human child. Why so suddenly did this evil rear it’s murderous head, with an appetite so insatiable, with the glowing, cavernous, empty eyes, and it’s sadistic smile that it used to trick and deceive.
But there were some, some that realized they were blessed with capabilities that were beyond their necessity. Mindful that there were limits and a danger of being selfishly consumed by these capabilities. With foresight learned from their mother, these humble siblings saw the falseness of the perceived freedom that wanton and reckless gorging would bring, and they found satisfaction and knowledge in the life that was their mother. But because of these people, she realized it was a clever and subtle evil at work. For not long before the end, their earthly bodies were dispersed and destroyed, and the ways they perfected lost for lack of people to maintain them.
In what form does this force that kills so ruthlessly show itself? She looks for a solid entity to fight against, but this evil force is just as intangible as the benevolent force that counters it.