A being stood alone in a dimension untouched by the known forces—no Void stirred, no Chaos whispered, and the Path had not yet carved its mark. This world floated unanchored, raw and unsung, a place outside the weave of balance and fate. But the Path was coming. He could feel it, distant yet inevitable, like roots searching for soil.
He sneered at the thought, his soul's flickering outline pulsing faintly with irritation.
All around him stretched the silence of a foreign galaxy—vast, spiraling, and wild. A storm of stars swirled in majestic patterns, arms of cosmic dust and fire stretching for light-years like the fingers of a sleeping god. Thousands of worlds spun in scattered harmony—some encased in rings of shattered moonstone, others cloaked in clouds of bioluminescent gas. Comets traced silver arcs through the void, trailing tails like spilled ink across the black canvas of space. Nebulae bloomed in slow motion: great blossoms of violet, rose, and cobalt, their luminous cores pulsing like embryonic hearts.
Planets collided in the distance, sending shockwaves that rippled like silent thunder. Glacial asteroids spun lazily through debris fields that sparkled like broken glass under starlight. Time felt warped here, stretched thin by gravity wells and torn by rifts of bent reality that flickered like heatwaves in the void. It was beautiful—untouched, chaotic in its freedom—but it was a wild beauty. Unclaimed. Unshaped.
And as he extended his spirit, brushing the edges of this vast cosmic wilderness, he finally felt it: life. Fragile. Faint. Insignificant.
What a large dimension for such a silly little planet.
He hovered in open space, suspended by his will alone. The nearest sun was a dull orange giant, its flares blooming like petals of slow fire. Moons orbited gas giants painted in strange hues—emerald, ash-blue, and blood-amber. He could feel the heat of dying stars and the brittle cold of lifeless planets. He tasted radiation, smelled the staleness of space, heard the slow thrum of gravitational tides. His soul shimmered faintly in the emptiness, composed of layered threads of luminous energy that bent and flickered with each pulse of strain.
.
He could feel himself unweaving. Faint strands of his soul peeled away, drifting into the void like ash in a windless sky. Hairline cracks spidered through his essence, dim pulses leaking out like light through broken glass. He would need to be quick.
With a thought, he moved.
Space folded—not violently, but with quiet inevitability, like a page turning. The stars blurred into streaks of light, then into nothing at all. A low pressure seemed to hum through existence, brushing past him like a forgotten wind. Galaxies collapsed behind him—spirals shrinking into distant sparks—until only one remained ahead, looming with sudden closeness.
And then—he was there.
What had been an entire galaxy away was now directly before him, as if he had merely taken a single step. The transition left no ripple, no echo—only the faint warp of space still settling in his absence. Faint wisps of soul-thread trailed behind him, curling and vanishing like breath in cold air. In front of him spun a modest yellow sun and its chain of planetary children, suspended in silent procession. They circled slowly, unaware.
The soul-thread within him twitched, strained, pulled tighter than before, drawn toward his goal...
He had arrived.
He looked at the planet as his form began to crack.
It turned in the dark like a polished sphere, suspended perfectly in the black sea of space. A delicate halo crowned its edges, the atmosphere bending light into a soft azure ring. Wisps of cloud drifted in spirals and arcs, stretching across the surface in sweeping bands that gleamed under the light of the distant star.
Vast oceans dominated the world, endless fields of deep blue swelling gently with unseen winds. In some regions, the waters brightened to turquoise and jade where they lapped at the edges of wide continents. Those continents varied wildly—some cloaked in endless green, thick with tangled canopies and rivers that shimmered like silver threads; others were arid and copper-toned, scarred by deep ridges, plateaus, and wind-carved canyons.
Mountain ranges rose like the planet's bones, jagged peaks tipped with snow that caught the sunlight in blinding flashes. Glaciers crept slowly along the poles, cracked and ancient, their surfaces webbed with glowing ice channels that spilled into cold northern seas.
Clouds moved in layered rhythms, some dense and gray with brewing storms, others light and scattered like dust in the wind. Lightning flickered occasionally within their depths, illuminating massive weather systems that stretched for hundreds of miles across the curving surface.
At night, the land revealed pinpricks of artificial light—clusters and networks faint against the darkness, just barely visible even from orbit. Tiny movements traced lines across the atmosphere: satellites, craft, signals—proof of intelligent presence, delicate and brief against the planet's vastness.
There was no sound, only the visual hum of motion and light. The planet breathed in silence.
And still, his form continued to fracture—quietly, steadily. Flecks of luminous energy drifted from him, trailing like mist toward the world below.
From above, the world unfolded—not as a globe, but as a tapestry of layered lives. His perception skimmed across the surface, drawn by light, motion, density… and rhythm.
In the west, a vast city sprawled along a jagged coastline. Its towers clawed at the sky, glass and steel reflecting the fading sun. Traffic moved in dense patterns, veins of red and white light stretching deep into the horizon. Beneath the roar of movement, he sensed an undercurrent of tension—ambition, exhaustion, yearning. Above it all, digital screens flickered from rooftops and billboards, like blinking eyes on steel giants.
Far to the south, a city pulsed in the desert—low and wide, sunbaked and golden. Stone and glass coexisted, ancient shapes nested beside futuristic domes. Roads curved like script, leading to open-air markets where colors burst like flame. The scent of spices and heat rose from courtyards, and music echoed softly across rooftops. From minarets to megastructures, everything shimmered with dust and history.
