VIDEO

Nine people sit, stand, and lie down around a stone firepit in the center of a raised wooden platform. The platform is surrounded by swampy water, cypress-like trees with moss hanging from their branches, and fireflies. Two strings of lights criss-cross over the platform, and there are candles on several of the wooden supports. The fireflies, lights, candles, and campfire are all animated to flicker slightly. From left to right, the people are:

A human child with long brown hair and glasses, wearing many friendship bracelets and a snakefolk child wearing a flower crown sitting on a bench. A human child in boots and overalls laying down with her feet propped on the bench. A human child sitting on the bench, completely cocooned in a sleeping bag. An adult of indeterminate gender and pointed ears wearing outdoorsy clothes stands in front of the campfire with their mouth open as though talking. A human child with fluffy blonde hair covering his eyes and a bandana around his neck, a cynocephalus child wearing a colorful poncho, and a human child with red hair and simple clothes sitting on the other bench. A human child with long brown hair sitting on the ground next to them.

AUDIO

Throughout the video, there is background noise of a campfire crackling, water rippling, crickets chirping, nighttime birds calling, and the occasional creak of wood. A single voice speaks:

"A long time ago, the people of the one world lived under the benevolent light of a great and generous God. They wanted for nothing, and lived their days in peace and harmony.

But one day, God grew bored of the perfect world It had created, and so it gathered Its people before It and told them that the world would end in three days.

The gathered people chose the best and the brightest among them to try to thwart the coming apocalypse.

First, the Kings and the Lords offered God all the riches in their vaults and in their coffers, but It just laughed. For what could Its people possibly offer It that It could not make Itself?

The faithful bowed their heads in prayer and begged God not to end the world, but It had long grown deaf to their pleas. And so the darkness crept in.

The warriors led their armies to try to defeat God in battle, but they could not land so much as a scratch against their creator.

The scholars tried to argue with God, to reason with It, to convince It that there was another option besides the end of the world, but their efforts went much the same way as the priests' had. And so the darkness crept in.

The fleetest of foot tried to outrun the apocalypse, but they found there was nowhere to go, for the darkness had begun to eat at the very edges of the world. And so they turned back, and returned home.

The scientists and the inventors tried to construct a barrier that might hold back the dark, but nothing they made could stand up against God's power.

So finally, when all had accepted the end and gathered together to hold their families close as the darkness descended, one last person stepped up to face God:

A performer wearing a ragged cloak, with a feather in their hat, and a banjo in their hand.

They stood before God and said, "I'm just a performer. I'm not a great warrior, I'm not a scholar, I'm certainly no king. I know I can't outrun you, or appeal to you, or outsmart you. So I have a simple request, really: I'd just like to play one last song before the end."

God considered this offer. The world had already thrown its finest at It, and they had done nothing. So God thought, "What could one ragged performer possibly do?", and agreed to the performer's terms.

And so the performer began to play. They played and they played and they played, for hours on end, until their fingers bled against the strings and their voice began to give out.

But as they and their song began to falter, two children, no longer afraid of the coming dark, and simply enjoying the song, broke free from the crowd, and together, they began to dance.

And as the children danced, another voice from within the crowd, from within the crowd began to sing along. And another, and another. And the people of the world raised their voices, picked up their instruments, and put on their dancing shoes, until all of them had joined in the song.

So that even when the performer finally fell to their knees and went quiet...

The song, carried on.

And so to this day, we sing, and dance, and paint. We write, we build, we act. We tell stories around the campfire.

We carry on the song in concert halls with audiences of thousands and alone on the darkened streets.

And the world lives on, another day."