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> In the beginning, there was not nothing.
There was Him.
There was no time to mark his birth. No space to contain his form. No language existed to describe what he was, nor minds to attempt it. He was the First Light in an eternal void that did not yet know it was empty.
And so, he named himself.
Aetherion.
The name did not echo. There was no echoing in a place where sound itself had not yet been invented. But still, the syllables hummed within the nothingness, and from that hum, the concept of sound was born.
He was tall—not by inches, not by feet, but by meaning. His hair flowed endlessly, long, pure white strands cascading through an invisible wind that did not blow, because air did not exist. His skin shimmered like a star compressed into human form. His eyes held no pupils, no irises—only infinite white flame swirling behind his eyelids.
He had no need for a heart, but one beat in his chest. Not for survival, but rhythm. He had no need to breathe, but each breath invented a new law of physics, a new dimension of thought.
And he was alone.
He did not know what loneliness was at first. The concept developed slowly, like a shadow lengthening across an infinite plane. For an eternity, he simply existed, exploring himself. He created colors just to see something besides white. He fashioned shapes, played with matter, amused himself with gravity.
He invented stars and threw them like stones into a black ocean. He watched them burn and wink out, fascinated, then grew bored.
He created time to watch things decay.
He created life to watch things feel.
And they worshiped him.
Across galaxies and dimensions, lifeforms arose from the divine dust of his idle thoughts. Some called him The First Flame. Others, The Dreaming Void. He never answered. What was the point of conversation with beings so... small?
Worship could not fill the hollow inside him.
Adoration could not replace companionship.
And so he drifted.
Aetherion, the all-powerful.
Aetherion, the flawless.
Aetherion, the utterly alone.
---
One eternity later—if time meant anything to him—he sat on a throne of thought in a dimension made of silence.
His hand hovered in the void, index finger twirling lightly, and galaxies spun to his rhythm like obedient dancers. Nebulas bloomed where his breath touched them. Worlds collided and reformed at the twitch of his wrist.
And yet he frowned.
"Is this all I am?" he whispered, not expecting an answer.
But then he had a thought.
A reckless, dangerous, impossible thought.
> What if… there was something I did not create?
His eyes widened. Not with surprise—he was never surprised—but with hope. The idea thrilled him. For the first time since forever, his divine pulse accelerated. The concept of unknown. Of outside. Of beyond.
He stood. And when Aetherion stood, stars trembled.
With a gesture, he unraveled the wall of the universe—what mortals might call the edge of reality. It wasn't a wall, not truly, but a dense fabric of laws, constants, and intention. It screamed as he ripped it open.
And beyond?
A darkness deeper than the one he had filled. A silence that had never been broken.
> Something else existed.
And it was not his.
---
Aetherion stepped through the rupture.
And for the first time in his infinite life, he felt small.
Not weak. Not powerless. But... unknowing. The void he entered was older than anything he had touched. Older than his thoughts. It did not obey his laws. It did not recognize him.
And that terrified him.
In the distance—if one could measure distance in a place without space—something stirred.
Not life. Not death.
Something other.
He blinked. The being in the distance had no shape, no form. But its presence wrapped around him like fingers around a throat.
And then it spoke—not in words, but in concepts.
> "You do not belong here, Child of the Light."
He had never been addressed as less. Never been named by another. The sensation thrilled him.
> "Who are you?" Aetherion asked, voice like galaxies folding.
> "I am not one of your creations. I am not part of your story."
> "You are not the First."
The words stung.
He tried to speak again, but the void pulsed, and his omnipotent tongue froze. This… thing, this being that he had not made—it was stronger here.
> "You seek to fill your loneliness with what you do not understand."
> "And so, you shall witness."
The void shifted.
Aetherion was cast into a spiral of alien time, foreign stars, and civilizations unlike his own. Not made from his breath, not born of his design.
He was a stranger.
He wandered worlds where his power flickered, where beings saw him and did not bow. Where children ran past him in streets that thrived without his intervention. Where temples bore names of other gods.
And he… marveled.
He learned to walk among mortals.
He watched lovers argue. He listened to old men whisper regrets to dying fires. He sat by rivers and let them carry his fingers without parting for him.
In this universe, he was not divine.
In this reality, he was merely a man.
And for the first time in forever, he was not lonely.
---
But the void had more to show.
Aetherion met others—beings close to him in power, though bound by rules he never obeyed. Titans made of willpower. Architects of concepts. Shadows that fed on stories.
And among them… one shined.
A woman.
Her hair was dark as the void he'd entered, her eyes shimmered like paradoxes—ever-changing, never still. She looked at him, not as a worshiper, but as a question.
> "You are not from here," she said.
> "And yet I feel you belong."
Her name was Nyra.
And for the first time in all the eternities he had lived, Aetherion wanted. Not to rule. Not to create. But to stay.
With her.
---
But the cosmos do not permit peace for anomalies.
The being from the void—the Watcher—appeared again. But this time, in flesh. Towering. Unknowable.
> "You are not meant to stay."
> "You must return to your realm."
> "I refuse," Aetherion said simply.
> "Then you must be unmade."
And for the first time since before time, Aetherion bled.
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End of Chapter One.