A white-silver light cut through the void.
It did not drift with the aimless debris of a dying star, nor did it float like a feather caught in a stagnant draft. It moved with a terrifying, singular purpose—silent, streamlined, like a comet stripped of its fire and left with only its cold, crystalline essence.
Around it, space did not resemble the cosmos known to man. There were no swirling nebulae of violet and gold, no distant galaxies flickering like dying embers, no gritty cosmic dust to catch the light. There was only an endless, suffocating expanse that felt less like darkness and more like absence. It was the gap between thoughts, the silence between heartbeats.
The light was small—no larger than a fist-sized orb—but its glow was a defiant, unwavering constant. It did not flicker against the vacuum. It did not pulse with instability. It was a spear of reality piercing through a realm of nothingness.
It was headed somewhere.
It knew that with a certainty that transcended instinct. Or perhaps, something far greater than the orb itself held the map.
And then—space changed.
The transition was not gradual. There was no visual distortion, no ripple in the fabric of the void, no sense of crossing a physical threshold. It changed as if a cosmic hand had reached down and turned a page in the Book of Reality.
The surrounding void folded in on itself like a collapsing thought. Time did not merely rewind or accelerate; it underwent a violent, tectonic shift. Timelines, thousands of them, overlapped like transparent sheets of glass, clashing and vibrating with a frequency that would have shattered a mortal mind, before snapping apart with the finality of a closing tomb.
The silver-white orb halted mid-transit.
The glow around it began to tremble, for the first time showing a fracture in its composure. Something inside the light was waking up.
The spherical essence began to stretch. Its surface rippled like liquid mercury responding to a gravity that did not yet exist. The orb elongated, expanding upward and downward in a graceful, terrifying evolution. Limbs sprouted where there had been only radiance; joints formed, fingers elongated, and a torso solidified.
The glow dimmed, but it did not disappear. It condensed, pulling inward to form the density of bone and the suppleness of muscle.
A silhouette emerged.
Shoulders. Arms. Legs. A head tilting slightly to the side, the neck moving with the stiff, mechanical curiosity of a being testing the very concept of awareness.
The light fully reshaped itself, the brilliance fading into the matte texture of skin and the dark threads of hair. Standing where the orb had once hovered was a young man.
Arav.
He blinked. The simple movement of his eyelids felt monumental.
The environment around him was neither sky nor ground. He stood within a horizon that extended infinitely in every direction—a pale, pearlescent purgatory. The "floor" beneath his bare feet held his weight, but it did not appear solid. It shimmered with a faint, rhythmic pulse, like polished marble fashioned from frozen mist.
He inhaled.
The sensation was violent. Air—sharp, sterile, and cold—rushed into his lungs, forcing his chest to heave. It was the first proof of his existence. It was real.
Arav looked down at his hands. He watched his fingers flex, the knuckles whitening, the skin stretching over his joints. He felt the warmth of his own blood circulating, a low hum of heat in a place that knew only the absolute zero of the void.
"I…"
His voice was clear. It carried no echo, as if the vast space around him swallowed the sound before it could even think of bouncing back.
He slowly turned his head. To the left, an infinite white. To the right, more of the same.
"Where am I?"
The question was not loud, but in that oppressive stillness, it carried the weight of a mountain.
Surprisingly, his heart remained calm. The rhythm was steady—thump-thump, thump-thump—without the frantic gallop of adrenaline. That was the strangest part of all. By all rights, he should have been screaming.
He remembered the end. He remembered it with a clarity that stung.
The last flashes were a chaotic montage of trauma: the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, the deafening thunder of gunfire echoing in a hollow corridor, the groan of a collapsing structure as the world caved in. He remembered the crushing weight of responsibility, a physical pressure against his ribs that was far heavier than the falling concrete. He remembered the acrid, choking smell of smoke and the sudden, jarring transition into silence.
And now, this.
He scanned the expanse again, his eyes narrowing. "Is this…" His brows furrowed, a shadow of skepticism crossing his face. "Is this the world they call the afterlife?"
