I woke to nothing.
No ground, no air, just the feeling that weight itself had been taken away. It was not floating, it was the absence of falling.
Then I heard it.
A voice moved through the void, not loud, not quiet. It was simply there.
"You have seen," it said. Cold brushed through me, deep enough that it reached bone. "You have walked among gods, and you have ended them with your own hands."
I stood without standing. The void held me without effort. Fire still burned in my chest, faint but present, like embers that refused to die. The memory of that power still clung to me, the ease of command, the rush of it.
"I have," I said. My voice felt small, but steady. "I know what it means now, to hold real power."
"You have tasted it," the voice replied. "Fire that shapes instead of consumes. Authority that bends the world. But understand this, your mountain, your sun, your pantheons, all of it was play. A shadow."
My hands curled. Play? Shadow? Those people had mattered. Even if the time was short, it had been real.
"You were never a god," it said, blunt and unkind. The words struck harder than I expected. "Not truly. You are a pseudo god, strong, yes, but only an outline of what you seek. The path has not yet begun, my fragment."
I did not answer right away. Something in me shook, not anger, not fear, but recognition.
"So all of it," I said quietly. "The fire, the sun, the wars. It was the beginning."
"Yes," it answered. "A beginning and a test. You learned to shape, but shaping is not understanding. True divinity is forged, not taken. That forging begins here, where your will can be broken apart and rebuilt."
I felt it then, a pull low in my chest. Not forceful. Patient. Waiting. I had stood on mountains of fire and watched gods fall. This felt different. Closer.
"What do I do?" I asked.
"You shed what you believe is enough," it said. "Your power is bound by habits from a smaller existence. To rise, you must become less, before you can become more."
I let the words settle, there was no comfort in them, but there was honesty.
"I am ready," I said.
"Good," it replied.
The void shifted. Points of light flared around me, not stars, but the countless eyes that were staring at me before.
"You are not a god," the voice said again. "But you are mine to shape. Let the forging begin."
The silence returned, heavy and waiting..
"There is something wrong," I said. "I can feel the elements. Fire listens. Light bends. Wind answers. But the moment I try to hold more than one, my body pushes back."
The void did not respond at once.
It pressed closer.
"Because they must."
"Why?" I asked.
"A vessel can only carry one absolute alignment," it said. "One element, one law. Anything more than that, and it will collapse."
"So it's impossible," I said.
"Yes."
The word echoed, clean and final. I almost laughed. Almost, then the thought settled.
"from your silence though I'm guessing there's another way."
The void felt amused.
"There is always another way," it said. "All laws that exist, exist to be broken."
It leaned closer, if such a thing could lean.
"You cannot house many elements in one self," it said. "But you are not limited to oneself."
The idea clicked into place.
"Clones," I said.
"Yes."
The concept unfolded smoothly, like something I had always been circling.
"Create vessels," it said. "Each aligned to a single element. Each carrying a fragment of you. Not tools, not puppets, just you, divided."
My chest tightened. "Then what after that?"
"I would act through them right?"
"You would act as them," it corrected. "Shared awareness. One will, many paths."
Images rose unbidden. Versions of myself standing apart, each shaped by a different force.
"How?" I asked.
The void did not explain.
It showed me itself.
I felt how it existed, not whole, but held together through countless fragments in balance. Separate, yet bound. In fact the eyes i saw hovering around me were the different fragments being held together by the unified consciousness.
"Fragment your consciousness," it said. "By intent, not force. Shape each piece, give it limits and purpose and anchor it, then let it grow."
"That sounds dangerous," I said.
"It is."
Then the tone changed.
"Listen carefully."
Pressure settled around me.
"A fragment is still you," it said. "It thinks as you think. If it grows stronger than the core, if your will weakens…"
It paused.
"…then the fragment becomes the core or the original."
Cold spread through me.
"And if that happens?"
"Then it simply is, then you become the fragment"
Silence followed.
Then I felt them. The Eyes, not one or two, they were too many to count.
They circled me across the void, all turning toward me. I felt examined, not judged, nor threatened, just seen.
"Do not dwell on it," the void said lightly.
I looked back, meeting that impossible gaze. For the first time since I came to this space, I smiled.
"I won't."
Something like laughter rippled through the dark. Then everything collapsed inward.
I gasped.
Cold water filled my lungs as weight returned all at once. Green light surrounded me as I plunged downward, the Well swallowing me whole once again.
I kicked, golden light flaring weakly as I broke the surface and dragged myself onto stone. I lay there coughing, shaking, staring at nothing.
Behind me, the Well settled. Its glow dimmed, as if it had never stirred.
I stayed there for a long time.
Inside me, all was quieter, but something else had begun. I was no longer thinking about power.
I was thinking about how to divide myself without getting consumed by my fragments. Somewhere deep in my mind, a space had opened, empty and waiting, ready to be split.