The void around them trembled.
Stars flickered. Nebulas dimmed. Even the cosmic winds stilled as the Creator spoke — his voice carrying through the universe like a mourning bell. Each word shivered with a pain only beings beyond time could understand.
When the creator spoke again, the universe echoed with him.
"Jason," he began softly, "was born into a world that did not know how to love him… yet he loved it anyway."
Layla and Striver listened silently, feeling a strange weight settle in their chests — as if the Creator's memories were pressing against their own hearts.
"He grew up poor," the Creator continued, "but in a home filled with warmth. His mother — gentle, strong, unbroken by life even when it hurt her — gave him everything. And his younger brother… a boy who followed him like a shadow, smiling even when things were hard."
A faint glow spread across the cosmic ground as the Creator's memories unfolded around them like a living vision.
Jason, young and tired from school, laughing with his mother.
Jason working part-time jobs, walking home under streetlights.
Jason's brother waiting at the door every night.
All of it looked ordinary — painfully ordinary.
Until the scene darkened.
"One night," the Creator said, voice tightening, "Jason found his brother lying in the park… hurt, barely conscious."
Striver clenched his jaw. Layla's breath hitched.
The Creator did not show the injuries — only the fear in Jason's eyes, the trembling hands of a boy trying not to break.
His mother cried when she saw them.
And Jason… he shook inside.
"He wanted revenge," the Creator whispered. "But he chose not to chase it. He chose his family instead."
The vision shifted again.
Weeks later — his father returned.
A tall, well-dressed man. A stranger wearing the face of someone who should have been there all along.
"He walked into that home," the Creator said, bitterness coloring his tone, "and reminded Jason's mother of every moment she had survived… alone."
Jason stood between them, knife still in his hand from cooking, breathing hard.
The father backed away.
The mother forced a smile and finished dinner.
"That night," the Creator said, "Jason realized something: adults weren't always protectors. Sometimes children had to protect the adults."
Then came the phone call — the hospital — the mother lying unconscious.
No detail was shown, only her hand on the bed, pale and still.
Jason held her fingers, eyes empty.
"She did not recover," the Creator said quietly. "Illness took her where cruelty could not."
Her funeral passed with only two boys standing under the gray sky.
Jason's brother cried.
Jason only stared ahead, asking the universe why the world was made like this — why suffering seemed reserved for the poor, why hurting others came so easily to some people.
"And then," the Creator said, "fate answered."
The sky tore open.
A meteor descended — roaring — lighting the forest on fire with cosmic blue.
The shockwave threw both boys to the ground.
Inside the crater was a shattered canister, leaking shimmering particles like living stardust.
"When Jason inhaled it," the Creator said, "the energy invaded him. His body almost collapsed… until his brother touched him, transferring the overflow."
The vision showed Jason kneeling, shaking — then rising.
Stronger. Faster. Something new.
His brother changed too, growing tall, quick, powerful.
"They became guardians," the Creator said with faint pride. "Vigilantes who saved their city when no one else could."
For a moment the vision brightened — Jason helping people, building homes, smiling again.
Meeting a girl who made his heart soften.
But peace never lasts long in a selfish world.
"While Jason was away saving another nation," the Creator's voice darkened, "the rich retaliated."
Buildings he rebuilt — destroyed.
Families he protected — targeted.
His people — gone.
The girl he loved — broken but alive.
Striver felt cold spread through his chest. Layla swallowed hard.
"For the first time in years," the Creator said, "his brother saw him angry."
Jason healed the survivors, told his brother to protect them, and went after those responsible.
He didn't kill them… but his eyes promised he could.
The outskirts flourished again.
A new city rose — beautiful, independent, alive.
But people changed again.
The more powerful they became, the more cruelly they treated newcomers.
Jason watched history repeat itself — the same cycle of destruction, selfishness, corruption.
"He sat on a rooftop," the Creator murmured, "wondering why the world destroys everything good."
The vision showed Jason sitting there alone, knees to his chest, staring at the city he built.
"Jason loved deeply," the Creator said. "But the world kept taking."
A scientist created an unstable cosmic substance — one that could end everything.
Jason inhaled it before it exploded, flew into space, and sealed the destruction inside himself.
The energy tore through him.
His brother tried to follow — he took his brother's powers to protect him.
"He flew upward," the Creator whispered, "knowing he would not return."
A tear slid down Layla's cheek.
"And then?" Striver asked softly.
The Creator exhaled — a sound like a dying star collapsing.
"And then… I called to him."
The vision disappeared.
Only silence remained.
Striver and Layla stood still, unable to speak.
"Why him?" Striver finally asked.
The Creator looked at them with eyes older than creation.
"Because Jason never took revenge," he said. "Because when he was beaten, abandoned, betrayed… he still chose to love. He still gave. He still protected. Even when the world gave him nothing."
Layla whispered, "Then how did he become like this?"
The Creator's expression dimmed, gentler than before.
"Because even the strongest hearts have limits," he said. "And those who hold themselves together in a cruel world… are the ones who shatter the hardest when everything is taken from them."
His voice faded like a fading star.
"Jason was not born a monster," he said. "He was made… by loss too heavy for one soul to bear."