There was no pain here.
No body, no blood, no weight.
Only a slow, endless drift through a void that had never known gravity. It was not darkness, but the purest form of stillness— waiting. Existence itself seemed thicker.
The black stretched in every direction, infinite. Stars pulsed distantly. Some were dim, others sharp like cold flames. They shimmered like ancient memories, unwilling to reach.
I felt no limbs, but a hollow memory of them lingered. A faint echo of shape.
Below me, if 'below' meant anything, hovered a fractured giant globe of shine. A world broken into shards, suspended yet whole. Inside, fleeting glimpses: glorious cities, forests that breathed like lungs, oceans glowing from within. A billion lives, a billion deaths— too distant to touch.
Light here had no warmth; it pulsed without promise, indifferent to what it touched.
Even the silence had texture. Thick and velvety, like a curtain wrapped around thought.
Then—
A voice.
Not spoken, but carried in the silence like a slow tide.
"Dolores. You've died."
It was everywhere and nowhere at once.
Not sudden, not commanding. Just present— inevitable.
She sat cross-legged in the void across me, skin shifting softly between light and shadow; as though the universe could not decide how to color her. Her form shimmered faintly at the edges, as if her outline couldn't be held. Hair; the color of stars, drifting without wind. Unblinking, her eyes were wide and still.
"You did not break," she said quietly, "As expected."
Beneath every word she spoke, something older vibrated— a pressure, instead of a sound.
I didn't respond. I didn't think I could speak here. Maybe I didn't need to.
She cocked her head slightly. "That's right. Words aren't always necessary. Not here."
I opened my mouth anyway. The words came out like thought and echo merged, "Where am I?"
"Outside. Or above. Whichever word makes more sense for you."
An afterlife? "... She's also dead, isn't she?"
"Prudence— haha, no."
"Who are you?"
"Oh, names are hard," she grinned, shortening the distance between us.
With her a little closer to me, I felt no fear. Just a sense of being seen.
She raised a hand. Between her fingers formed a small orb— colourless at first, then rippling with hues I didn't recognize. It twisted, divided, then spiraled apart into nothing.
"Prudence is still meaningful," she said, voice lighter now. "And meaning is harder to kill than flesh. Humans always cling to binaries. Dead or alive. Doomed or saved. In reality, nothing holds the truth. Life has no grasp over what is."
...?
"You've both died, but that doesn't mean you guys are dead— child." She looked at me again, this time like one observing a distant star. "You'll meet them again. However, I can't say the same for your mother and father."
"... Heaven, or hell?"
She grins. "You're moving into a new world. Think of it less as an afterlife, and more as a... sorting process. Some grains are chosen to build new dunes. Others are washed away. You want to know more about the black-haired woman, don't you? She's there— so grow stronger." The void shimmered around her, as if coming to life. "You have great potential. Enough to eventually rival her."
A flicker of something ancient and angry passed through her starry eyes, there and gone in an instant. "She is a monument to failure. A testament to what happens when a soul is given a divine purpose and breaks under the weight of it, twisting the purpose into something... else. She was meant for something else entirely."
"Make no mistake, however— never underestimate her. That rupture is also part of her strength. What you've seen of her is nowhere near her full power."
My thoughts flash back to the purple-eyed woman.
... Does she want me to become strong enough to defeat the spiral woman? The thought was absurd. The power she held could only be described as primordial; bending reality itself.
To rival that seemed less like a goal and more like a fundamental rewriting of what I was.
The one in front of me was also primal, but in a different way.
Instead of chaos and malice, the power she exuded was orderly and smooth; as if it was the natural law.
Instead of breaking and manipulating reality, it felt as if she was reality itself— the truth.
Her overwhelming superiority did not feel domineering, it just was.
As if no matter who you are, once her eyes meet your being, your entire self— history, present, future— was bared naked, though not in a humiliatingly vulnerable way. The same way you're simply you in the world.
Reality doesn't look at you and judge. It just looks.
She lifted her hand again, and something else took shape— an orb, dense with color and sound and motion, impossible to follow with thought.
"A unique gift," she added, "A seed planted in the dark. Yours alone. This will help you in your quest for power."
[SYSTEM INSTALLATION INITIATED]
[AUTHORIZED USER: DOLORES]
[PATH: EVIL, CHAOS (UNSTABLE)]
[WELCOME, PARTICIPANT.]
The voice within was different. Not hers— cold, mechanical, whispering laws older than time.
A searing light lanced through my chest. It wasn't pain, but awareness. Something vast, cold, and ancient— wrapping itself around my thoughts like a second skin.
She watched me without judgment. Without kindness. Only as a force that watches things grow.
"Why me...?"
In truth, I don't have the desire to deal with her. I'd be glad to just be dead, holding no state of being.
"You're aimless right now. You know your current self was forged from broken things... But so was the first batch. Every soul that falls through the cracks is running from something, or toward something they can't name. They arrive shattered, and this world... this world provides the furnace and the anvil. Most break. Some are remade into weapons. A precious, precious few learn to be the smith." She smiled, a thin, sharp thing. "I do so enjoy watching a good smith at work."
...?
She continued, "What you don't know is that you're also born from chaos. From a hunger that cannot be silenced. And above that, you have a peculiar innate quality. Dolores, you could be so much more. You just haven't realized it yet— because you're merely a 17 year old baby," she grins.
"But you're right about one thing, It's not about you," raising a single finger, she lets a materialized speck of dust drift off it, spinning in the light. "It could be anyone. That is the nature of this new world. Tear the sky, let a few pass through, and watch which ones crawl up. Some arrive with fury, the vision of control, some with grief. One arrived with a love so profound it threatened to gentle the entire world... for a time." Her expression didn't change, but the void around us tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Carry the gift," she added, "Not from mercy, but for purpose. Otherwise, you'll mope around for who knows how long."
"... I feel like this is a punishment."
"Oh, no. Dolores, you should get over that. That was nothing," She grinned again. "It's strange. You know of evils much greater than getting groomed into complicity. Colonialism, genocide, slavery, exploitation— yet you feel guilt over something you had no control over. All because you indirectly played a role. You feel strongly that you should've known, but you're a child, Dolores— a child that was manipulated by a god."
I pursed my lips.
Yet still.
I still played a role in my parents' crimes. Helping Prudence or getting myself together didn't undo any of it.
"... I'll give you a hint. All those times you've read about humanity's many crimes— does something not burn within you? Thanks to your parents, you've travelled to a number of countries, dabbled in martial arts, experienced things such as camping and hunting, learned about many topics— but you haven't lived them. This new world will offer you just that," She stared at me, as if giving a warning, "You asked earlier if you were going to heaven or hell. You could say you're going to hell."
"All of humanity's evils— they're present here. So much so it has the capability to breed an abomination like that woman. But do not mistake prevalence for permanence. A world drowning in evil hungers for its opposite with a desperation you cannot fathom. It is a vacuum begging to be filled. The last one who tried... well. You've seen what is left of her work." She gestured vaguely, and for a heartbeat, the image of a simple, glowing book flashed in the darkness before dissolving into nothing.
"That system is a gift. That might kill you." Then, quieter, "Or maybe help you understand."
"Understand what?" I replied.
She was silent for a little while. Then, she whispered, "What it takes to become a god. And what it costs to kill one."
The void around her began to bend, not with violence, but with a profound and final sense of conclusion. Cracks ran through its stillness like fractures in black glass.
"And remember, Dolores," her voice was now fading like a forgotten dream. "I'm not the one you're fighting. I'm the one who opened the door. It's up to you to decide if you walk through it as a victim, a weapon, or something new entirely. Now, ascend."
With the space falling, I followed.