The roar of the Stone-brow king echoes in a mind that is no longer in the room. Jaxon is a ghost, an observer floating on the currents of his own creation, utterly enthralled. The physical world, the world of cold pizza and concerned friends, is less than a dream.
"Liam, he's not breathing right." Chloe's voice is a razor's edge of panic, sharp enough to cut through the movie's explosions. Her hands tighten on Jaxon's shoulders, shaking him with a frantic energy that does not register. "His chest is barely moving."
Liam is on his feet now, the joking smirk wiped clean from his face, replaced by a pale, wide-eyed mask of fear. He leans over the coffee table, his hand hovering near Jaxon's face.
"Jax? C'mon, man, this isn't funny anymore. Snap out of it." He waves his hand again, more aggressively this time. Jaxon's eyes, fixed and distant, do not even flicker. "His skin is cold."
Chloe lets out a small, choked sound. She fumbles for her phone, her fingers clumsy with adrenaline.
"I'm calling 911."
"Wait, call his mom first. She'll know what to do. Maybe it's something to do with the shock he got."
"What if we don't have time, Liam?" Chloe's voice cracks, the terror raw and exposed. "What if it's a seizure? A stroke?"
The word 'stroke' is the pin that pops the balloon. Jaxon's consciousness slams back into his body with the force of a physical blow. The primal jungles of Genesis-01 vanish in a painful flash of white. The triumphant roar of the giant king is replaced by the frantic, terrified sound of Chloe's breathing.
He is in a dim living room. The TV is a smear of colour in his peripheral vision. Chloe is right in front of him, her face pale, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her hands are digging into his shoulders like claws. Liam stands frozen by the coffee table, his phone held halfway to his ear, his knuckles white.
Jaxon blinks. His head feels like it is full of static. "What?" The word comes out as a dry croak.
Chloe's whole body sags with a wave of relief so profound it seems to rob her of all strength. She lets go of his shoulders and collapses against him, her arms wrapping around his neck in a desperate, clinging hug. Her face presses into the crook of his neck, and he can feel her trembling.
"Oh my god, Jaxon. Don't you ever do that again." Her voice is a muffled, shaky whisper against his skin. "We thought… I thought you were dying."
Her words, her fear, the tremor running through her body—it all registers. He looks over her shoulder at Liam, who slowly lowers his phone, his own expression a mixture of relief and utter confusion. Jaxon sees the scene from their perspective: their friend, rigid as a corpse, eyes wide and unseeing, completely unresponsive for what must have felt like an eternity. He did this. His secret did this.
The loneliness he felt just moments before curdles into a sharp, painful guilt. The secret is no longer just his burden to carry. It is a weapon, and he is hurting the people he cares about most. He cannot tell them. He has to show them.
As Chloe holds him, her fear a tangible thing against his chest, Jaxon's mind performs a silent, lightning-fast transaction. The CREATION SHOP blooms in his internal vision, the icon for the GATE glowing with an intense, beckoning light.
System. Buy GATE.
The command is a whisper of pure intent. A hundred Genesis Points vanish from his balance. A chime that only he can hear confirms the purchase.
[PURCHASE COMPLETE. GATE HAS BEEN ADDED TO CREATION INVENTORY.]
He has the key. He has the doorway.
He gently pulls back from Chloe's hug, his hands resting on her arms. He looks at her, then at Liam, his own expression now deadly serious. The static in his head is gone, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.
"I'm sorry," he starts, his voice low but steady. "I am so, so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
Liam takes a step closer. "Dude, what the hell was that? You were gone. Like, completely checked out."
Jaxon nods, taking a deep breath that does little to calm the frantic thumping of his heart. He meets their worried, confused gazes. There is no going back. There is no easy way to say this. There is only the truth.
"You guys need to sit down." He gestures to the sofa. "What I have to tell you… it's going to sound completely insane. But I need you to just listen."
Chloe wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, her expression shifting from fear to a wary, intense focus. Liam stays standing, his arms crossed, a silent demand for an explanation.
"The reason I was late," Jaxon says, the words feeling heavy and inadequate. "The reason I've been so distracted. The reason I just… blanked out… It's not because of some coding bug." He looks from Chloe's face to Liam's, the enormity of what he is about to say settling over him. "When that computer shocked me, it didn't just knock me out. It… woke something up. Something inside the game I was building. And it gave me…" He trails off, searching for the right word, the one that will not make them immediately call an asylum. He settles for the simplest, most honest one he has.
