[ WP ] Around the world , the following message was heard : `` We would like to announce that Hell is finally empty . ''

`` We would like to announce that Hell is finally empty.'' 
 
 I paused for a moment, reflecting. It had taken me quite a long time to see this day. There were decades -- occasionally, even centuries -- that I lost hope that I'd ever utter those words. 
 
 And there I was, once more peering down from the clouds at my beloved ones. We had agreed some time ago to stop calling out to them until it was over; it confused them too much in the older days. 
 
 `` I am so, so very proud of you all. This is the kingdom you have built.'' 
 
 I heard my voice echo through the world as it reached towards everyone that could hear it. When the echos stopped, I closed my eyes and thought of their most beloved city. The wind whipped through my hair, and as I opened them again I was standing miles outside of their great metropolis, on a hill that I had helped create many, many years ago. 
 
 They had grown much, and I was so proud of them. It was alright, I decided, to take some time and take it all in. From my thoughts I drew a blanket and a picnic basket. He would come; he had promised me. 
 
 I sat and stared at their metropolis. I wondered if I could have come up with something so great, and I was humbled when I realized that it had taken _all of us_ to make it. We were all one, and all of us were one. 
 
 It had taken a long time to convince _The Other_ that working together was the best way to see The Goal achieved; he need n't lock himself up and fret all day, we need n't be adversaries, we need n't fight. No, we could do this _together_; even though we were n't equals, we still needed each other to succeed. 
 
 We came up with the final plan together. We knew that while we could force them to be good that the free will we had given them would end up with them rebelling. It would never take if we forced it on them; they had to come up with it on their own. 
 
 We could inspire them, though. We could show them things as they really were. Lies and a tailored truth had never worked; I was ashamed that we had tried to pool wool across their eyes. They thought that we were beyond that, that'perfect' meant without flaws. 
 
 The truth was,'perfect' as they thought did n't exists. They were far more perfect than we were in that regard; at least, now they were. 
 
 We picked our first prophet, together. We chose a man that did not believe in us, and did not force him to. He was a man of the sciences, a man that had studied psychology just a little. An educator; his name was Michael, as were a great many on the planet. 
 
 We showed Michael Hell. The real Hell, the true Hell. The nightmare that it was. 
 
 We came to him in the night, and in the morning he understood it as a vivid dream brought on by his strange mix of desert and drinks that night. 
 
 I stood beside him in Hell, the torrent that it was. I held his hand when it was too much for him to take in, and helped him pass through it. I showed him an old friend entering Hell, and let him see his whole time there. I showed him what it was, what he saw, what his time in Hell was. 
 
 I asked Michael what he thought of what he saw, and was so proud of his answer: `` It's beautiful, just, and what helps us all.'' 
 
 I had my doubts at times about what we created at times, but hearing him agree and understand placed them aside. 
 
 When Michael awoke he had come to the funny thought on his own; `` We'd all be a lot better off if Earth was a lot more like that dream''. 
 
 Michael was not the one who created the metropolis; he had died twenty seven years ago at the beautiful age of 87, five years older than his father. It was a beautiful service, paid for by an anonymous man that may have been _The Other_. We both attended, we both hugged the casket. We had said we were students of him; in our own way, it was not a lie. 
 
 Michael had taught the value of extreme empathy to his students, and in one one of his students a powerful seed had been planted. He had claimed that empathy is why we could gather together, why it was beneficial to us all to work as a group. He looked at empathy as a trait gained in evolution, and taught it as such. 
 
 In his inspired student, the seed would later cause him to become a teacher much like Michael; he had become a professor of mental therapy, whom had discovered that empathy was a trait not so nurtured in the society as it should be. 
 
 In turn, as that student gave a lecture across the world to a University he would never step foot in save that single time, he inspired another student when he said `` I think if we all could feel how we made people feel that we would grow in ways we could never expect''. 
 
 The seed was planted in that student, whom had only been there by chance; she was attending to take notes for her friend, whom had the flu. She mused how funny it was that feeling bad for her friend had led her to hear about empathy. 
 
 Two weeks later she was asked to declare her topic of choice; she was an engineer in a time of great engineering marvel. She said that it would be in neural implants, though she did not learn why until twelve years after her degree was finished when she saw that the professor that lectured about empathy had passed away in a tragic car accident; he had been a mildly famous author by that point, enough to make the news for twelve minutes across four days. 
 
 As she remembered the lecture, she remembered what he had said about feeling empathy, and in her lab that day began a prototype to share emotion. 
 
 It took her three decades to pass clinical trials. It began in couple's therapy to resounding success; feeling how they made partners felt had made every couple succeed. 
 
 She was astonished; she had hoped for a drop of increased success, but this was astonishing. 
 
 People began to adopt the implants into everyday use. It took many years, but by the time she too had passed the world had already changed dramatically. There were talks of the first great unified city. 
 
 A different sort of breeze interrupted my thoughts. Besides me sat _The Other_. I poured him some wine; we had yet to speak. 
 
 He broke the silence after taking the glass from me. 
 
 `` To us, to all of us, together. We did it, together.'' 
 
 I had never seen him cry before, but he cried a little then as he gazed upon the metropolis. 
 
 Empathy had saved them. One by one humans alive had come to terms with how they made others feel. They felt the joy they gave others, the pain they caused them. They forgave each other, they helped each other, they communed in ways that not even _The Other_ predicted. What we had done in Hell for all those years had been so easy for them to adopt, to inflict upon themselves, and come out greater than we had predicted. 
 
 It had taken many years, but Hell had cleared out three weeks ago by human's time. They had rid themselves of their training wheels, of their stumbling through the dark. Our blessed little children had ushered in their newest age. 
 
 Well, that's not entirely fair. We had all ushered it in, together.