The thought felt oddly neutral. He didn't feel the relief of a saint or the terror of a sinner. He simply felt... present.
Behind him—a voice.
"Arav."
It wasn't a shout. It didn't possess the booming theatricality of a thunderstorm. Yet, it reached him instantly, vibrating through the marrow of his bones as if it hadn't traveled through the air at all, but had been spoken directly into the fabric of his soul.
Arav froze. His breath hitched in his throat.
The voice was impossible to categorize. For the righteous, it would likely feel like a soothing balm. For the wicked, it would feel like a sharpening blade. To Arav, it was neither warm nor cold, neither welcoming nor hostile.
It was absolute. It was the sound of a law being written.
Arav slowly turned.
There was something standing there. And yet, his eyes told him there was nothing. There was no defined figure to focus on, no silhouette to trace. It did not cast a shadow on the shimmering mist, nor did it reflect the pale light of the horizon. It was a presence—an entity that occupied space without the need for form, a hole in the universe that was filled with everything.
Arav felt his knees weaken. It wasn't a collapse born of cowardice, but a reflexive recognition of scale. A grain of sand acknowledging the desert.
The entity spoke again, its voice weaving through his mind. "You have arrived at your destination… far earlier than most."
Arav swallowed, his throat dry. "Who… are you?"
The presence seemed to ripple, a subtle shift in the air that suggested amusement, or perhaps a distant form of pride.
"You may understand me as a Higher Being," the voice replied. A brief, heavy pause followed. "If you prefer simpler terms… you may call me God."
Arav's chest tightened. The word was too big for his mind to hold. "God…?"
"Yes," the voice continued, calm and unrelenting. "You may say I am The God. The one whom your world has named Creator—the Creation of All Things."
Arav's breathing slowed. He found that the instinct to run was absent. There was no room for doubt here; the sheer gravity of the entity's presence acted as its own proof. He wasn't being crushed, but he was being judged. Not by a set of laws, but by a gaze that saw every secret he had ever buried.
Slowly, Arav lowered himself. He bent one knee to the mist-like floor, then the other. He bowed his head, his gaze fixed on the shimmering white beneath him. It was a gesture of ancient, primal respect—a believer returning to the source. It wasn't forced by a divine hand; it was the only logical reaction for a soul in the presence of its architect.
The entity's presence shifted, a faint warmth radiating from the formless center.
"That," the voice said softly, "is what I admire most about you."
Arav's fingers tightened against the floor. The texture felt like silk and ice.
"Do you understand responsibility?" the entity continued, the words carrying a melodic weight. "Do you understand the burden of choice? You not only understood it—you changed it. You altered the direction of decay."
Arav did not lift his head. A bitter memory flared in his mind. "You misunderstand," he said, his voice a low whisper. "I have killed many people. I have spilled blood until my hands were stained permanently. I have destroyed families. I am no saint."
Behind his closed eyes, the faces returned. Men he had hunted. The look of pure, unadulterated rage in their eyes before the light went out. The screams that had been silenced by his own hand.
The voice remained steady, unbothered by his confession. "No, child. You did not destroy for desire. You acted for preservation."
A faint pressure surrounded Arav, like a heavy, invisible cloak being draped over his shoulders.
"If you had not acted, your world would have drowned deeper in crime. In rape. In murder. In the hollow, bottomless pit of human greed."
The words weren't a comfort; they were a cold, analytical breakdown of reality.
"Crime," the voice continued, "was not created by me. Nor was it dictated by fate. It is born of human greed. Of lust. Of unchecked desire. It is the rot that enters the fruit when it forgets the tree."
Arav's fists loosened.
"You walked through those desires," the entity said. "You did not just avoid them; you passed through them like a flame through shadows. You chose humanity over temptation. You chose the harder path, the one that offered no reward but the burden you now carry."
Arav's mind trembled. Humanity? Is that what he had preserved? He had never seen himself as a hero or a noble soul. He was just a man who saw a job that needed to be done—a man who became the monster to keep the other monsters at bay.