"It gave me power."
Liam lets out a short, incredulous laugh. It is a harsh, grating sound in the quiet room. "Power? What are you talking about? Did you hit your head when you blanked out? Are you concussed?"
Chloe's expression does not have an ounce of humour in it. Her face is a mask of deep, genuine worry. She takes a hesitant step toward him, her hands held up in a placating gesture, the way one might approach a spooked animal.
"Jax, listen to me. A massive electrical current just went through your body. The doctors said it could have side effects. Confusion, delusions… It's okay. We just need to call someone."
"No." Jaxon's voice is firm, cutting through her gentle tone. "I'm not confused. I'm not delusional. I am trying to tell you the truth." He looks between them, his friends, the two people in the world he trusts, and sees nothing but a wall of fear and disbelief. He has to make them understand. "The game I was building… it's not a game anymore. It's a tool. It's an interface in my head. I can access it, just by thinking."
He gestures vaguely at the air in front of him. "I can open a shop. I can buy the building blocks of a universe. Stardust. Gravity. I can write the laws of physics like they're lines of code."
Liam's face hardens, the last trace of humour gone, replaced by a cold anger. "Stop it, Jaxon. Just stop. This isn't funny. We thought you were dying five minutes ago, and now you're talking like you're a god? What is wrong with you?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Jaxon's voice rises, a ragged edge of desperation creeping in. "I'm not saying I'm a god, I'm saying… I'm a creator. A programmer. I've built worlds. Three of them. A fourth one is in development. There's one with dinosaurs that breathe magic, and another with these… these deer with glowing horns that purify the planet's energy." The words sound insane, even to his own ears, spilling out into the mundane quiet of Chloe's living room.
"That's it." Chloe pulls her phone from her pocket, her thumb hovering over the screen. Her eyes are shimmering with tears now, tears of fear for him. "I'm calling your mom. You need help, Jaxon. You're not well."
Her words are a physical blow. Help. She thinks he needs a doctor, a hospital. She thinks he is broken. He looks at their faces, at the genuine terror and concern twisting their features, and he knows that words are useless. They are a wall he can no longer break through. There is only one thing left to do.
"Fine." The word is quiet, heavy with resignation. "Don't call her. Just… watch."
He closes his eyes. He pushes past their worried voices, past the smell of cold pizza, past the reality of the room. He reaches into his mind, into the System, and finds the icon for the GATE. It glows with a steady, confident light in his inventory.
System. Deploy GATE. Destination: Argent.
A new prompt appears, simple and direct.
[SELECT DEPLOYMENT COORDINATES.]
He focuses his intent on the empty space of air between the coffee table and the massive television.
Here.
When he opens his eyes, the change is already beginning. The air in the center of the living room shimmers, like a heat haze on a summer road. A low hum fills the space, a deep, resonant frequency that vibrates in their bones. Liam and Chloe fall silent, their argument forgotten, their faces frozen in a mixture of confusion and alarm.
"Jax, what did you do?" Liam whispers.
The shimmering air begins to coalesce. Light bends around a central point, twisting inward. The edges of a perfect, two-dimensional circle resolve into existence, its boundary a sharp, clean line of shimmering silver energy. It hangs in the air, a silent, vertical tear in the fabric of the room. Inside the circle, there is no reflection of the living room. There is only a swirling vortex of deep, iridescent blues and purples.
The vortex churns, then clarifies. It snaps into focus like a camera lens finding its subject. It is a window. A portal.
Through it, they see a world that is not their own. A vast, rolling plain of knee-high, rust-coloured grass sways under a sky of the deepest, purest violet. In the distance, a range of mountains, their peaks like jagged black teeth, tears at the horizon. The light is wrong. It is a soft, diffused silver that seems to come from the sky itself, not from a single sun. Strange, multi-winged insects with iridescent carapaces buzz through the air. The sound that drifts through the portal is not of traffic and sirens, but of the wind whistling through the alien grass and the distant cry of a creature they cannot name.
Chloe makes a small, strangled sound, her hand flying to her mouth. Liam takes a stumbling step back, his eyes wide with an awe so profound it looks like terror.
"What… is that?"
