?? POV]
I hated elevators.
Not because of the height. Not because of the faint sway of the cables or the low groan of machinery somewhere above. No—what made my skin crawl was the silence.
You stand in a cramped, metal coffin with strangers pretending not to exist. No one meets your eyes. No one talks. Everyone just stares at the glowing numbers above the doors like they're waiting for a divine message. Add some flowers, dim the lights a little more, and you've basically got a funeral viewing with yourself as the body.
The elevator rattled on its way down to the basement parking, numbers ticking away in a dim amber glow. I checked my phone. No signal.
Of course. This building swallowed radio waves like a black hole. Just one more reason I hated this place.
I'd been working late again, finishing a report no one cared about, for a company that wouldn't remember my name if I dropped dead at my desk. And honestly? The state of the wiring made that a legitimate possibility.
But work was just a distraction. I wasn't a happy man—hadn't been for a long time.
I used to be different. I used to have a reason to smile when I woke up. I loved my family more than anything. I lived for them.
Until that day.
Now, they were gone. All of them. Six feet under, resting in a place I couldn't follow. Something inside me had cracked open then, and every day since, I felt a little more hollow.
At twenty-two, I was just another office drone—average salary, suffocating workload, and nothing in life but routine. A man whose only victories were surviving until the next paycheck.
The elevator jolted suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. The lights flickered, buzzing like angry wasps. I frowned and took a step back.
Then the floor vanished.
"What the fuuuu—" My voice cut off as the world itself seemed to melt.
The steel walls dissolved like wet paper. The cables above unraveled into threads of darkness. And then there was nothing—nothing but a vast, crushing black.
Only, it wasn't empty.
Shapes writhed at the edges of my vision, shifting when I tried to look at them. Corners folded where no corners should exist. Angles twisted into themselves like origami made from night.
My breath quickened—then vanished. I couldn't feel my lungs. I couldn't feel my body at all.
Something spoke. Or… maybe it didn't speak. Maybe the words had always been in my mind, waiting to be noticed.
You are…?
The question wasn't sound. It was a pulse, sliding through my thoughts like oil through water.
The darkness moved. Something vast leaned in, too enormous for my mind to hold. I couldn't see it clearly, but its presence bent the space around it—like reality itself was warped, broken glass around a hole.
"HAAAAA!" My scream tore out of me, but no sound followed. My eyes burned, yet I couldn't close them.
The closer it came, the more I unraveled.
Memories peeled away like paint: my father's laugh, the scent of my mother's cooking, the hiss of rain on a bus window. All drifting toward the thing, stripped from me like loose threads.
It reached for me—not with a hand or any limb I could name, but with something that meant touch.
It felt like an eldritch nightmare brushing against my soul.
Then, suddenly—it stopped.
The presence recoiled. Space convulsed. The impossible angles snapped straight. And then—
Light.
A violent, blinding white, flooding in like a tidal wave.
When my vision cleared, I was floating. A violet expanse stretched in every direction, endless and empty, yet somehow alive.
"This feels like home," I murmured.
My voice echoed. Which was impossible—there was no air here.
I reached up to push my hair back and froze. My hair was longer, the strands a different color. My skin still looked human—or at least, the parts I could see did—but something felt… altered.
I sat down—or whatever passed for sitting here—and stared at the infinite nothing. No stars. No planets. Yet there was light. No sound. Yet I could speak. The contradictions hit me all at once.
"And why the hell am I here?" I muttered.
I stood and began walking, though there was no ground. Steps happened because I decided they did. Time didn't seem to move, but I did.
I don't know how long I walked. Minutes. Hours. Centuries. It was all the same.
"If only…" I stopped mid-sentence. I didn't know why I said it, but the words formed on their own:
"Let there be light."
BOOOOOOM.
The detonation nearly blinded me. When the glare faded, I realized something impossible.
I was holding a star.
It was enormous—too big to hold—yet somehow small enough to fit in my palm, burning without burning me.
I let go. The star drifted away, stopping far off in the void. My knees buckled. Half my strength was gone in an instant.
"What the hell just happened?" I gasped.
"Am I…?" I couldn't finish the thought. That thing I had seen earlier—something beyond comprehension—no, I wasn't that.
I waved my hand. Massive meteors appeared, tumbling silently through space. I pulled one toward me, heat building as it neared the star until the surface blazed red.
"Too close," I murmured, pushing it away. Frost began to creep across its surface. I nudged it forward again, and steam hissed from its crust.
"I've… become a demigod?"
Why not a god? Simple. A god wouldn't tire. A god would understand what was happening. I was something less. Something in-between.
I closed my eyes. The exhaustion was too much.
And then, darkness claimed me once more.