"Do you not wish to see the world you left behind?" the voice asked.
Arav's brows drew together.
"The world that now celebrates the death of the criminals you eliminated," the entity said, the tone almost melodic. "The world that now whispers the name of the hero who walked through the darkness so they could stay in the light."
Arav's breathing paused. He felt a sudden, sharp pang of disconnect.
"You are not merely remembered, Arav," the presence said gently. "You have become belief."
Silence stretched between them, thick and profound.
"In your absence," it continued, "many like you have risen. Individuals who no longer bow to empty idols or worship unseen beings out of fear. They have seen what a single, determined will can do."
A faint shift in the atmosphere occurred—a flicker of something that felt like a divine smile.
"They worship you."
Arav's head lifted slightly, his eyes wide. His throat felt like it was filled with ash. "I… I never wanted that. I never asked for statues or prayers."
"That," the voice replied, "is precisely why it happened. True icons are never self-made. They are forged in the vacuum of a world's need."
The silence deepened, becoming so heavy it felt as though the very air was pressing Arav into the ground.
"So," the voice asked, "do you wish to see it? Do you wish to see the future of the world you fought for? To see the fruits of your blood and sweat?"
Arav closed his eyes. He reached back into the archives of his memory. He remembered a book he had found once, tucked away in the corner of a warehouse he had been using as a hideout. It had been half-burned, the edges of the pages charred black. He remembered a line about energy—about the soul—and how everything ultimately belonged to the divine.
He exhaled slowly, a long, controlled breath that released the last of his tension.
"No," he said.
"I do not want to see it."
The presence did not respond immediately. It felt as though the entity was weighing his answer, measuring the sincerity of his refusal.
"I read once," Arav continued softly, his voice gaining a strange, grounded strength, "that a human's energy… their soul… is a gift. It is something lent by God. If I have died in that universe, then my debt is paid. I have no attachment left to it. To look back is to remain a ghost."
The mist beneath him shimmered with a sudden, brilliant intensity.
"Very good, Arav."
The tone had shifted. It was no longer just absolute; it was approving.
"That is what I expected of you. You do not seek the ego of a creator, nor the comfort of a voyeur."
A faint hum began to vibrate through the space—a low-frequency resonance that made Arav's very cells tingle.
"Then allow me to offer you something."
Arav blinked, looking up into the formless light. "An offer?"
"Yes. For your actions. For your restraint. For the choices you made when the world offered you every reason to be cruel."
The presence expanded, the horizon itself seeming to grow wider and brighter.
"You may choose Heaven. And I do not speak of the stories your kin tell. In this Heaven, you will want for nothing. There is no struggle here. No burden. No pain. It is the end of the journey. Eternal peace."
Arav listened, his face an unreadable mask. He knew the value of peace—he had spent his entire life fighting for a single moment of it.
"And the second offer?" he asked.
A pause. The air grew still.
"A timeline."
Arav's heart gave a sudden, violent lurch.
"A world where your family lives."
The words hit him like a physical blow to the solar plexus. The calm he had maintained since arriving shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. His family. The faces of his parents, his sister—memories he had buried under layers of steel and shadow—came rushing back with a localized gravity that made his head spin.
The entity continued, relentless. "A world where you exist as yourself. The same identity. The same soul. A peaceful life. A human life."
Arav's mind felt like it was cracking open.
His family had died in a terrorist attack in the Arabres Sovereignty. He had watched the news footage over and over again until the images were burned into his retinas—the charred husks of buildings, the grey debris covering the streets like snow, the long, scrolling lists of names. That day had been the catalyst. It was the day his dreams of a normal life had died, and the day his worldview had hardened into a weapon.
What if...
He swallowed hard, his voice trembling for the first time. "If I take that timeline… and I replace that Arav… would I be taking over another soul? Would I be a parasite in another man's body?"
There was tension in his shoulders, a refusal to buy his happiness at the cost of another's existence.
