The brutal crack was followed by a ringing silence, a deafening echo in the empty apartment. Steve's consciousness, already fractured by the terror of suffocation, now splintered completely from the impact. The sudden loss of oxygen, combined with the blow to the head, sent his brain into a desperate, panicked surge.
The high-pitched, frantic wheeze in his chest faded into a distant buzz, replaced by a strange, overwhelming warmth. The pain, the tearing cough, the desperate, hollow ache in his lungs was abruptly gone. A profound sense of drowsiness, a velvet curtain pulling shut on the nightmare, washed over him. He felt himself floating, his body no longer heavy on the cold, wet tile.
Then, the hallucinations began. Not a linear memory, but a rapid-fire collage, a final, beautiful discharge of his life's most potent neurons. He saw the flash of Lucas's ridiculous ping-pong serve, followed by the blinding, golden perfection of his Minecraft wheat fields. He saw his own hand, young and strong, holding a diamond hoe. He heard the jaunty, nostalgic music of the game, clearer and louder than any sound in the apartment. His mother's voice from years ago, a low murmur of comfort. The scent of triple-layer nachos. It all compressed into a single, luminous point of light, a star exploding in the center of his mind. The light grew, consuming the edges of his vision until there was only a perfect, golden-white blankness. The drowsiness deepened, pulling him down, down, down, until the last flicker of thought went dark.
**\[?????\]**
[Steve POV]
He was floating. Not the frantic, panicked floating of a drowning man, but a slow, peaceful suspension. A violent, skull-splitting headache—a pulsing, overwhelming pressure—made him groan, a sound that felt vast and distant, as if it traveled a thousand miles just to reach his ears. He tried to look around, to blink away the grogginess, but nothing worked.
There were no eyes to open. There was no *face* to command.
There was only light.
Immense, blinding, all-encompassing light. It assaulted him from every direction, not with heat, but with sheer, overwhelming presence. It was the color of a billion suns filtered through liquid gold, and it burned against the very core of his being. He wasn't seeing it; he was feeling It, an infinite radiance that pressed against his non-existent eyelids, an unbearable pressure against the confines on his self.
"Too much." The thought was a weak whisper in a cosmic hurricane. The headache intensified, becoming a physical hammer blow against the inside of his skull. The light was unbearable. The pressure was overwhelming. He couldn't sustain this new, terrible wakefulness. He needed the silence, the dark, the blissful nothingness that had just held him.
With a final, involuntary shudder, the consciousness that had once been Steve succumbed to the agony and the light, spiraling back down into a deep, protecting sleep. The light continued to blaze, waiting patiently for the mind that would one day command it.
After how long, no one—least of all the dormant consciousness that had been Steve could have known. Time was a concept that had dissolved into the boundless, shimmering energy of the seemingly endless space. Yet, in that space seemingly with no end, a process began.
The golden-white blankness started to condense. At first, it was a subtle focal point, a minor disturbance in the infinite light. But slowly, inevitably, the light began to coalesce, drawing in on itself, following an intricate blueprint buried deep within the unconscious mind it housed. A shimmering, embryonic shape took form, defining itself from the chaos. As the form grew increasingly detailed, taking on the undeniable contours of a man. Shoulders, a torso, and the chiseled lines of a face, the immense blinding light in the space also shrank, pulled into the newly condensing vessel.
The humanoid figure solidified, his form now whole and suspended in the soft, receding golden haze. He was no longer a floating awareness, but a perfect, complete body. With a shuddering, divine intake of breath, he opened his eyes. They were not the worried blue eyes of Steve the asthmatic, but twin pools of brilliant, liquid gold, blazing with the gathered radiance of the Void.
As the last vestiges of the all-encompassing light faded, the figure was revealed—perfectly sculpted, a form forged from pure celestial power.
Behind his head, his most defining feature shimmered: a massive, radiant golden halo that floated in the air. It was composed of a solid ring of light surrounded by sharp, thin rays that reached outward like an intricate crown of sunbeams. He was not wearing armor, nor did he possess the hardened, martial look of a warrior. His countenance was one of profound intellect and calm authority. A Philosopher-God who ruled through light and wisdom. In the cradle of his left arm, he held a massive, thick tome with a dark, leather-like cover, the way he cradled it suggesting he was a seeker of truth and a keeper of ancient, fundamental laws.
A slow, knowing smile curved his lips, a small, entirely conscious expression that held none of the forced politeness of the mortal named Steve. He spoke, and the sound of his voice was not a sound, but a warm, authoritative pressure on the very fabric of the Void, like the midday sun breaking through clouds.
[MC POV]
"Interesting."
The lingering memories of the mundane—the ping pong paddle, the scent of nachos, the panic of a failing lung—were present, but they were distant, perfectly cataloged files in a limitless mind. His ascension had been flawless, his human vulnerability the very catalyst for his divine rebirth.
To think I have somehow become a God, and one not bound to a single domain, but filled with the supreme Authorities of the Sun, Light, Fire, Sky, and Calamities… "HE" mused, the thought a silent burst of golden light that momentarily stabilized the chaotic dimension around him. Is there some higher being at play, weaving this fate? Has this world already noticed my sudden, impossible abnormality?
His golden gaze, a blazing twin to his halo, locked onto a distant point. The abstract dimension, for all its chaotic glory, felt subtly anchored, connected to a single, vibrant nexus—a vast, echoing source of life and order that felt distinctly different from his own radiant chaos. He intended to probe that 'place,' to gently extend a ray of his Authority and understand the world he now inhabited.
But before his will could execute the thought, a change rippled through the cosmic colors. A profound, unhurried presence began to approach. It was a pressure of immense, nourishing stability, a divinity that felt less like fire and more like deep-seated stone and the ceaseless turning of seasons.
He looked over. The new arrival solidified from the abstract light: a towering figure clad in a simple white robe that seemed to conceal and yet flow with the curves of life itself. Her hair, the color of newly harvested wheat, cascaded over her shoulders, and her eyes were a soft, rich golden-brown, ancient and patient. From her, Auros felt the pure, quiet power of the Earth and the eternal, sustaining force of Life.
The Goddess paused a short distance away, her eyes locking with his.
"Greetings, oh ancient one," she said, her voice like the rustling of a thousand forests. "I mean no ill. I just happened to notice the intensity of your incarnation and your choosing of a human form. I am the Earth Mother and the Creator of the World Tree Elowen. And what does the Ancient One wish to be called?"
He smiled, the expression now fully serene. He cradled the dark tome in his left arm, his golden eyes blazing with the gathered light of the cosmos.
"I AM....."
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Word count: 1293
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