I'm falling.
No—not falling.
Floating.
There's a difference, I think.
Falling implies gravity. Implies direction. Implies an end—a ground rushing up to meet you, a destination you can't avoid no matter how much you want to.
Falling means somewhere, eventually, you'll stop. And when you stop, something happens. Pain. Death. Impact. Something.
This is different.
This is just... existing.
In nothing.
No up. No down. No before. No after. The concepts themselves feel foreign here, like words from a language I used to speak but have since forgotten.
Direction doesn't exist in a place without reference points.
Time doesn't exist in a place without change.
I'm suspended in an absence so complete it feels almost solid, almost tangible, almost like something I could touch if I only had hands to reach with.
Just... here.
Wherever here is.
I should be afraid.
Instead of fear, I feel... curiosity.
And patience.
And the strangest sense that I've been here before. Not in this exact moment, not in this exact configuration of nothing, but somewhere like it.
Then I saw a light.
Light that is everything.
Light that contains everything.
Light that remembers everything—every moment that ever happened, every life that ever lived, every star that ever burned and died and scattered its remains across the void.
And in that light—
There was a being.
I can't describe it properly. The words don't exist.
My brain keeps trying and failing and trying again, each attempt feeling smaller than the last. It's like trying to describe color to someone who's only ever seen darkness.
It has a shape. Sort of. Human-ish.
The suggestion of a form—two arms, two legs, a head, the rough outline of something that might once have been familiar. The memory of a body. The echo of something that chose to look this way, or was shaped this way, or simply existed this way because some part of me needed to see it as something I could almost recognize.
But also not.
Because inside it—through it—instead of blood and bone and the ordinary machinery of life—
There were galaxies.
Actual galaxies.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Thousands. Probably infinite—a word I'd used carelessly before, never understanding what it truly meant.
Galaxies swirling in its chest like blood through veins, each one a pinwheel of light and motion and impossible scale.
I should be terrified. The scale alone should break me. The knowledge that I'm looking at something that contains more universes than I contain atoms should shatter whatever passes for my mind in this place.
I'm not terrified.
I'm just... watching.
Like I've always watched.
Like I'll always watch.
The being moves. Not toward me—I don't think it knows I'm here, doesn't think it's capable of perceiving something as small as me. Not away from me either. Just... moves. The way a mountain moves. Like it's forgotten I exist.
Which I guess it has.
Why wouldn't it? What am I compared to this? A speck. Less than a speck. Less than a single atom in a single cell in a single organism on a single world in a single galaxy in a single one of the countless universes spinning through its chest. A thought that hasn't finished forming.
My mind is kept telling me what I even babbling about.
It raises its hands—clusters of realities moving with them, each finger joint containing more than I'll ever know.
I don't have words for what I see. But I'll try anyway. Because trying to describe the indescribable is the only way we know how to make sense of things too big for us.
The concept of space folds. Like something that existed before the concept of folding was invented.
The concept of time bends. Like something that was never meant to bend, bending perfectly. Past and future and present all curving toward each other, touching at angles that shouldn't exist, creating shapes that geometry never dreamed of.
And from that folding, that bending, that impossible geometry of space and time—
Something new becomes.
A universe.
It's incomprehensible in size. I try to grasp it and fail.
My mind keeps sliding off it, unable to find purchase, unable to hold onto anything solid.
The universe contains everything and nothing. It's perfect and complete and alive in a way that has nothing to do with biology.
It has laws—laws I'll never understand, laws that govern interactions between things I can't perceive, laws that were written in a language that predates language itself.
The being looks at it. Tilts its head—that almost-human gesture, that echo of something familiar. Nods. Satisfied in a way that has nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with purpose.
Then it creates another.
And another.
And another.
Each one is incomprehensible in size. Each one is perfect. Each one is born from hands that hold galaxies like I hold grains of sand—casually, effortlessly, with the practiced ease of something that has done this countless times before and will do it countless times again.
I watch. Can't look away. Don't want to. How could anyone look away from this? How could anyone see creation unfolding and choose to observe something else?
The being pauses.
In the middle of creation. In the middle of birthing something that contains more than I'll ever understand.
Turns its head. Slowly. The way a continent might turn if continents could decide where to face.
Looks at me.
For a second—just a second, but seconds don't exist here, time doesn't exist here, so maybe it's an eternity or maybe it's less than nothing—I think it sees me.
Those eyes—if you can call them eyes, these windows into something beyond, these openings into a consciousness so vast that consciousness itself feels like an insufficient word.
Eternity looking at a moment.
Infinity looking at a dot.
And in that look—
Recognition?
No. It can't be. The thought is absurd.
What am I that something like this would recognize me? What have I ever done that would earn the attention of a being who creates universes the way I breathe?
Why would it recognize me?
What am I?
The being turns back. The moment ends. The weight of its attention lifts, and I'm left feeling smaller than I've ever felt, more insignificant than I've ever imagined possible.
It continues creating. New universes spinning from its hands, new realities taking shape in the space between its fingers.
Like I was never there.
Like I'm nothing.