"That," Jaxon says, his voice steady now, filled with a certainty that quiets the frantic beating of his heart, "is Argent."
He looks at their stunned faces. He sees the foundations of their reality cracking, the disbelief warring with the impossible truth hanging in their living room. He turns away from them and takes a step toward the shimmering portal. The air that spills from it is cool and smells of damp earth and a strange, spicy pollen.
He hesitates for only a second at the threshold. Then, he steps through.
The world solidifies around him. The soft, springy turf of Argent compresses under the soles of his sneakers. The cool, clean air fills his lungs. He looks up at the violet sky, at the silver light that bathes the landscape. He is here. He has crossed over.
A surge of triumph rushes through him, and with it comes an instinct, a new sense he has grown accustomed to. He reaches out with his mind, trying to feel the world he has built. He seeks the pulse of the Telluric Network deep beneath his feet, the web of Aura he so carefully designed. He tries to taste the raw Mana he knows saturates the very atmosphere, the power of the sky.
Nothing.
He feels the wind on his face. He hears the buzzing of the insects. He feels the solid ground beneath his feet. But the deeper senses, the ones that allow him to perceive the flow of Essence, are silent. He is blind to it. He focuses inward, trying to feel his own connection to the System, the wellspring of his power. It is there, distant and quiet, like a server he can only access remotely. But here, in the flesh, on the ground… he is just a body. He is just Jaxon Steele. A normal human with no armor, no spells, no power. Just a kid in a t-shirt and jeans, standing alone on an alien world of his own creation.
Back in the living room, the shimmering portal hangs like a wound in the air, its impossible light painting the faces of Liam and Chloe in hues of violet and silver. Chloe's hand is still clamped over her mouth, her knuckles white. Liam stares, his earlier anger and disbelief vaporized, replaced by a raw, primal awe that has him trembling.
"He… he's gone," Chloe whispers, the sound muffled by her fingers.
Liam takes a half-step toward the portal, then flinches back as if from a hot stove. He looks at Chloe, his eyes wide and seeking confirmation that he is not insane. "That's a world. That's a real, actual world in your living room."
"What do we do?" Chloe's voice is frayed, stretched thin. "Do we call someone? Who do we even call? The police? NASA?"
"No." Liam shakes his head, his gaze locked on the rust-coloured plains visible through the shimmering circle. "We can't. Look at it. No one would believe us. They'd think we were crazy. They'd think he's crazy." He takes a deep breath, the decision solidifying in his eyes. He looks from the portal back to Chloe. "He went in there alone."
The implication hangs in the air between them. Jaxon, their friend who they thought was having a breakdown, just stepped into another dimension. Alone. Chloe's fear for his sanity is eclipsed by a sharper, more immediate fear for his safety. She lowers her hand, her expression hardening with resolve. She nods once, a short, sharp motion.
They look at each other, a silent pact passing between them. Then, together, they walk toward the light.
On Argent, Jaxon's initial surge of triumph crashes into a wall of unexpected silence. He stands in the rust-colored grass, the alien wind cool on his face, and feels… nothing. The deep, resonant connection he has to his creations, the ability to feel the flow of Mana in the air and the thrum of Aura in the earth, is gone. It is like a sixth sense has been surgically removed.
Panic, cold and sharp, lances through him. He closes his eyes, focusing inward, reaching for the familiar blue panel of the System. System, open WORLD CONTROLS.
Nothing. No shimmer, no interface. Just the darkness behind his eyelids. He tries again, his mental voice more forceful. Status report! Show me my Genesis Points!
A flicker. Not a panel, but a single, stark line of text, like a system error message burned directly onto his consciousness.
[Direct System interface is inaccessible while Creator is physically manifested within a creation. Remote commands only.]
The words are a death sentence to his plans. He is not a god here. He is not even an administrator. He is a tourist. A tourist with no powers, no special abilities, and no knowledge of the local predators. A cold dread begins to seep into his bones just as the silver light behind him shifts.
He turns to see Liam and Chloe stumbling through the GATE, their hands held up as if to ward off the impossible sight. They emerge from the shimmering portal onto the soft turf of Argent, their expressions a mess of terror and wonder. Liam's jaw hangs open as he slowly pivots, trying to take in the violet sky, the jagged black mountains, the sheer, impossible otherness of it all. Chloe wraps her arms around herself, her gaze darting from a strange, six-winged insect buzzing nearby to the bizarre, corkscrew-shaped trees dotting the plain.
