In the dark Aetheric void, one unfortunate soul found itself, with fuzzy memories and no senses available to it. The void stretched endlessly in all directions, though the soul couldn't perceive this yet. Streams of pure Aether flowed through this realm like cosmic rivers, breaking down the essence of countless mortal souls into their purest form—yet this particular soul remained untouched, unconsciously drawing in the surrounding Aether to maintain its existence.

  "Why is it so dark?! Wait, I don't hear myself, or anything!" the soul began panicking. The terror of senselessness gripped it, made worse by the complete absence of any familiar sensation. Unlike the native souls slowly dissolving into the void's embrace, this foreign entity struggled against the absolute nothingness.

  "Not happening! Not happening!" repeated the soul to itself, its essence trembling in the vast expanse where countless other souls peacefully surrendered to their final transformation.

  *Unknown amount of time later*

  "Ok, so I don't feel anything, so either I'm very likely paralyzed, on some narcotics, or in a hopefully very unlikely scenario, dead or dying..." thought the still slightly panicking soul.

  "So... How long was I panicking? Hopefully not too long." It tried to come to some approximation of time, but everything was too fuzzy as there wasn't anything to use as reference, and every guess was just that—a guess, giving confusing answers. In the Aetheric void, time flowed differently than in the mortal realm, though the soul had no way of knowing this yet.

  "Oh yeah, no feeling anything, so I guess timekeeping is useless."

  Then it hit it—it could count until it felt it had counted high enough (likely out of boredom or tiredness). The soul didn't realize that this simple decision would reveal its first hint of its changed nature.

  "Okay, what other choice do I have unless, of course, I want to go mad... Ok."

  "0"... "1"... "2"... "3"...

  *Unknown amount of time later*

  "999,998"... "999,999"... "1,000,000"

  "Okay, what the fuck? I should have gotten bored or tired by the time I got to this number, and I counted in seconds! Either I'm thinking too fast or I'm... no, this is weird, let's continue," thought the unnerved soul to itself.

  "1,000,001"... "1,000,002"...

  "4,057,392"... "4,057,393"... "4,057,394"...

  "8,722,013"... "8,722,014"... "8,722,015"...

  "9,999,896"... "9,999,920"... "9,999,998"... "9,999,999"

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "10 fucking million! Ok, this is too fucking weird. I could count to 100 million, but I think I already know the answer. I have become a demigod or some other higher being! And I definitely got a new body, so I have to learn how to control it again, because I was so used to being a puny human," thought the soul to itself proudly, maybe even arrogantly, but absolutely ignorantly.

  "So first of all, I need to get at least one sense, anything, because if I don't, I won't be able to keep sane, even if I'm not human anymore. So how to start? Probably meditation, that's what always helped those people in fantasy lands."

  *Unknown amount of time later*

  "Ok so how do I start, it was keeping clear mind, breathe in and out to keep concentration, and let everything go... That sounds stupid, but why not try, worst case I lose some time..." The irony of trying to breathe without a physical body was lost on the soul, though its attempts at meditation were unconsciously helping it attune to its new form.

  "Breathe in, breathe out..."

  "Right, can't feel anything, probably not even breathing, or it's in background and can't feel it."

  "So focus... Let's imagine starry sky."

  "Starry sky... Starry sky... Starry sky," said to itself the soul, as it tried to focus only on starry sky.

  *Unknown amount of time later*

  "Ugh..." sighed the soul, after long time of meditation.

  "Ok, either useless, or I'm doing something wrong. What else... maybe trying to focus on anything." The frustrated soul thought and started to concoct some idea and find on what to focus.

  After some time the soul wasn't able to find anything tangible, so it settled on looking forward and trying to focus, and it did focus, focus and focus...

  *Long, long time later*

  The soul finally felt something, as it did just few times before, just a phantom on edge of its perception, but always when it tried to focus it always lost it. These were its first glimpses of the edges of its soul, or even its insides, though it didn't understand what it was sensing yet.

  "Fuck me!!!" shouted the over-frustrated soul, after many failed attempts to perceive something.

  "Okay, so this did work to an extent... Probably should try out again the meditation, maybe I awakened something, if I'm starting to perceive something on the edges, so... So hopefully more successful, otherwise I'm fucked," thought to itself the frustrated soul as it tried to desperately find solution to its troubles.

  "So clear mind and calm mind, clear and calm mind..." repeated to itself the soul, as it tried to get itself into some trance.

  *Some unknown time later*

  "Finally... No!" The soul started to perceive some edges, but not in one direction, in every single one, unfortunately the second it had gotten happy it had lost its concentration. These edges were the boundaries of its own essence, though it didn't realize this yet.

  "Oh man, okay, so it works I can perceive something. Okay focus, focus..." It tried to get back into the meditative state.

  *Many failed tries later*

  The edges of the soul started to come together into one whole, first the edges in every direction, and then it started to see its fluid-like inside. And then it was like something clicked and the whole of its body became perceivable to it like a second nature.

  "Oh, OH!!!" When it started to perceive itself, it came to the most logical conclusion it could, though it still didn't understand the true nature of its existence in this realm.

  "I'm a red sexless energy being?!"

  The soul floated in the endless void, finally aware of its form but still ignorant of the true nature of the void and the existence of Aether —unaware that it was an anomaly, a foreign soul sustaining itself by consuming the very essence of this space while other souls ‘peacefully’ dissolved into it. Its journey of discovery and Ascension was just beginning.