— The Slumber That Shattered Silence
Part I
The realm within the World Seed had never known movement.
Its rivers flowed because he once dreamed they should.
Its stars shone because his mind accepted light as a truth.
Everything existed in perfect obedience to the quiet rhythm of his breath.
But on this day, the silence changed.
The air grew heavy, as if the concept of stillness itself began to fracture.
From far beyond the crystalline sky came a soundless vibration—a pulse without tone.
It did not echo through air or stone, but through meaning.
Even the laws that defined color and distance bent toward it, trembling.
Vaen stood beneath the willow that had watched his countless solitary years.
He looked up. The firmament no longer seemed endless; it quivered, veined with pale cracks that glowed from within.
> "…So it begins."
His voice was neither loud nor soft—it simply was.
A whisper that rippled through the world like gravity remembering it had a master.
The river beside him rose, its waters hanging mid-air, trembling like glass.
Each droplet reflected not his image but fragments of other realities: dying suns, screaming gods, and broken thrones.
He watched them with detached curiosity, like a scholar examining insects under starlight.
Inside him, something ancient stirred.
A rhythm that had once kept the universe alive began to match the beating of his heart.
> What are you? he thought—not to the presence, but to himself.
A dream that outlived its dreamer? Or the dreamer who forgot he was awake?
The ground split in answer.
From the fissures rose motes of black luminescence—light that devoured its own shine.
They spiraled around him, whispering syllables that no realm should contain.
Every word they spoke was a memory the heavens had tried to erase.
The creatures of the Seed—his familiars, spirits born from his unconscious will—fell to their knees.
Some wept, others crumbled into dust.
They did not understand the command hidden in the tremor, only that their god had moved.
Vaen's eyes half-opened.
Twin reflections of infinity blinked once, and the realm screamed.
Mountains folded into themselves.
Oceans reversed, flowing upward into clouds of shattered reflections.
The concept of day forgot to exist.
Yet amid the apocalypse, Vaen's expression did not change.
> Is this fear? he wondered.
Or recognition?
He lifted his hand, watching the veins of light crawl across his palm.
Each line pulsed with symbols—runes older than the divine tongue, patterns that predated creation.
They shimmered, then vanished, leaving a faint warmth that spread through his veins like dawn.
In that moment, he felt the world outside the Seed.
Not saw, not heard—felt.
The faint hum of billions of minds.
The stifled gasps of gods who suddenly looked up, uncertain why the air itself had grown heavy.
Vaen exhaled slowly.
> I see you now… faintly.
The cracks above him widened.
Through them, he glimpsed fragments of the higher realms—spires of light, endless seas of divine fire.
But beyond them all, an ocean of nothing stared back.
And from that void came a whisper, thin and distant, yet older than time:
> "Aen'varen…"
The forbidden name.
The syllables struck every corner of the Seed.
Reality convulsed.
Time stumbled and tried to run backward.
Vaen's pupils contracted.
For the first time since his birth, a spark of emotion touched his eyes—recognition, perhaps even sorrow.
But it vanished as quickly as it came.
> They remember me, he thought. And that means they fear me still.
The world shuddered one final time before freezing completely.
Cracks sealed.
Rivers fell back into their beds.
All was still again—except for Vaen, whose heartbeat no longer belonged to a mortal measure.
He closed his eyes.
When they opened again, they glowed faintly with threads of black fire.
> "Soon," he murmured. "But not yet."
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To be continued in Part II…