— THE FIRST WHISPER OF CREATION
Time in the World Seed was strange. It didn't flow the way Vaen knew it should—or maybe he didn't know time at all. Days, months, centuries—they blurred, folded over each other, like pages in a book that had been read too many times.
Vaen sat beneath a tree that had grown from nothing, roots curling in shapes he didn't recognize. Mist creatures knelt around him, silent, watching, waiting. Their eyes glimmered faintly as if they knew things he had yet to discover about himself.
He reached out, hand trembling slightly. Water flowed over his fingers, though he didn't remember creating it. The droplets hung in the air for a heartbeat before falling, tiny stars vanishing into the misty ground.
A voice whispered in his mind—not loud, not urgent, but old.
"You are awake… but not ready."
Vaen blinked. He didn't speak. He listened. The words curled around his thoughts like smoke, carrying… intent. He could feel the weight of it, heavy, patient, but not threatening. Not yet.
He tried to remember the world outside. Flickers. Light. Shadows. His parents. Something had been taken from him, though he didn't know what.
"Why?" he murmured to the silence. "Why take… everything?"
The air shivered. The ground beneath him pulsed. And then, slowly, movement stirred in the mist. Not creatures this time. Something else. Something small. A familiar of sorts.
It was no bigger than his hand, a shape he couldn't name, colors shifting like liquid. It approached cautiously, then paused, looking up at him as if testing.
Vaen stared back, his eyes reflecting more than just the familiar. They reflected possibility. Control. Power that he didn't yet understand—but would.
"You… belong to me now," he said softly. Not a command. Not really. Just a fact, a recognition.
The familiar shivered, then leaned closer. Its form flickered, revealing what it was: a fragment of creation itself, a piece of something older than the World Seed, waiting for someone to notice it.
Vaen smiled faintly. Not warmth. Not innocence. But comprehension.
He lifted his small hand again, and the rivers of his inner world paused mid-flow. Trees bent slightly as if listening. The mist swirled, gathering around him.
"I can feel it," he whispered. "Everything that's hidden. Everything that's broken. Everything that was stolen…"
A ripple ran through the ground, like the serpent moving beneath the cradle. Not threatening. Not yet. Curious. Observing. Waiting.
Vaen let it be. For now.
Because even here, in a world of his own making, he was learning patience. Learning the rhythm of things that had existed long before him.
And somewhere in the void, in the spaces between thought and reality, a question stirred:
"Who… will name the origin?"
Vaen closed his eyes. A tiny, deliberate smile curved his lips.
He didn't know the answer yet.
But he would.
And when he did… the world would remember.