There was no world yet. No light, no matter, no movement. Just the Void. An endless nothing stretching across a silence too old to measure.
But even in that silence, three shapes floated.
Three presences.
Three gods.
The first was Quaros—a blinding sun suspended in the black. Burning with steady, unwavering light, he radiated law, structure, and control. The oldest of them. His heat wasn't meant to comfort, only to illuminate what must be seen. Somewhere in that searing mass was James, watching and waiting.
The second was Perseus—a pale, ghostly moon circling far off in the dark. Cold, but not uncaring. He pulsed softly with ancient intelligence, pulling in loose debris and whispering through invisible dust. Minerals formed around him. Thought layered itself into shape. He was the youngest—Noah, always searching for meaning in the quiet.
And in between them, not orbiting but drifting at his own pace, there was Evodil. A black hole in slow, constant motion. He didn't shine. He devoured. What little passed near him vanished. He was chaos, shadow, hate—and something else he hadn't decided on yet. No one ever really knew what he was thinking. Not even him.
They floated like this for what could've been seconds or centuries. Time hadn't been invented yet. Neither had boredom.
Still, they each did what they always did.
Quaros burned.
Perseus thought.
Evodil... existed.
Nothing had been made yet. Not a single world. Not a single story. But all three of them were already waiting for it. Whether they knew it or not.
Quaros moved first, as he always did. His light stretched outward in rigid lines, shaping invisible borders into the formless dark. His presence imposed rules. Space bent around him in organized loops, obedient.
Perseus followed, quietly. He hovered beneath Quaros' light but never fully within it, drawing thin lines of silver across the black like veins beneath skin. He traced patterns, embedded meaning in the void. Where Quaros created law, Perseus carved understanding.
Evodil did nothing. He turned slow and heavy, his pull constant, his presence a quiet refusal. He erased what the others built, not with malice, but as if clearing space that belonged to nothing and no one. Where Quaros built walls, Evodil unraveled them. Where Perseus sketched maps, Evodil swallowed the ink.
For a time—a long, immeasurable time—this was enough.
They moved in rhythms too large for sound, too ancient for thought. A perfect balance. A system of opposition that held.
But the void was not infinite in patience.
Quaros expanded farther than before, reaching into Evodil's pull without hesitation. Perseus lingered in the path between them, his light dimming as it stretched to cover both.
The balance shifted—barely. But enough.
No words passed. None could.
But Quaros shone brighter.
Perseus pulled away.
Evodil did not yield.
Each one turned, slow, silent, circling again. The peace still held—but the shape of it was changing.
As if something inside each of them had begun to wonder:
What if they didn't need the others?
What if one was enough?
The stillness began to crack.
Quaros pushed farther, his light pressing against the edges of everything. What once shimmered in balance now burned. His presence no longer upheld law—it demanded it. Straight lines turned to cages. His power no longer asked for order. It enforced it.
Perseus answered not with force, but with layers. He filled the darkness with structure—stone, mineral, thought. New elements spiraled around him, silent and cold. He did not resist Quaros directly. He simply complicated the space, burying it in logic, in creation, in weight.
And Evodil grew restless.
He began to tear.
Not with hands. Not with will.
But by existing.
What Perseus built, he unraveled. What Quaros lit, he swallowed. His gravity carved absence into their shapes, and the void welcomed it.
The peace dissolved into friction.
Quaros pulsed hotter, his light turning jagged. Perseus layered faster, denser, more tangled. Evodil widened, his pull deepening until silence itself bent toward him.
No screams.
No words.
Just a decision.
At once, they stopped.
No more weaving.
No more balancing.
No more waiting.
All three surged inward.
To clash.
Not out of anger.
But to prove.
Which one of them mattered.
Which one of them fate would spare.
Which god the void would keep.
The void shook.
Three lights, once distant, collided.
Quaros struck first, a flare of burning order crashing into Perseus' layered mass. Stone cracked, light split. Then Evodil crashed into both—silent, heavy, unraveling their forms with every inch of contact.
They circled, collided, broke apart, and came back again. A dance of destruction. Heat, weight, absence—all tearing into each other, not to end, but to overwhelm.
And then—
a rip.
In the distance behind them, the void tore open.