The presence replied instantly, the voice echoing with the finality of truth. "No. There is no theft. That Arav is you. You are that Arav. There will be no displacement, no erasure of a living spirit. Two thoughts merge. Two paths align. You remain yourself, but you inherit the life that was stolen from you."
A faint, localized warmth surrounded him, like a gentle hand resting on his shoulder.
"For me, this is simple," the voice added. The statement wasn't arrogant; it was the simple fact of an omnipotent being describing a minor adjustment to the tapestry.
"Do not attempt to judge why I help you, or to question my intention," the entity added, the tone cooling slightly, though not with anger. "Humans divide each other by criteria. By labels. By the petty politics of your nations. You cannot divide God. God is not placed within your systems of evaluation. You do not have the scales to weigh me."
Arav lowered his gaze, humbled by the sheer scale of the being's logic.
"Understand only this," the voice concluded. "You receive the fruit of your actions. This is the harvest of the seeds you sowed in blood and tears."
Then—light formed.
It wasn't the sterile white-silver of the void. It was gold—deep, rich, and molten. It manifested in the empty space directly in front of Arav, condensing into a radiant sphere that seemed to be held by an invisible hand.
The golden glow was warmer than anything Arav had ever felt. It wasn't just light; it felt dense. It felt alive, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.
"This," the voice said, "is the result of your deeds."
Arav didn't move. He couldn't. He watched, mesmerized, as the golden sphere drifted toward him. It didn't explode with theatrical flair, and it didn't blind him with its brilliance.
It touched his chest.
And then, it simply... entered.
Instantly, a flood of warmth surged through his body. It wasn't the sharp, biting power of an electrical shock, nor was it the overwhelming rush of mana or energy. It was a deep, anchored brightness. It felt as though a hollow space inside his soul—a void he hadn't even realized was there—had been filled with reinforced steel and sunlight.
The entity fell silent.
The presence began to recede, drawing back into the infinite horizon. But as it left, a thought echoed in Arav's mind—not spoken, but felt, like a parting wish from a distant creator.
I hope your timeline births new Supreme Beings.
The space around Arav shifted again.
This time, it wasn't a page turning. It was the world dissolving. The mist beneath his knees turned to air. The horizon folded inward like a collapsing star. Reality became thin, transparent, and then non-existent.
And then—he fell.
He wasn't falling through the void anymore. He was falling through a transition. He felt the rush of wind that wasn't wind, the sensation of weight returning to his bones, and the sudden, jarring re-entry into a physical world.
Darkness returned. But it wasn't the darkness of the void; it was the comforting, heavy darkness of a room at night.
Weight returned. The feeling of a blanket against his skin.
Sound returned.
First, the faint, rhythmic hum of a ceiling fan, clicking slightly with every rotation. Then, the distant, muffled echo of city life—a car horn, the hum of a distant engine, the ambient noise of a world that was very much alive.
Arav's body jerked slightly.
He was lying down. He felt the familiar, soft resistance of a mattress beneath his back. His eyelids fluttered, feeling heavy and crusty with sleep.
Light filtered faintly through the gaps in closed curtains, casting long, thin ribbons of grey across the room. His fingers twitched, feeling the rough texture of cotton sheets.
He inhaled.
The air was different here. It smelled of stale dust, a hint of laundry detergent, and the unmistakable scent of a lived-in space. It was the smell of home.
He slowly opened his eyes.
He stared at the ceiling. It was white, slightly yellowed in the corners, with a small crack near the light fixture that looked like a lightning bolt. He knew that crack. He had stared at it for hours as a teenager, dreaming of things that felt like a lifetime ago.
He lay there, unmoving, his heart thudding against his ribs—not with the calm of the void, but with the frantic, messy life of a human being.
A whisper left his lips, his voice raspy and thin.
"Was that… a dream?"
He reached up, his hand trembling slightly, and touched his face. His skin was warm. His pulse was steady. He was alive.
And as he looked around the small, familiar room, the silence of the apartment felt like a promise.