At first — movement.
Not an event, not an action, not a cause. Just distinction. Where nothing differed from nothing, suddenly inequality appears. Slightly warmer here. Slightly denser there. And that is enough for time to begin, although it does not yet know its name.
The world does not think.
It tries.
It forms and dissolves, neither erring nor correcting itself, because mistakes are a luxury of beings with memory. Here there is no history. Here there is repetition.
Repetition — this is not yet fate.
Somewhere in this repetition, a pattern arises. Not a form, but a tendency. Something begins to persist longer than the rest. Not because it must, but because it can.
Thus life appears.
Not as a miracle.
As a side effect.
In one of the possible worlds — because possible worlds here lie in layers, like transparent films — a being emerges that does not yet know fear, but already knows reaction. It reaches for light. Shrinks from cold. That is enough.
There is no dragon here.
But there is its ancestor — not a serpent and not a beast, but the idea of accumulation. More body. More energy. More influence. Not evil. Not good. Just direction.
If something can grow — it grows.
If it can dominate — it dominates.
This is not cruelty.
This is geometry.
In another layer — because even here they exist — death arises. Not as tragedy, but as limitation. Everything that is limited begins to be valued, although there is no one to recognize it.
Memory appears, but not personal — structural. Traces of previous forms are preserved in the next. The world begins to remember without consciousness.
This is important.
Because later, when man appears, he will call it "sin," "heritage," "original fall." He will think the problem lies within him.
But the problem — is not in him.
The problem — is that the world knows how to continue.
Somewhere in this depth, the first conflict arises. Not war. Incompatibility. Two forms want the same place at the same time.
One remains.
The other disappears.
This is not yet killing.
But it is a draft of it.
If you fast-forward — though there is no "forward" here — from this will grow armies, doctrines, crosses on sleeves, and dragons of steel and fire. Not because the world is evil, but because it does not know how to stop.
And here appears a thin, almost imperceptible crack.
Consciousness.
Not immediately human. At first simply a sensation: something is happening to me. Not a question. Not a thought. A hint.
The world looks at itself for the first time.
This is a dangerous moment.
Because everything that can be realized can be justified.
And everything justified can be repeated without guilt.
Somewhere very far, in the future, man will stand before a dragon and feel neither joy nor terror. Only the emptiness after a function completed.
It began here.
Not with choice.
Not with sin.
But with the world once telling itself:
"I am."