In the endless expanse of space, where time flows differently and reality bends under the weight of unseen forces, a great nebula stretched out—a ghostly glow in the black abyss.
It breathed like a living thing: cold streams of interstellar gas intertwined with dust, birthing new stars and burying the old.
Its colors were the watercolors of chaos: violet flashes of ionized hydrogen, scarlet tongues of plasma, turquoise ripples of cosmic ice.
The light of distant suns, piercing through this haze, shattered into a billion sparks, as if the universe were scattering diamonds into the dark.
Here, there was no sound—only eternal silence, broken perhaps by supernova explosions whose shockwaves rippled through the nebula for centuries, reshaping it.
Gravity painted strange patterns: some clouds compressed into new worlds, others scattered into the void like smoke in the wind.
And at the heart of the nebula, where matter reached its densest point, sat a faceless Elder. Everything moved around him unseen, as if afraid to brush against the face of the divine. Only time touched him lightly, flowing around him like a thin stream…
This moment stretched like eternity, repeating in the fragile glass of time.
Slender threads of light, like phosphorescence, scattered in the dark—each spark holding distant cries, their echoes lost in infinity. They trembled like the last leaves on an autumn wind, melting before they could touch the ground.
The Elder stood at the edge of the world. His wrinkles were like cracks in reality itself, and in his eyes—whole galaxies of faded memories. He sighed, and that sigh was heavier than a black hole's gravity. It carried everything: bitter wisdom, quiet rage, and longing for moments that could never return.
The air trembled, filled with the scent of dying stars—sweet as ashes, bitter as farewell. Somewhere far beyond sight, a new universe was being born, but here, in this corner of existence, time seemed frozen, spellbound by its own sorrow.
And then…
Silence.
Only a single moment, sharp as a blade, sliced through the dark—and shattered into a thousand fragments. The Elder reached out, as if to catch just one, but they slipped through his fingers like ghosts—elusive, irretrievable.
Another sigh.
Deeper than the abyss.
Quieter than death.
This had repeated billions of times. And it would have kept repeating—until one silhouette disturbed this illusory moment of Vsemir.
The one who shattered the peace was Lats.
"Ugh, you pretty little bastard, why must you interrupt my rest so rudely?" Vsemir sighed as if an entire universe had collapsed in his chest. His voice, like the creaking of ancient stars, rolled through the void, tugging at the threads of reality.
"But, Grandpa Vsemir, you promised!" Lats sprang up before him like a supernova—sudden, bright, and utterly uncontrollable. His eyes, twin shimmering quasars, burned with impatience. "On the third birth of a star! You said you'd tell me not some pitiful tale, but a legend! The one about how the first Multiverse was created! You swore it on the shards of the First Crystal!"
His words rang like broken glass in a cosmic wind.
Vsemir slowly turned his face toward him, and in his gaze danced the shadows of forgotten eras.
"Ahem… I remember, I remember…" His fingers, like the roots of ancient galaxies, tightened around a staff carved from the axis of time.
"Then hurry up and tell it! What's the hold-up, Grandpa Vsemir?!" Lats bounced, tiny stars flaring around him—traces of untamed energy.
Vsemir smirked.
"Fine… but sit down. And don't interrupt. Because what you're about to hear isn't just a story… it's what came before stories."
He swept his hand through the void, and space before them tore open, revealing a darkness older than light itself.
"In the beginning, there was no time, no space. There was only… It. Formless, nameless, endless. And then… It sneezed."
Lats froze.
"…What?"
"Sneezed, you pretty little bastard. And from that sneeze came the first sound—'Achoo-BOOM!'"
Lats' mouth fell open.
"Are… are you messing with me?"
Vsemir rolled his eyes.
"Ah, right, you wanted an 'unforgettable Legend,' not the truth? Then listen up: 'IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS—'"
"STOP!"* Lats jumped up. *"Last time you said it was a SPARK!"
Vsemir paused.
"…Oh, right. Well, then, that's how it was."
Lats grabbed his head.
"GRANDPA VSEMIR!!!"
The old man laughed, and the laws of existence trembled at the sound.
"Alright, alright… Here's the real story. Listen…"
And then, the darkness around them came alive.
"Before light existed, there was no world at all. Only clumps of chaos, seething in the void," Vsemir began, his voice burning through the fabric of being.
"Really?!" Lats blurted out in disbelief.
"Don't interrupt, you little brat!" Vsemir thundered, and space shuddered like a supernova's blast.
"But, Grandpa…" Lats pouted.
"Sit and stay silent till the end!" Vsemir grumbled, his sigh as cruel as a black hole's birth.
Lats obediently shut up.
"So… before the beginning of all known stories, there was nothing. Only flickers of cruelty and darkness. And the only ones proving any life existed were the Gods of Chaos. Back then, there were no planets, no universes—nothing. Only War."
A bitter mist enveloped space as Vsemir spoke.
"No living beings except them—mindless Gods and their creators, called the Wills. They were the instigators of everything. But only until the most powerful among them, Konomara, decided to end the war. Everything was annihilated, until only endless void remained. The last spark of Konomara's will gave rise to something new…"
Shadows of forgotten epochs danced in Vsemir's eyes.
"Grandpa Vsemir, stop being silent!" Lats cried warily.
The old man startled, as if waking.
"Sigh… And this emptiness lasted for three and a half thousand epochs, until the last of the Wills gave rise to me—a shard of stone, broken off from another Will's weapon, drifting in the dark. Back then, I was half flesh, half spirit…"
His voice grew quieter, weaker.
"I had only one question for her… Why?"
Lats held his breath.
"And you know what she answered?"
"What?!" Lats whispered, eyes blazing.
"'You are a wretched creation, abandoned by your own soul, an echo of bygone greatness. You are fate, forgotten by itself. And you shall only serve me, for I am your only hope of salvation…'"
For a moment, Vsemir darkened—and so did the entire world.
"She thought I was nothing… and called herself my savior."
Silence.
"And that was the beginning of everything," Vsemir finally said, his words sounding like a verdict.
The space around Lats vanished, leaving him no escape.
"Now—scram! Off my cradle of silence!" Vsemir grumbled, though his voice held a strange tenderness.
The universe of Totius shuddered—and Lats was gone.
Only a distant voice echoed from the folds of the void:
"Graaandpaaaa, you rotten stump! Why so cruel?!"
And then the light of a new star, white as pure beginnings, swallowed the last echoes…
Was this a new beginning?