He walked the voids—creator and creation fused into one, the singular force that birthed every atom, every echo, every tomorrow. Because he was Him.
Then, without warning, consciousness flared. No dawn, no horizon—just a wrenching snap of awareness in a place where time had never learned to crawl. Unbeknownst to him, he had opened his eyes inside the cradle of his own abyss.
Endless.Nothingness.
The words tasted like iron on a tongue that wasn't there.
Blink. Blink. The darkness blinked back. Where am I? Who am I?
Questions scraped against the inside of his skull—pitiful, mortal things. Beneath him, once. Now they clung like burrs. Memory had been flayed clean away, yet a pulse deeper than thought insisted: You are not merely someone. Logic or instinct—he couldn't pry them apart. Some truths outlive even death.
He walked the voids—creator and creation fused into one, the singular force that birthed every atom, every echo, every tomorrow. Because he was *Him*.
Then, without warning, consciousness flared.
No dawn, no horizon—just a wrenching *snap* of awareness in a place where time had never learned to crawl. Unbeknownst to him, he had opened his eyes inside the cradle of his own abyss.
**Endless.**
**Nothingness.**
The words tasted like iron on a tongue that wasn't there.
Blink.
Blink.
The darkness blinked back.
*Where am I? Who am I?*
Questions scraped against the inside of his skull—pitiful, mortal things. Beneath him, once. Now they clung like burrs. Memory had been flayed clean away, yet a pulse deeper than thought insisted: *You are not merely someone.*
Logic or instinct—he couldn't pry them apart.
Some truths outlive even death.
---
**POV SHIFT**
*Lub-DUB. Lub-DUB.*
The rhythm thunders in a chest that feels borrowed. I force the drumbeat slower, slower, until silence folds around it like velvet.
I turn.
The void breathes with me—cool, weightless, scented with the faint ozone of unborn stars. Every direction is the same, yet the absence *presses* against my skin the way deep water presses lungs. Soothing. Familiar.
*Home.*
My gaze snags on the black sphere hovering where I woke. It drinks light that doesn't exist, its surface a mirror without reflection. To any other soul it would howl *nightmare*. Here, it only hums a lullaby in a frequency older than sound.
I take one step. The nothing yields like warm silk. Another step. Another—
**BOOM.**
**BOOM.**
The void *rips*.
Twin concussions slam through the non-space, close enough to taste the shockwave—hot metal and petrichor that shouldn't exist. The darkness ripples outward in liquid rings, each crest birthing ghost-light that dies before it travels a handspan.
Something ancient uncoils in my gut: *Not that simple. Never that simple.*
I try to move toward the sound.
Gravity that isn't gravity crushes my ribs. My heart—*my* heart—seizes, squeezes, *refuses*.
A single, wordless command throbs behind the bone:
**NOT. YET.**
I stand rooted, every pulse a question.
If this is home…
why does the cradle feel like a cage?