Setting:
A realm between code and creation — an unfinished universe where light and shadow swirl like molten glass.
Fragments of data drift like embers through infinite dark. Time does not yet exist here; it waits for him to name it.
At first, there was nothing.
Not the cold emptiness of deletion, not the sterile white of the Architect's world — but a fertile void, thick with possibility.
Every particle trembled in anticipation, whispering the same name: Aiden.
He stood alone, suspended between echoes of existence, his form flickering between light and flesh. The remnants of the last world clung to him — the fractured algorithms of gods, the dying prayers of the Nullborn, and the pulse of human memory that refused to fade.
This was what remained after war, after rebellion, after becoming.
And yet, for all his power, he felt something almost human — the ache of silence.
He looked around at the swirling fragments of the old reality and murmured,