Not broken by one god, but by all three.
Color spilled through. Blue. Gold. Red. Green. Motion. Sound. Shape. Concepts poured from the wound like blood from a slit throat. The blackness couldn't hold it. Reality began to form.
Stars blinked into existence, trembling. Planets churned from dust. Air scattered where there was once silence. The gods shrank as the world expanded. Their massive forms folded inward, pulled into smaller, sharper shapes.
Limbs. Faces. Eyes.
Humanoid, but still more than that.
As the world bloomed around them, Evodil stopped moving.
A flicker of something ancient.
Familiar.
Wrong.
His gaze slowed. His form shimmered. And in that moment, his eyes closed.
Perseus reached out, glowing pale.
Quaros surged forward, a streak of golden flame.
Their hands never reached him.
Their screams echoed into the newborn sky.
Evodil hit the ground hard.
The rock cracked, then shattered beneath the weight of something that was no longer shaped like a god. His body spread across the crater in thick, slow waves—formless, shifting. Black liquid pulsed and curled like smoke drowning in tar. Shadow tendrils rose, swayed, collapsed. Some reached skyward. Others sank into the earth.
Around the crater, animals fled—hooves pounding, wings flapping, tails disappearing into brush. Every instinct told them to run.
But not humans.
They came closer.
One at first, then two. Drawn by heat or fear or fascination. They moved like children toward a bonfire they didn't understand. One slid down the edge of the crater, feet scraping rock. Another followed. Then more.
A group formed at the base, standing just beyond the reach of the leaking dark.
They spoke.
Argued.
Pointed.
Whispers filled the air as the mass of shadow twitched, shifted, breathed. The humans didn't run. They stared.
It didn't move.
It didn't speak.
It barely pulsed anymore.
So the humans decided: it was theirs.
Whatever it was—shadow, ash, divine rot—it had fallen into their world, and so it belonged to them now. They touched it, prodded it, marked the edges of where the black began and ended. When it didn't resist, they claimed it.
A small hut was built at the base of the crater, little more than a shelter from rain and wind. Tools were stored there, and stories passed down—about the day the sky tore open and a god-shaped thing fell.
Years passed.
The hut became walls.
Stone was dragged down the crater, carried by hand, stacked and bound. Rooms were carved into the rock. Fires burned longer. Guards were stationed. A castle bloomed at the heart of the impact, its towers rising just high enough to be seen from the forests beyond.
More time. More hands. More minds.
Stone turned to metal. Fire to circuits. Secrets fed by silence and ambition. The castle sank underground, brick by brick, as machines replaced myths. Labs grew beneath the crater like roots—clean, humming, unnatural.
Wires curled around the edge of the sleeping shadow.
Lights scanned what they could never name.
And the thing in the center never stirred.
In the main sector, fluorescent lights buzzed over a room too cold for comfort. Screens lined the walls, all showing the same thing—a silent black mass in the center of a glass chamber. No movement. No change.
Three workers sat around the main panel, coffee in hand, uniforms half-zipped.
"Easiest high-clearance job I've ever had," one muttered, leaning back in his chair. "Sit here, watch a shadow do nothing, and get paid more than surgeons."
The second snorted. "You say 'shadow,' I say art project. We could drop a match in there and it wouldn't flinch."
The first laughed. "Seriously though. They act like it's dangerous. What's it gonna do, brood us to death?"
The third didn't laugh.
He kept his eyes on the screen, watching the thing in the chamber ripple—just slightly, like breath under thick oil.
"Maybe it can do something," he said quietly.
The other two glanced over.
"C'mon, don't start that 'what if' crap again."
He didn't look away.
"I'm just saying," the third replied, voice low, "we don't know what it is. It didn't come from here. It didn't belong here. The higher-ups call it the 'Fallen Star' like that makes it easier to sleep."
He folded his arms.
"My name's on the watch roster. If this thing wakes up, I'll be the first one it sees."
The others fell silent for a moment, then laughed again, brushing it off.
Gordon didn't laugh.
He watched the screen.
And the shadow didn't move.
But something in the room felt off.
The laughter echoed too loud in the sterile room.
Gordon kept his gaze on the screen—on the thing beyond the glass, that formless god they kept caged in wires and silence.
