Time since the asteroid hit Earth: ~3.8 billion years (subjective to Aryan)
It came without warning.
A cosmic ray burst from a collapsing star, millions of lightyears away — a freak event — sliced through the planetary shield of the Lumari world.
Within weeks, their ecosystem faltered.
Within days, cities fell silent.
Within moments, the songs of logic and light… vanished.
Aryan stood in the void, watching it all.
Not as entropy.
Not as force.
But as himself.
> "No..." he whispered.
The Lumari were gone.
Every trace of their knowledge, their art, their worship of curiosity — gone in the quiet smoke of extinction.
And for the first time since the asteroid hit Earth, Aryan Ved felt something he hadn't understood in billions of years:
**Grief.**
> "Why didn't you stop it?" came a voice.
The **Light God** emerged, but without his usual drama.
No bathrobe. No coffee cup. No floating emojis.
Just glowing silence.
> "I gave them freedom," Aryan replied, quietly.
> "You also gave them questions," Light God said. "And they died mid-sentence."
Aryan looked down at the planet, its surface cold and broken. He extended his presence to the libraries — fossilized. The equations — scattered. The telescopes — buried under ash.
> "They were my first voice," Aryan said. "The first ones to ask... who made the stars."
The Light God circled him slowly.
> "You're not just building a universe, Aryan. You're building meaning. And that... means you will suffer."
Aryan didn't respond.
Instead, he knelt in the void — a symbolic gesture, meaningless in space — and gathered the final thought-patterns of the last Lumari child.
A dream.
A single image.
A drawing of the night sky, with three stars circled — and a question etched in stone:
> "Are we really alone?"
Aryan closed his eyes.
> "No," he whispered. "You were never alone."
The Light God, moved, nodded softly.
> "You want to bring them back?" he asked.
> "No," Aryan said. "Their time is done. But I will use what they gave me... to help the next."
> "Good," Light God smiled faintly. "Because the next ones? They're going to be messy."
**— End of Chapter 9**