Arsere set the world‑creating orb back into her inventory and glanced at the floating clock in the corner of her vision.
[1 Day : 09:42:45]
She blinked. "So it's already been a day." The number felt both small and enormous. One day since she woke up in a void and reshaped a whole world—one day since everything had gone wrong and she had to start over.
A small, tired smile tugged at her mouth. "I never even looked around my place properly," she admitted to the empty house. "Might as well do that before I break the world again."
She pushed off the sofa and began to walk.
Her domain wasn't a palace. No marble columns, no golden servants. It was a one‑floor house the way she'd pictured home on Earth: warm, a little plain, and immediately—comforting.
"Not bad," she said to herself, stepping into the kitchen. The counters were neat, a kettle rested on the stove, and a jar of something that could pass for coffee sat on the shelf. She poked a spice drawer, then laughed softly. "Do gods get hungry? I'm a god, I should probably know by now." She plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and examined it like it might contain divine instructions. When it didn't, she took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Okay. Food still tastes like food."
From the kitchen she moved into the first guest room. The bed was made with care—plush pillows, a soft throw. Little touches were everywhere: a stack of well‑kept books on a nightstand, a pair of slippers tucked by the bedside. She ran her fingers along the blanket and imagined someone—somebody she could call a friend—coming to stay.
"Will anyone ever sleep here?" she asked the empty room. Her voice came out smaller than she meant. A memory—her youngest sister tucked under a blanket—rose up and she let the echo sit for a moment before moving on.
The second guest room was lighter, decorated with paintings of abstract forests. A small desk sat by the window. She sat on the edge of the bed and let herself breathe. "If I can find my family… this will be for them," she said. The thought steadied her like an anchor.
Then she padded into the living room. Sunlight—somehow warm even in the void—fell over a modest sofa and a low table. There were potted plants on the windowsill (fake, or maybe somehow real), a knitted cushion that looked like it took forever to make, and a small shelf crowded with knickknacks. A framed picture hung crooked near the lamp: an image she didn't remember buying but somehow knew she had chosen—two tiny figures sitting beneath a tree.
She sank onto the sofa and let her legs uncurl. The room smelled faintly of the sea for a second—then nothing. She laughed, a small, dry sound. "It's so human," she said. "All the novels make it look so glam, but… this feels right."
Her throat tightened. A memory arrived—no, not a memory exactly, more the feel of her family's kitchen from long ago. Her eyes stung. She buried her face in her sleeve for a second. "I miss you," she whispered into the fabric. "I'm trying. I swear I'm trying."
When she wiped her face she felt steadier. There was more to do. There was always more.
She walked to the bedroom at the back of the house. White walls, soft light, a bed wide enough for three people. Her fingers brushed the quilt and she paused at the mirror.
Arsere stared at her reflection. The only thing that immediately looked different were her eyes—where warm brown had been there now swirled a faint, white nebula, like a distant galaxy caught in her irises. It moved when she blinked, slow and calm.
"Looks… pretty," she said, more to herself than to the glass. The rest of her face was the same: average, honest, not carved for myth. Her hair was black, plain, messy from having slept. Her figure hadn't changed into some storybook goddess body. She took a small, rueful breath. "Of course not. I'm still me," she muttered. "All the other stuff is window dressing."
She straightened and went back out, curiosity mounting like a pulse.
When she stepped outside the little yard and looked up, the breath literally left her.
Above the house, stretching across the starlit void, rose a colossal living thing—a tree vast beyond thought, its trunk braided with light and its branches holding plate after plate like leaves. Each plate glowed with a different hue: one rimmed with blue that smelled faintly of rain, another dark and smoky, another like a green chest of forests. Some plates were bright, some dim, some alive with shifting lights she could not yet name. The whole tree moved with a slow, patient heartbeat.
Crevalis. Her world. Not the small orb in her inventory—this was the real one, huge and impossibly beautiful.
She stepped closer until the cold of the void bit her fingers. Her hand hovered above nothing, as if she could touch the tree through the air. "I made that," she breathed, the words equal parts awe and an admission she could hardly accept. "I actually made that."
Silence answered her, not unkind but not congratulatory either. The tree hummed—a low, almost inaudible sound that felt like a promise and a warning at once.
Arsere laughed, a sound that trembled between relief and fear. "It's beautiful," she said again, and this time she meant it for herself as much as for the void.
She looked back to the house, to the neat living room and the guest rooms and the mirror that showed a girl with a galaxy in her eyes. She felt small and enormous all at once.
"Okay," she told the house. "We'll get to work. Not reckless this time. Careful. Right?"
Her voice was steady now. Not triumphant—yet—but not broken either.
Far off in the invisible reaches of the void, where eyes she couldn't see watched and judges she didn't understand lingered, the world-tree pulsed once more. Something that had been only code and light now had a name, a shape, and a slow, patient beat.
Arsere reached for the orb in her inventory—not to create, but to plan.
"Tomorrow," she whispered, "we start small. We make the foundations right."
She took one last look at the living room, the two guest rooms, the kitchen—at the tiny human comforts she had built for herself—and for a moment, allowed herself to feel like a person who had a home, not just a creator with a job. Then she closed the door gently and sat at her little table with her notebook, the nebula in her eyes reflecting the pages as she began to write.
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