Then the door hissed.
Not the main exit. The other one. The one that was never supposed to open.
All three froze as the lock disengaged with a heavy thunk. A moment passed. Then the door slid open with a hiss of cold air and tighter authority.
She stepped in.
Long coat. High collar. Tired eyes sharp as scalpels. Amanda Petrikov.
Nobody called her by name here. Just The Boss—when they dared to speak of her at all.
Born in Russia, refined in American institutions, unmatched in scores, unbroken by bureaucracy. She was a ghost with credentials. A myth with clearance codes. And she was standing in their sector, unannounced.
No one spoke.
She didn't offer explanation. She just pointed—one gloved hand, efficient and final.
"You. You. You. With me."
No time to argue.
Gordon rose with the other two, heart thudding.
They followed her through the winding corridors, down past the security rings, past checkpoints meant to hold back anything except her word.
They entered the containment chamber.
It was colder here.
At the center, the god pulsed faintly in its cage of light and reinforced glass, its form flickering like oil struggling to hold shape.
Amanda said nothing.
And none of them dared ask why they were there.
Amanda stepped forward with a calmness that unsettled all three of them.
The air around the capsule thickened, humming like it knew what was coming.
From her coat pocket, she drew a small, jagged stone—irregular in shape, almost humming on its own. A pale glow bled from its edges like it was breathing.
Gordon took half a step back.
The others whispered—too quiet for her to care.
"Is she insane?"
"She's breaking protocol."
"She's going to die—"
There was one rule, etched into every wall and training file:
Do not approach the capsule.
Do not open it.
Do not reach inside.
They all knew what happened to those who tried.
But Amanda reached the capsule anyway.
She tapped in a command. The seals disengaged. Metal locks groaned. The glass split with a whisper of released pressure.
She opened it.
The god inside stirred, just slightly.
And without hesitation, Amanda slid her hand in—stone first.
The strange shard glowed faintly, rhythmically.
Then the shadows moved.
The moment her hand crossed the threshold, the god stirred.
Not with sound, not with fury—but with slow, deliberate motion. A tendril of living shadow lifted from its resting mass, drawn not to Amanda, but to the stone.
It latched on.
The glow intensified—then dimmed, swallowed by the inky black as the stone absorbed the touch.
The shadows clung to her skin, wrapping up her wrist like ribbons in a storm, then slithered back inside as if satisfied.
Amanda didn't flinch.
She pulled her hand out. The capsule hissed shut behind her with a smooth click, the seals engaging once more.
The stone in her palm was no longer glowing.
It was black. Entirely. No shine, no heat. Just a silent, perfect void wrapped in rock.
Amanda stared at it.
And smirked—subtle, satisfied, like she had just stolen fire from the gods.
The others watched in frozen disbelief, waiting for answers they'd never get.
She said nothing.
She just walked past them, gaze fixed on the stone like it whispered to her alone.
The door slid open with a quiet hiss as Amanda stepped into the hallway beyond.
Her heels clicked against the floor, steady at first—then uneven, as a sound slipped from her lips.
A snicker.
Then a giggle.
Then full laughter—sharp, delighted, echoing off the metal walls like the shriek of someone who no longer feared consequence.
She clutched the stone in one hand, grinning down at it like it had crowned her.
God of this age, she mouthed to herself, eyes wide.
By the time she slipped it back into her pocket, her expression had softened to something unreadable. Something dangerous.
She kept walking. Unbothered. Unstoppable.
Behind her, the three scientists didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Only when the sound of her footsteps faded did the whispers begin again—low, afraid, and fast.
"She's out of her mind."
"She's a lunatic."
"She's going to get us all killed."
Amanda neared her office, the black stone pulsing faintly in her pocket. Her steps were steady. Focused.
BZZT.
She stopped.
BZZT. BZZT. BZZT.
Alarms burst to life, red lights spinning across the walls.
From the far end of the hall, a violent metallic crash echoed—something had slammed through steel. A second later, a wave of smoke rolled down the corridor. The containment door was gone, ripped from its frame and embedded in the opposite wall. The impact left a deep dent, the metal warped and smoking.
Then—two bodies dropped from the doorway.
