This is how the world ended.
Well, my world at least.  My world, along with all of my people’s.  The elves would likely say that this is how the world began.  Probably not even that.  They would say that such nonsense never occurred, and that it’s myth invented by humans to comfort us in the long, dark nights.
So little has changed since that first night, after the world ended.
But first things first.  To explain how the world ended, I must explain how the world began.  Really began, not the lies they whisper to us and pray to a goddess they claim not to believe in that we’ll believe, but we never do.
Every light in the heavens has a god.  Bright or dim, visible or invisible, planet or star or moon, each one has a deity.  Some say that they are the deities themselves, but who can be sure with gods?  We know only what they choose to tell us, and they have not spoken to us for ages.  But that is not the point.  There were only three deities that mattered to us: Sol, Luna, and Terra, goddesses of our sun, moon, and Earth.
Sprightly, shining Sol ruled the humans.  The humans, gregarious and light-loving, formed cities and industry, working tirelessly to live together and make their lives simpler.  It was the humans who formed the first cities, which turned to city-states and then to kingdoms.
Cool, sensible Luna ruled the elves.  The elves did not love the company of the humans, or even of one another, but they craved knowledge by their nature.  It was not long before they came-to realize cooperation facilitated learning and discovery, and learned to stand on one another’s shoulders to see greater and greater horizons.  This is how universities and libraries came to be, and with their strengths combined, humans and elves began, little by little, to uncover the secrets of the universe.
I cannot claim that peace reigned entirely; we are, after all, imperfect creatures, prone to disagreement and petty disputes.  But compared to what came after, it was an age of prosperity and peace, in which life steadily improved for all.
The elves will tell you it was never like this.  They will tell you that humans are naturally inferior, and that things were always the way they are.  Some of them, the younger ones, may even believe it, and true belief will give them a strength that knowing lies cannot.  Beware of them, for they will only grow in number as time wears on, and those of us who know the truth will grow fewer and fewer.
The whispers began when I was small.  To tell you the truth, I remember little of this golden age of peace.  Most of it was told to me by the elders, behind the backs of our oppressors.  But I do remember waking up that first night in tears, and running to my parents seeking comfort.  But they couldn’t comfort me, for they too had woken up, disturbed by the dark words of hate forming, unbidden, in their heads.
Nobody can say for sure what happened.  We all had a piece of our goddess in us, and could feel her.  Some could hear her more strongly than others – they were the seers and magicians, who could wield the divine forces in the world as they pleased – but they are no longer.  Our goddess is gone, and so are those who did her bidding.  But the seers were still there, in that time, and they told us that Sol and Luna had a fight of some sort.  About what, nobody could say, as Sol did not see fit to tell us.  We knew only that all at once, everyone in the world, human and elf, was at war.
My father was a scholar, and even today I cannot decide whether that was a great fortune or the cause of our downfall.  He had a brilliant mind, one that in the early days the elves decided was not worth losing, so they allowed us to stay.  Most of the other humans at the university were dismissed, I hope.  I can’t really be sure, since I just noticed a few days later that suddenly, all my playmates were gone, and mother and father were taking their meals in our quarters, instead of with their compatriots.
It is an odd feeling, growing up alone.  Humans aren’t like elves; for most of us, it is not in our nature to enjoy solitude for excessive periods, and my childhood was spent almost entirely in it.  Most of the time, I didn’t mind, or at least thought I didn’t.  I had my books, and I had my parents, and thought I needed nothing else.  I knew almost nothing of the world outside, and my father worked almost constantly to keep it that way.