A god trapped in his poor and dying vessel. His power was finite and his soul was tethered to the physical body.
As powerful as he theoretically could be, he was NOT omnipotent, NOT omniscient, and definitely NOT omnipresence.
He was simply a soul that had acquired a few more toys. Even Dr. Avaline didn't know that he had accidentally reached the realm of the divine.
However, that was not his concern right now. He was enamored by something else entirely. The power of the three aspects of reality.
Dr. Avaline pulled his hands out and inside were three objects.
A thin silver strand of cloud.
A speck of gold dust.
A tiny red stone.
The strand moved by itself, always trying to get out of his palm. It almost has a mind of its own. But by Dr. Avaline's will, it couldn't escape and go away.
This silver strand seemed to be harder to grasp than others and very active.
The tiny red stone wasn't actually a stone. It was always changing. Sometimes it was a red stone. Then it was a floating red liquid. Next it became a red gas.
It changed its state and shape constantly. Even turned into a red lightning and a piece of flesh.
The red stone seemed unstable and did not follow any patterns at all.
Then there was the speck of gold dust. It was the most benign force and inactive between the three. It laid quietly on the palm of Dr. Avaline without any movement or reaction.
Dr. Avaline dipped his finger onto the dust. It caught onto his skin and stayed there. He moved his finger closer for a better look.
He had an urge to devour this speck of dust. It had something that he craved for badly.
Dr. Avaline didn't hesitate and put his finger in his mouth, licking the speck of dust clean.
"TRUTH!" He muttered.
His words echoed throughout the empty white space.
The gold dust was the truth, not metaphorically, nor theoretically, nor poetically.
It is literally the truth. The truth of everything and everyone everywhere at every time.
By consuming it, Dr. Avaline was able to learn what he wanted. Anything at all.
It was a computer that could spill out answers with no limits.
That speck of dust told Dr. Avaline that. He had been wondering what it was and it told him.
Dr. Avaline looked down to the other two matters.
One was the truth. He could only wonder what the rest were.
Actually, he didn't need to wonder. Dr. Avaline grabbed the silver strand and put it in his mouth.
He didn't learn anything. Instead, he saw. Countless images of the past, the present, and the future of everyone and everything.
There were an infinite number of versions of all aspects of time. He saw so much with one tiny strand that his head wanted to explode.
But he didn't. He simply felt like dying.
His physical body in the real world suddenly had a seizure. Nurses and doctors rushed over immediately and tried to stabilize him.
After an unknown amount of time, Dr. Avaline finally calmed down. His mind was at peace again. He saw so many people in Naara City. How their lives had been. How their presence was. And what future held for them.
"Fate." Dr. Avaline muttered. It was the only thing he could think of that could represent the silver strand.
Only fate could govern the past, presence, and future of everything. Its physical form was elusive and reactive exactly how Fate should be.
Dr. Avaline looked into the last thing in his palm. The ever-changing red matter. He could feel that his physical body fell into a worse situation because of his consumption of Fate.
But through that, he knew that he never had the chance of waking up. Fate wrote his future already.
He would be staying in that hospital for the rest of his short uneventful life.
Dr. Avaline was not going to accept that. He devoured the last remaining aspect.
Red liquid immediately spurted from the corners of his eyes. Red spikes appeared on his skin. Red gas flowed out of his mouth. Many forms of the red stone appeared on his body.
The empty space was filled with the red material as it flooded out of Dr. Avaline's body.
A nurse was watching his physical body closely. She was reading the report of what just happened to him a few hours ago. She didn't understand why he suddenly had a reaction like that.
Dr. Avaline shouldn't have any reaction at all. No tests were able to find the reason behind the seizure.
A doctor in a white coat entered the room.
"How is he?" The doctor said.
"He's stable. For now. Why did he even have a seizure?" The nurse said.
"We don't know." The doctor shook his head. He walked up to the side of Dr. Avaline and looked at him.
"He was in a quantum explosion. We know very few things about what it can do."
Then the doctor sighed.
"He is the smartest man in our generation. Unfortunately, this is the end of him."
The nurse gasped. "Is he going to die?"
"Eventually. After a year or two. All of his nerves were fried. Most of his organs were destroyed too. With the advancement of technology, we can keep him alive. But that's it.
Even if he wakes up, he would still be paralyzed."
The nurse looked at Dr. Avaline on the bed.
"What a pity…"
Dr. Avaline was covered in bandages, leaving no amount of skin exposed. Only his mouth was visible and even it was burned. There were countless tubes and wires going into his body, pumping nutrition and acting on behalf of his failed organs.
The doctor and the nurse left.
The so-called paralyzed Dr. Avaline twitched his finger slightly.
In the dream world. The empty space returned to its white color.
The red energy had disappeared completely. It was completely absorbed by Dr. Avaline.
He wasn't standing on the ground any more but floated slightly with red energy enveloping his figure. His hand held a tiny strand of fate while his eyes flashed gold light.
"The strands of Fate.
The Dust of Truth.
And the stones… of Chaos.
They are the three most primal forces that created the universe and every living thing I know of.
If I want to get myself out of this dire situation, I must use them well. They are my only hope."