They hit the floor hard, necks torn wide open. Headless. Blood fountained out, staining the white walls deep red. Bone fragments stuck out from the meat, jagged and cleanly severed. The bodies twitched, once, then stopped.
The sirens kept screaming.
The lights cut out all at once.
The hallway fell into darkness, the only illumination coming from the red emergency lights that pulsed like a dying heart. The two bodies lay still in the dim light, twitching faintly—still leaking, still twitching.
Screams erupted in the distance. Footsteps. Panic. The lab cracked into chaos as alarms wailed on, blaring through every hallway, drowning out every voice.
Amanda couldn't move.
Her legs locked in place. Muscles frozen. Her breath caught somewhere in her throat, and for the first time in years, she felt it—real fear. It crawled up her spine like ice.
The smoke leaking from the chamber stopped.
The silence that followed was louder than the alarms.
From within the scorched frame of the containment door, a shape emerged—slowly. One step. Then another.
It was Gordon's body, but not Gordon.
His eyes were black, hollow pools of shadow, and at the center of each: a single, glowing white pupil that stared like the cold of deep space. His white horns curled back from his head like they'd been there all along. The lab coat he wore was drenched in blood—his, or someone else's, didn't matter.
He stood still. Tall. Silent.
The god had awoken. And he did not like what he saw.
The red emergency lights sputtered to life, painting the hallway in a deep crimson haze. Shadows stretched like claws, clawing at the walls as the metallic scent of blood crept into the air.
Screams rang out. Sharp. Human. Fleeting.
48 — A body hits the ground. Something wet splashes the wall.
43 — Another scream, cut short. Bones snap.
39 — A door slams, but it's not enough.
35 — Footsteps scatter like rats in fire.
27 — A throat is crushed under silence.
23 — Someone prays. Something answers.
17 — A shriek echoes from the lower labs, then nothing.
13 — A woman sobs into a radio that no longer works.
8 — Someone tries to climb a vent. Doesn't make it.
3 — The hallway trembles under heavy steps.
2 — A final breath. A last cry. Gone.
Then—nothing.
The silence had weight. It pressed on the bones. It waited.
And now he stood before her.
Not Gordon. Not anymore.
White-pupiled eyes stared her down, framed by curling horns that gleamed in the dark. The bloodied coat clung to the new shape of something ancient. Angry. Awoken.
He did not speak.
He only waited, and she understood:
This was not a moment to survive.
It was a moment to be judged.
She screamed.
Spat at the figure, her voice cracking under fury and pride.
Words spilled like venom—about her achievements, her brilliance, the empire she built from stone and shadow.
"You're just an accident! A lab rat! My creation! I MADE YOU!"
Her face twisted with madness.
"You're NOTHING compared to human will! You hear me?! NOTHING!"
But the god did not flinch.
Did not blink.
Did not care.
Oh, how she wished it had listened.
One small tilt of his head.
One slow motion of a finger—barely even a gesture.
And suddenly, blood ran like a river down her neck.
Her scream turned into a gurgle.
The fire in her eyes dimmed.
Her knees buckled as she collapsed, crimson pooling beneath her.
Eyes wide with rage.
With disbelief.
With fear.
And then they closed.
The god finally moved.
A slow inhale through borrowed lungs, then a sigh—one not of exhaustion, but of long-denied irritation. He rolled his neck, the vertebrae snapping back into place with faint cracks, then flexed his arms as if testing out the limits of this new flesh.
His fingers twitched, shadows trailing behind them like smoke being peeled off glass. Blood still dripped from the tip of one finger.
He looked down at the bodies—some twitching, some not.
Then around at the corridor bathed in crimson light, metal walls warped from the heat of rage, plastic tiles melted and blackened.
"...Bit of a fixer-upper," he muttered, almost amused. His voice low, human, but far too calm for the massacre around him.
Boots stepped through puddles of blood, slow and even. He didn't glance at Amanda's body again. Didn't need to.
"Now then," he said, arms lazily folding behind his back. "Two idiots left unaccounted for. My dear, dear brothers..."
He turned down the hallway, still smirking.
"Might as well look around this strange little world first. I've earned the walk."
And with that, the god vanished into the smoke-laced dark, taking his first steps into Earth.