"It's real," Liam breathes, his voice full of a reverence that borders on fear. "The air… you can smell it. It's real."
"What is this place, Jaxon?" Chloe's voice is quiet, but it cuts through the alien wind. "What did you do?"
Jaxon runs a hand through his hair, the feeling of his own powerlessness a bitter pill. "I told you. I built it." He gestures around them, at the vast, empty plains. "Come on. Let's walk for a minute. I'll explain everything. Just… stay close."
He starts walking, Chloe and Liam falling into step beside him, their heads on a constant swivel. He explains it all. He tells them about the hospital, the shock, and the System panel appearing in his vision. He explains Genesis Points, the currency of creation he earns by hitting milestones. He describes the LAW FORGE, how he writes the fundamental rules of his universes, from gravity to the very nature of magic.
"So Genesis-01, your first world, is this chaotic jungle planet full of magic dinosaurs?" Liam asks, his eyes bright with a manic excitement that is quickly overwhelming his fear. "And Aethelgard is, what, like a cultivation world from a novel? Where people can train to become super-powerful?"
"That's the long-term plan, yeah." Jaxon kicks at a strange, spongy fungus growing at the base of a rust-colored plant. "And Elysium is a world made of pure magic. The fish are made of light and the trees are made of crystal."
As they walk over a small rise, they see their first signs of complex life. A herd of creatures that look almost identical to Earthly deer grazes peacefully on the strange grass. But moving among them is something else entirely. A creature the size of a panther, its body covered in smooth, chitinous plates the color of obsidian, stalks on six insectoid legs. Its head is a wedge of sharp angles, and two long, feathery antennae twitch, tasting the air. The deer-like creatures pay it no mind. The two species seem to exist in a bizarre symbiosis.
"What is that thing?" Chloe whispers, pointing with a trembling finger.
"I have no idea," Jaxon admits. "This world is run by a World Spirit. An AI I seeded it with. It's guiding evolution according to a set of rules I wrote, but the specifics… they're up to the spirit." The admission feels strange. He is the creator, but he is not omniscient. He is just as much a visitor as they are.
They watch the creatures for a long moment before continuing, the weight of Jaxon's explanation settling over them. They are quiet for a time, the only sounds the crunch of their shoes on the alien turf and the whisper of the wind. Liam is the one who finally breaks the silence. He stops walking, forcing the other two to turn and face him. The manic excitement is gone from his face, replaced by a look of profound, soul-shaking realization. His voice is barely a whisper.
"So… all those nights we spent drawing up characters for D&D, all the video games we played, all the books we read…" He looks from Jaxon's face to the impossible landscape surrounding them. "Did you just make it so we can live in the worlds of our dreams?"
The question hits Jaxon with the force of a physical blow. He has been so focused on the mechanics, on the coding, on the grand, cosmic scale of it all, that he never truly considered the human element. The simple, childish, wonderful desire to step into a fantasy. To live it. Liam is not seeing a complex system of metaphysical laws and evolutionary pathways. He is seeing a doorway to another life, a world of adventure made real.
Jaxon opens his mouth to answer, but he has no words. The implications of Liam's question spiral outward in his mind. He thinks of the GATE, the bridge between his mundane reality and these fantastical ones. He thinks of Chloe and Liam, normal humans, standing on this world. They are here, breathing the air, but they are separate from it. They are not like the Aetherhorns of Aethelgard or the giants of Genesis-01. They have no Spirit Root, no Harmonizing Gland. The Essence that saturates this world is just inert energy to them. They can see the magic, but they can never touch it. They can visit the dream, but they can never be a part of it.
Unless…
An idea sparks, not as a complex law of physics, but as a simple, elegant piece of user interface design. What does every game give its player? A character sheet. A way to see their stats, their skills, their connection to the world's rules. What if a person arriving in one of his worlds was automatically granted the same? A panel, a personal interface, that would allow their human biology to connect to the metaphysical systems he built. It would translate their potential—their strength, their intelligence, their willpower—into quantifiable attributes. It would give them a pathway, a means to absorb and process the world's energy, to learn skills, to level up. It would be a bridge. A new law. The Law of the Attribute Panel.