Like—
The scene shifts.
I'm on a shore.
Somewhere that isn't anywhere. Somewhere that was just a transition.
The sand is warm beneath my feet. Warmer than should be possible. Warmer than any sand I've ever felt.
The water is clear. I can see through it forever—down to depths that shouldn't exist.
The sky is... I don't know what the sky is. It keeps changing. Colors that don't have names bleeding into each other.
I look down. At the sand. At the grains slipping between my toes—each one distinct, each one separate, each one exactly where it's supposed to be.
And I see them.
Not as sand.
As realities.
Each grain is a world. Each speck is a universe.
Each tiny fragment of warmth pressing against my skin contains a story—a complete, infinite, impossibly complex story unfolding across existence I can't perceive.
Millions of them. Billions. Trillions. Infinite—that word again, that word that should mean something but doesn't, that word that I keep using because no other word comes close.
I'm standing on infinity.
And it's warm.
And it's soft.
And it doesn't even know I'm here. All these worlds, all these universes, all these countless realities—and not one of them is aware that a boy from Aventic is standing on them, crushing them under his feet, leaving footprints in the fabric of their existence.
I kneel. The motion feels sacred.
My knees press into worlds. My weight rests on realities.
I can feel them—not as pressure, not as texture, but as something else. Something that bypasses physical sensation and speaks directly to whatever part of me exists beyond the physical.
I pick up a handful. The grains are light. Almost weightless. They should be heavier—they contain everything, they contain more than everything—but they sit in my palm like they belong there. Like they've been waiting for me to pick them up.
I let them run through my fingers. Each grain that falls—each reality—is unique. Different. I can feel them.
Their joys humming like music—melodies I've never heard, harmonies I can't reproduce, songs that have been playing since the beginning of everything.
Their beginnings sharp and bright—the first moments of creation. Their ends soft and dark—the gentle closing of stories.
A grain passes my thumb. Inside it, a star explodes. A civilization that lasted a million years ends in the space between heartbeats.
Another grain. A universe where nothing ever happened. No stars. No planets. No life. Just empty space, stretching endlessly in every direction.
Another grain. A universe where everything happened at once. Chaos and order and life and death, all tangled together, all inseparable.
They don't notice me. These worlds. These realities. These infinite, complex, beautiful universes.
Why would they?
I'm just a boy standing on infinity. Just a soldier who doesn't know what he is.
What am I compared to a universe?
What is anyone?
The shore crumbles.
I fall.
Into water.
Clear water. So clear I can see forever. So clear I can see things that shouldn't be visible. So clear I can see myself reflected in it, and my reflection looks different. Older. Younger. Both at once. Neither.
I'm not drowning. My lungs don't burn. My body doesn't panic.
Not breathing either. The water fills me without filling me.
My body exists in a state that has nothing to do with biology. Just... floating. Existing in a way that has nothing to do with lungs or air or life as I've always understood it.
Bubbles rise around me.
Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. More than I can count. More than anyone could count.
And each bubble—
Each bubble is a reality.
I can see inside them. Through them. Each one is a story. Each one is a universe complete unto itself, floating past me in the endless clear water.
A bubble drifts past my face. Inside it, a girl laughs. I can hear her—faintly, like music from another room, like a song playing in a house I'm walking past.
Another bubble. A boy cries. His tears are real. I can almost feel them—warm and salt and full of a grief that's too big for his small body. I want to reach out. Want to tell him it'll be okay.
Another bubble. A birth. A mother's scream becoming a child's cry. The moment of transition—from nothing to something. The child's first breath. The mother's first touch. The beginning of a story that will take a lifetime to tell.
Another bubble. A death. An old man—old for his species, whatever that means—smiling as he lets go.
All of them. All at once. All around me.
The bubbles rise. Keep rising. Endlessly. Infinitely. Each one a universe.
And none of them see me. None of them know I'm here. None of them are aware that a boy from another reality is floating in their midst, watching their past, present and future with eyes that don't belong.
I'm just... watching.
Always watching.
Forever watching.
A bubble stops.
Right in front of my face.
Inside it—
Me.
I'm sitting on a couch. Golden light spills through windows I don't recognize. The fan spins overhead.
Beside me, there's a girl. I can't quite see her face—it keeps shifting, keeps changing, keeps being multiple things at once. Red hair. Golden hair. White hair. Three possibilities, all existing simultaneously, all equally real. She's laughing at something I said. Her hand is resting on my arm.
And I'm smiling.
Not the small smiles I've been practicing. Full and unguarded and completely at peace.
It was normal. So painfully, beautifully normal.
I reach out. My hand moves through the water with a slowness that feels deliberate. Feels important. Feels like I'm about to do something that can't be undone.
My finger touches the bubble.
The surface is warm. Warmer than the water. Warmer than the shore.
It pops.
Just like that. One touch, and the universe inside it—the universe with the couch and the girl and the smile I don't know how to wear—is gone. Scattered back into the water. Returning to wherever realities go when they stop being real.
And I'm falling again.
The water fades.
I'm somewhere else now.
