I woke slowly, as if from the most comfortable sleep I’d ever known. My body—if I even had one—felt light, warm, whole. When I opened my eyes, I was greeted not by a ceiling or sky, but by stars. Endless stars sprawling across what should’ve been the ground, glittering and pulsing like a living ocean of light. They stretched far beyond any horizon, if such a thing even existed.

  I sat in quiet awe until something shifted.

  An overbearing presence swept through the space, swallowing my attention in an instant. Its form was unclear. It is hazy, shifting constantly, and never settling. I tried to look through it, to make sense of what I was seeing, but pain bloomed gently behind my eyes. I stopped. That’s when I noticed them. Nine other beings, each as confused and radiant as I felt. Like me, they stared in awe or wariness. I didn’t need to ask. I knew. They were like me. New. Gods.

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  Then, the presence spoke, its voice ancient and absolute.

  “This world shall be your crib for the next century. Until then, grow.”

  I barely had time to think.

  Suddenly, I was falling. No, rising?

  The stars beneath me faded, shrinking into specks as I was pulled upward. Above me—no, ahead of me—a planet loomed, so massive it devoured the horizon, filling my vision entirely. It grew closer and closer, swallowing everything.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Not from fear.

  From awe.

  As I was falling—no, ascending—through the void, the stars dimmed behind me, and the massive world ahead became clearer. Oceans, mountains, swirling clouds. A living world.

  Then I heard it.

  A voice, the same overbearing presence from before. Not spoken aloud, but threaded into the very fabric of my being.

  “Go and find a mortal.”

  The words echoed like a command and a prophecy all at once.

  I didn’t understand why. I didn’t ask. I only felt the pull, the sense that somewhere on that vast, breathing planet, someone was waiting.