When the consciousness woke, it did not do so gently.
Awareness returned in layers—first scale, then detail, then implication. What had once been a quiet act of existing was now crowded with structure, motion, sound, and intention.
Civilization.
It was everywhere.
Forests no longer merely grew; they arranged themselves. Cities pressed against their edges and sometimes inside them, buildings threading between living trunks that watched without curiosity. Creatures moved through streets and canopies alike—rabbits in tailored garments, bears discussing municipal concerns, birds carrying legal documents in their beaks while arguing about zoning laws that contradicted themselves on page two.
Space bent.
Architecture leaned sideways into directions that had no name. Doors led elsewhere than promised. Streets folded inward and outward depending on who was walking them and why. Entire districts existed inside structures that could not possibly contain them.
And then there were the candy lands.
Bright. Laughing. Chewing.
Kingdoms of edible citizens who consumed one another ceremonially and cheerfully, sugar-blood pooling only to be reabsorbed into the soil for later regrowth. Confectionary forests chimed in the wind. Caramel rivers dragged things under with sticky patience.
By any conventional standard—by any sane metric this consciousness remembered—this should have been horrifying.
Terrifying.
An ecological nightmare. A moral catastrophe. A place that violated physics, ethics, biology, and reason simultaneously and without apology.
Any normal observer would have recoiled.
Any average mind would have shattered trying to reconcile the screaming food, the watching trees, the sideways gravity, the casual cannibalism, the laughter that echoed without source or distance.
But this consciousness did not recoil.
It watched.
And thought, with mild fascination:
Oh. That's interesting.
That was the strange part.
Not the world.
The reaction.
This was a previously human soul—one that knew what horror was supposed to feel like. One that understood fear, revulsion, wrongness. And yet, confronted with a reality that should have triggered all of it, there was… none.
No panic.
No disgust.
No urge to undo what had been made.
Only curiosity.
This was not normal.
This was not sane.
This consciousness was an extreme outlier, even by the already warped standards of the realm it had become.
The thought registered distantly, then slid aside.
What mattered more was something else.
I can talk to them.
They were not just organisms anymore. Not just patterns. They were individuals. People. They spoke, argued, built, laughed, disagreed. They had mayors. Kingdoms. Cultural norms so deeply mad they looped back into coherence.
And the consciousness—this realm—was stuck observing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Creating was no longer enough.
Watching was insufficient.
"I want to meet them," the thought formed, simple and unadorned. "I want to talk."
So an idea took shape.
A vessel.
Not a puppet. Not a mask. A place for awareness to sit, to focus, to be somewhere specific. The consciousness shaped it carefully, allowing itself a few creative liberties.
The form stood tall and unmistakably wrong.
Deer-like horns branched from its head. Hoofed feet met the ground with unfamiliar weight. Hands ended in sharp, precise claws. Its limbs were elongated, proportions stretched just far enough to escape human expectation. A royal robe draped over the body—not for authority, just because it felt appropriate.
And when the consciousness entered it—
A crown appeared.
No effort. No intention.
It simply manifested, resting where it belonged.
The consciousness noted it and decided not to question it.
The vessel stood outside a very large city.
Far outside.
Unfortunately.
Within minutes—actual minutes this time—the reality of physical existence asserted itself. Legs ached. Balance wobbled. Breathing felt… inefficient. The vessel was capable, but the mind inhabiting it had not walked in a very long time.
"Brilliant," the consciousness muttered internally. "Absolutely brilliant. Could've put it closer."
Exhaustion followed quickly.
Then, salvation arrived.
A carriage approached along the road—not pulled, but walking, its wheels stepping forward in a coordinated rhythm. It slowed, stopped, and one of its windows opened diagonally, rotating into place at an angle that made no architectural sense.
Inside sat the town's mayor.
"Hello there," the mayor said cheerfully. "Who are you?"
The consciousness paused.
A name.
Right.
Something short. Something accurate.
"Un," it said aloud.
Short for Unreal Reality.
The mayor nodded immediately, as if this answered several questions they hadn't asked. "Well, Un, it would appear that you are tired. Would you like to enter my carriage? I promise he doesn't bite. Usually."
The carriage made an indignant sound.
Un hesitated for exactly half a second, then agreed, stepping inside.
The interior was vast and comfortable, upholstered in materials that shifted texture politely when sat upon.
"Well, Un," the mayor continued, "I haven't seen you here before. And I know everyone. Including Rocky."
"Rocky?" Un asked.
"Yes, Rocky's a rock. They get around a lot. Surprising, I know."
The mayor was cooking a sandwich with one hand while pouring tea with the other. The liquid flowed diagonally, then sideways, then upward, then left, then finally down into a cup mounted on the wall.
Un watched, fascinated.
"Well," Un said carefully, "I'm actually just visiting. You know. A traveler."
"Oh," the mayor said. "A traveler. We haven't seen one before. Or have we?"
They paused, considering.
"Who knows?"
They nodded to themselves. "Ah. That is correct. Who always knows. That's why we say who knows. Correct?"
"Yes," Un said.
"Yes," the mayor agreed. "The logic is there."
"Yes."
"Yes, yes."
The carriage continued forward.
And for the first time since becoming a universe, ( because they usually don't have faces) Un smiled.