Nowhere.
Just... void.
And in this void—
A woman.
Floating.
Elegant doesn't cover it. Beautiful doesn't cover it. There aren't words for what she is. There aren't languages that could describe her.
Every word I reach for falls short in new and creative ways, each failure more complete than the last.
She's not beautiful the way humans are beautiful. She's not beautiful the way sunsets are beautiful.
She's beautiful the way the concept of beauty itself is beautiful—the original, the source, the thing that all other beautiful things are trying and failing to imitate.
White hair. So white it glows. So white it hurts to look at directly.
White skin. Like moonlight made solid.
White eyes. No pupils. No irises. None of the familiar structures that make eyes eyes. Just... white. But not empty white.
White dress. Flowing. Endless. Made of something that isn't fabric.
She floats in the nothing like she owns it.
Like she is it.
Like she's been here forever and will be here forever and forever means nothing to her.
I try to speak. My throat doesn't work. My mouth doesn't move. The concept of speech feels ridiculous here, feels like trying to describe a symphony with a single note.
I try to move. My body doesn't respond. My limbs don't exist. I'm not sure I have a body anymore—not sure I ever had one, not sure the body I remember was anything more than a dream this place is allowing me to keep.
Just... watch.
Like always.
Like I'll always do.
She turns.
The motion is graceful in a way that has nothing to do with physical movement. She doesn't turn the way bodies turn—with muscles and joints and the ordinary mechanics of motion.
She looks at me.
And for the first time in this dream—
Someone sees me.
Those white eyes. Empty and full at the same time. Holding things I can't name. Things I'll never be able to name.
She smiles.
Not warm. Not cold. Not anything that fits into human categories of expression.
And speaks.
Her voice isn't sound. It's something else. Something that goes straight into my consciousness without passing through any intermediary.
"Master."
Master.
She called me Master.
Why?
Who is she? What is she? What connection exists between us that I don't remember?
What—
"You're entering a dream that you're not supposed to enter."
The void shakes. The words aren't just words—they're actions, they're forces, they're reality reshaping itself in response to her voice.
Her form flickers. Once. Twice. The solidity I'd perceived—the sense that she was really here, really present—was an illusion.
Or,
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe she's always flickering. Maybe she exists in a state of perpetual almost-there, and I'm only now seeing clearly enough to notice.
"Wake up."
"Nams."
A voice. Not hers. Another. Familiar in a way the white woman isn't.
"Wake up."
I gasp.
Sit up. The motion is violent, desperate, the motion of someone who's been underwater and finally broken the surface. My lungs burn.
I was in my room. On my bed.
Morning light through the window. Golden. Warm. Real.
I'm breathing hard. Sweating. Shaking.
The images from the dream are already fading—the being of light, the shore of universes, the bubbles, the white woman.
I try to hold onto them and they slip away like water through fingers, like sand through fingers, like realities through fingers.
Just a dream.
Just a—
"Nams."
I turned.
Shenhe is sitting on the edge of my bed.
I didn't hear her come in. She moves like a ghost.
She is expressionless. As always. Her face is a mask of perfect composure—no furrowed brow, no worried frown, none of the tells that normal people display when they're concerned.
But her eyes—
Her blue eyes are watching me with something I can't read. Something that might be concern. Might be recognition.
"You were dreaming."
It's not a question.
I nod. My throat is too dry for words.
"Bad one?"
I don't know how to answer that. Bad? Was it bad? There was no pain. No fear.
But there was something else. Something vast. Something that made me feel smaller than I've ever felt.
Good? Was it good? The light was beautiful. The shore was warm. The bubbles held wonders I'll never see again. The white woman smiled at me.
Neither?
Both?
"I don't know," I whisper. My voice sounds strange in my own ears.
Shenhe nods. Like that makes sense.
Then she stands. The motion is fluid and silent and completely without effort.
She moves toward the door—already retreating, already giving me space.
Pauses at the threshold. Her back is to me. Her white hair catches the morning light, glowing faintly.
Without turning back, she speaks:
"I see. Some dreams aren't meant to be understood." A pause. Longer than usual. More deliberate. "Just remembered."
She leaves.
The door clicks shut behind her.
I stare at the empty doorway. The space where she was standing.
I thought about her words.
How can I remember something I don't understand? How can I hold onto images that are already fading, already slipping away, already being replaced by the ordinary reality of my bedroom and my ceiling fan and the golden morning light?
I look at my hands.
Normal hands.
Holding nothing.
But I can still feel them. The grains of sand that were universes. The bubbles that were realities. The warmth of the shore and the clarity of the water and the weight of the white woman's gaze.
I can still feel them. All of them. Pressing against my skin like memories that haven't finished forming.
Master.
She called me Master. That word. That impossible, terrifying, incomprehensible word.
Why?
No answers. There are never answers.
I can hear the distant sound of Angy in the kitchen, probably starting a small fire.
And me?
Alone with my thoughts. Alone with my questions. Alone with the fading echo of a dream that felt more real than anything I've ever experienced.
Wondering.
Remembering.
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