I left.
Not dramatically. No explosions. No laughter echoing through reality.
I simply stepped sideways and let the Dreamscape peel away.
The Third Dimension greeted me with silence.
No stars. No planets. No light worth noticing. Just raw matter cooling, space stretching, time ticking forward like a metronome with no audience.
I drifted through it, curious at first.
Then disappointed.
Life existed—technically. Single-celled organisms clinging to existence in primordial nothingness, dividing, mutating, repeating the same pointless routine. No thought. No dreams. No fear. No ambition.
Boring.
Earth hadn't even formed yet. Not even close. Billions of years still to go before anything remotely interesting happened.
I stared at a cluster of microscopic life for what might have been seconds or centuries.
"…Really?" I muttered.
Out of sheer boredom, I started spinning.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
I rotated my form like some cosmic fidget spinner, spinning faster and faster through empty space, watching galaxies-in-progress blur past just to feel something. That's how bored I was.
There were infinite other dimensions—worlds where alien civilizations would rise, where stars were already burning, where gods fought and monsters ruled.
In those places, my power was absolute.
I could fold space like paper. Rewrite concepts mid-thought. Destroy entire realities with a lazy flick of will.
But here?
Here, in the Third Dimension…
I felt restrained.
Muted.
Limited.
Every attempt to assert my full power slid off reality like oil on glass. Worse—I wasn't even fully present. The moment I focused too much, the universe rejected me.
And then it happened again.
The pull.
A sharp, unavoidable drag—
—and suddenly I was back in the Mindscape.
Forcefully.
I clenched my nonexistent teeth.
"So that's how it is," I muttered.
The realization settled in slowly, unsettling and profound.
The Third Dimension wasn't just created by our power.
It was balanced by it.
Bill and I hadn't simply destroyed the Second Dimension and caused a new one to form. Our power had become part of its foundation. The laws of physics. Causality. Limitation.
This universe resisted us because we were too fundamental to it.
In other dimensions, I was an invader.
Here?
I was infrastructure.
Which meant I couldn't manifest physically without consequences.
No true body.
No full presence.
If I wanted to exist there properly, I'd have to cheat.
Possession.
Anchors.
Avatars.
Interdimensional portals built by lesser beings—machines, rituals, accidents. Anything that could invite me instead of having me force my way in.
Otherwise, the Third Dimension shoved me back into the Mindscape like an immune response rejecting a foreign object.
That was… humbling.
And irritating.
I floated there, thinking.
Humanity would be born here someday.
I had been human once.
Fragile. Temporary. Limited.
And yet… fascinating.
They dreamed.
They feared death.
They asked questions they weren't meant to know the answers to.
I had a soft spot for them.
Which meant I couldn't just abandon this place, even if it bored me now.
"Fine," I said to the empty dreamspace. "I'll wait."
Not patiently.
But strategically.
Somewhere far away, time continued ticking forward. Stars ignited. Planets collided. A certain yellow triangle was undoubtedly plotting something stupid and spectacular.
And one day—far in the future—someone in the Third Dimension would open a door.
A portal.
A crack.
And when that happened?
I'd be ready.