On the continent below, nestled between mountain and ocean, another city glittered with energy. Skyscrapers rose like blades, sharp and elegant, while green space wove through the concrete like veins of breath. Along the coast, waves broke against neon-lit harbors. Lights danced on the water—ships, drones, lanterns—and a strange stillness clung to the glass towers, like a city trying to forget something.
Eastward, in the forest-shadowed heart of a colder land, a metropolis stretched beneath low clouds. Roads ran straight and wide through pale stone and dark iron. Snow dusted rooftops, and golden domes broke through the skyline like fire trapped in metal. He watched as people hurried through subway mouths, shoulders hunched against wind. Monuments loomed, silent and eternal, casting long shadows on the streets below.
Across the sea, in the rising light of a new dawn, another city stirred. It sat at the edge of green cliffs and deep valleys, glowing with warmth. High-rises rose between rivers and craters, their designs gentle—more grown than built. Gardens climbed rooftops, and temples shared space with satellites. The air there felt… awake. Ancient and curious.
From pole to pole, city to city, his gaze touched them all in an instant.
Cracks now consumed his form, running deep and branching outward. Threads of essence peeled away, drifting silently into the void. He had sacrificed much to reach this place.
The Path was coming. It had not yet touched this world, but its direction was certain. Slow, steady—closing the distance.
Now, near living presence, he could pull lightly from fate. Enough to observe.
Thirteen full movements.
The planet circled its star in wide, repeating arcs—thirteen such rotations remained. That was the interval before contact. Before the Path would arrive, and this world would no longer remain outside its reach.
His form fractured further. Light escaped in thin pulses from the widening gaps.
Along the surface of the void-shape, the cracks bent. If it had the structure to do so, it might have grinned.
It struck where his navel might have been, a precise collapse inward—clean, final. The impact tore through his already cracking form, rending open the core of his essence like splitting ancient bark. Fragments of light scattered into the void like drifting ash. He reached into himself without hesitation, his fingers vanishing into the exposed breach, the edges glowing faintly with strained energy.
From within, he pulled out a single mass of black, rippling spheres—beads that shifted and undulated as if breathing. They clung together in a writhing cluster, each the size of a marble, their surfaces smooth and fluid, reflecting dim starlight with a faint inner shimmer. To a mortal eye, it might have seemed a single handful. In truth, it was thousands—compressed, quivering, waiting.
He cast his attention downward, narrowing his gaze upon the surface. Across the world, breath surged into lungs for the first time. Limbs flailed. Eyes opened wide. Skin touched open air. The beginnings of many paths stirred—fragile, silent, unaware.
Without pause, he released the beads. They shot forward—silent, precise—each one seeking. The descent moved through cloud and matter like breath through warmth, slipping between forms with perfect aim.
One bead came down.
It drifted unnoticed through atmosphere, cloud, and ceiling—passing light and shadow—until it reached a quiet room humming with soft machines and pale fluorescent light.
A man stood beside the bed—tall, broad-shouldered, with a strong jaw and neatly trimmed black hair. His green eyes were focused, steady, softened by joy. His dress shirt was wrinkled, collar undone, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His suit jacket lay folded over a futon in the corner. He stood with a kind of still pride, one hand resting gently on the edge of the mattress, the other hanging at his side, fingers curled with unspent energy.
Beside him, a woman lay back against pillows. She was small, almost delicate in frame, her beauty unguarded in the dim light. Blonde hair clung damply to her temples, her skin still flushed from the effort behind her. Blue eyes, heavy with exhaustion, stayed fixed on the bundle resting on her chest. She breathed in slow rhythm, one hand cradling the child, the other barely touching her husband's wrist.
The infant lay nestled between them, swaddled tight in white fabric, no more than minutes old. His skin was warm with new life, faintly red and creased. A soft tuft of black hair clung damply to his head, and his tiny fists rested near his mouth. His eyes remained closed, lashes fine and still. Now and then, he made a faint noise—half breath, half instinct—but stayed quiet, sleeping against the rise and fall of his mother's chest.
They both watched in silence, the air between them filled with a kind of quiet reverence. The moment held.
The bead passed through the ceiling and into the room without sound. It hovered for only an instant, unnoticed, before sinking into the child—smooth as breath, precise as a falling star. The infant stirred gently, eyelids fluttering, then settled again.
The mother exhaled. The father smiled and leaned a little closer. Across the room, a monitor beeped softly, steady and calm. Outside, the night pressed against the windows.
Nothing had changed. And yet, something had—quiet, buried, and waiting.
But none of them knew. Not yet.
The being smiled as its form could no longer hold. Cracks spread in luminous webs across its surface, glowing faintly like molten veins under glass. Sections of its essence folded inward, each collapse releasing a soft shimmer of energy that drifted away like dying embers. Half of its soul had been poured into this moment—folded into each bead, carried on the breath of newborn life across the planet below.
Let the Path come.
Its trap had been set.
The last remnants of its body trembled. Thin filaments of black and silver twisted in the stillness, drawn inward by the unraveling of its own design. With nothing left to stabilize it in this untouched dimension, the being's form collapsed—imploding with silent finality, folding into itself layer by layer. A final flicker passed through the fragments, then they scattered, weightless and fading.
It was gone.