The first thing I learned after the void broke was that I had been wrong about silence.
The void had been quiet in the way a closed fist is quiet. It never answered, never reacted, never admitted it was listening. I called that nothingness.
Then it detonated.
And for a while after, everything rang.
Not sound. A lingering vibration in the rules themselves, like the universe had been struck and was still humming from the impact. Even my core couldn't find its usual note. It buzzed unevenly, like a bell with a crack.
When the ringing finally faded, the quiet that replaced it was different. Not blank. Not dead.
It was the quiet after something enormous, when everything holds its breath and pretends this was the plan all along.
I drifted in the aftermath with my core humming like a sore tooth.
Not proud. Not triumphant. Just alert. Like my whole being had turned into a bruise with anxiety.
Around me, the newborn cosmos moved.
Not in storms. Not in waves. In small shifts, like a curtain settling after a slammed door. Thin strands of that finer energy slid past, looped back, and wavered as if they'd forgotten why they were moving and were too embarrassed to ask.
And then one of them bumped into me.
Not brushed. Not drifted politely. Bumped.
It hit my boundary with a soft, bright thunk, like a bubble tapping glass. The contact made a clean little ring through my grooves, a note without sound that I felt in the shape of my attention.
I froze.
There was no ground, no feet, no real "freeze," but my rhythm paused anyway. When you have spent forever in nothing, you do not trust the first thing that treats you like furniture.
The strand hovered, as if waiting.
Then it bumped me again.
Softer. Testing.
And with that second bump came something that was not a current.
Intent.
Tiny. Uncoordinated. Curious in the way very small things are curious, meaning it had no concept of consequences and full confidence anyway.
Oh.
This wasn't just energy.
This was new.
New like a baby.
I stared with my whole awareness.
"Are you real?" I asked it, because I still talked to reality and reality still refused to be helpful.
It did not answer.
Instead it wiggled, brightened, and did the energetic equivalent of grabbing my finger.
Not literally, because I did not have fingers, but I felt it hook into my rhythm. My cycle. My hum. It latched onto the vibration of my core like it had found a heartbeat and decided it belonged there.
My core answered automatically, humming in a matching overtone.
Harmony.
The word didn't exist yet, but the feeling did. Something outside me matching me without trying to escape or swallow.
It hit harder than it should have.
"Oh," I whispered, and the sound came out weirdly gentle.
The little strand pulsed, pleased with itself, and then did something terrifying.
It pulled.
A tiny tug on my rhythm. Not strong enough to force anything. Just enough to wobble the cycle.
Pull in.
Hold.
Squeeze.
Release.
Except now the pull came a fraction early, like a child clapping off-beat and expecting the song to follow.
My boundary fluttered.
The world around me fluttered with it.
I snapped my rhythm steady.
The strand dimmed in what was basically a pout.
"Do not," I told it. "Touch that."
It immediately touched it again.
Of course it did.
It slid along my grooves, tracing the spiral I'd carved into myself, and every place it touched rang with clean, bright feedback.
Like it was learning my shape.
Then it drifted away in a wobbling loop and came back too fast, bonking my boundary again.
And then it split.
Not into two true selves. Into one pattern with two grasping ends.
Not violently. Not scattering.
Like mitosis.
One bright thread became two smaller bright threads, both buzzing with the same eager, off-balance intent and a shared pull between them, like one note heard in stereo.
They circled me like ducklings that had made a terrible first choice.
My core hummed, startled.
I felt a sharp, reluctant fondness and immediately tried to strangle it.
"No," I told myself. "We are not doing that."
The two strands bumped into each other, tangled, and then both latched onto my hum again as if it was a toy and they had decided sharing was optional.
My vents tightened.
"Stop," I said. "You are going to break something."
They did not stop.
They tugged at my rhythm, tiny little pulls, and the nearby filaments responded. Not because the universe loved them, but because the universe was made of them. Their wobble made a wobble in the flow.
The cosmos around me rippled.
Like the system noticed its own baby flailing and adjusted the room so it wouldn't fall off the couch.
I went very still.
"Wait," I said. "Is that you?"
One strand brightened smugly. The other bumped me like it agreed.
My core hummed, and I did not like how close to laughter I felt.
Then dread slid in, because dread always arrives when you start having fun.
If these little things could tug my rhythm, and my rhythm could tug the flow, then I wasn't just in the system.
I was a reference point.
A heartbeat to grab.
A pattern to imitate.
I had already watched the void copy me and detonate.
I was not eager to repeat that, especially not because two newborn threads of reality were having an existential phase.
"Okay," I said, forcing calm into my cycle. "New rule. No copying me."
The strands paused, as if listening.
For a second they floated without tugging.
I almost relaxed.
Then one of them tried to crawl into my vents.
I snapped my vents shut so fast the ring of it echoed through my whole boundary. The strand bounced off and dimmed in offended shock.
The other strand bumped it sympathetically.
I stared at them.
They stared back with the absolute confidence of things that have never once had a bad consequence.
"This," I said, "is why people invent parents."
They drifted around me again, drawn to my core the way iron filings gather around a magnet.
Every time my hum steadied, they steadied.
Every time my rhythm wobbled, they wobbled worse, all enthusiasm and no practice.
They kept trying to match me.
Not to hurt me.
Because my structure was the first steady thing they'd found in a world still cooling from violence.
That thought landed heavy.
I hated it.
I hated how much it explained.
I drifted farther, slow, and the newborn system shifted around us. Clusters formed and revised, not failing, just adjusting, like reality dressing itself in the dark.
The strands followed, bumping my boundary now and then, tugging at my hum like a child tugging a sleeve to make sure you're still there.
Annoying.
Also, unfortunately, kind of real.
The void had finally done something other than be nothing.
It copied the shape of my trying. It couldn't inherit my weight.
And the first thing it made was a baby that wouldn't stop touching me.
Lucky for it, I was already here.
Unlucky for me, I was the nearest thing to stable.
"All right," I whispered, softer than my usual arrogance, because the aftermath deserved some respect and the little strands were listening in their own messy way.
"Show me what you are."
The universe didn't answer.
Of course it didn't.
But the strands brightened like I'd praised them, and the currents around us smoothed slightly, as if the system heard the question and decided to keep forming anyway.
And I followed, slow and watchful, with two newborn pieces of reality clinging to my rhythm like I had invented comfort.
I absolutely had not.
But apparently, now I had to.