Huuu…
A long, slow breath escapes me—though I do not remember learning how to breathe. It feels both instinctive and strange, as if my body remembers something my mind cannot grasp.
'Hmm… this… is?'
Warmth envelops me. Not just any warmth—
A womb-like comfort, heavy and gentle, like a thick blanket pulled up on a cold night.
The air feels moist, clinging to my skin like the world after a rainfall.
Body?
The thought echoes softly inside my mind, forming without my permission.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
A pulse. A beat.
A clock without hands, alive within my chest.
BA-DUM.
The sound grows louder the more I notice it, as if my attention feeds it.
Heart?
More thoughts rise—slowly at first, then faster, like embers catching wind.
My thoughts?
Who… am I?
Where… am I?
I try to move my limbs.
Something resists.
A soft resistance—not harsh, not painful—like being held in place by warm clay.
Only my head responds, turning stiffly in the cramped space.
Darkness.
Not a void—something else.
A darkness full, not empty. Like a deep fog that refuses to reflect or swallow light, simply existing.
Vision? Eyes?
A twitch under my eyelids.
My muscles answer my call, tentative but obedient.
My eyes open.
A muted gray light spills into my vision, soft and breathlike, as though the color itself was alive. I sit curled inward—knees drawn close, arms wrapped around myself as if shielding from a winter storm that hasn't come.
My head lifts.
Gray. Endless gray.
A warmth stirs beneath my skin, crawling through my bones like a spark awakening embers long dormant.
Where…?
I reach out. My fingers tremble as they touch something smooth, warm, and almost… breathing.
Not stone.Not metal.Not air.
Something in-between.
I explore it, dragging my fingertips across ridges that pulse faintly, like heat shimmering on summer roads.
I am inside something.
A shell. A chamber. A cage.
What should I do?
Wait? But… for what?
I'll wait. Or maybe I won't. Who knows…
I fall still, mind drifting like a leaf on silent water.
Time ceases to be a concept.
Minutes, hours, ages—none of it feels real.
Eventually, a single thought pierces the fog:
Leave.
My hand rises. I curl it into a fist.
I strike the gray.
A soft thud.
Then another.
And another.
Soon, a rhythm emerges. My heartbeat merges with the blows—defiance made physical.
Then—A crack.
Light—faint, fractured—bleeds through a hairline split.
Images spill through.
People. Places. Moments that feel like memories yet slide away like mist when I reach for them.
Spiderweb cracks spread across the surface. Each fragment becomes a window into a life I do not fully remember—faces I feel I've loved, landscapes I feel I've walked, emotions I feel I've lived.
The fragments do not fall.
They tremble, suspended like lotus leaves on still water.
The cracking spreads until everything stops.
I reach out with trembling fingers and tap the fractured world.
The shards collapse inward.
Light folds.
Sound vanishes.
And the gray swallows me whole.
…
My name…Vesper Evren.
The memory returns not as a whisper but as a weight—settling into me with the familiarity of an old friend.
I lived a simple life.
A life not driven by greatness, but by balance.
In eighty years, I saw much—too much and not enough.
I witnessed sin in its quiet forms and its monstrous ones. Pride swelling in people until they drowned in their own reflections. Greed consuming lives like wildfire. Lust turning hearts hollow. Wrath burning everything it touched. Gluttony devouring without thought. Envy choking joy. And sloth letting lives rot unused.
I saw people destroy themselves.
Saw people destroy others.
Saw selfishness so deep it carved scars into the world.
Yet—I also saw virtue.
Humility that softened storms. Charity that warmed bitter winters. Chastity chosen not from fear but devotion. Patience tested and still unbroken. Temperance resisted in a world of excess. Kindness given by hearts that were hurting. Diligence shown by those who refused to give up even when life tried to bury them. Small acts that never made headlines. But they mattered.
I saw a friend take blame for another's mistake. Saw a stranger give their last few dollars without hesitation. Saw a couple choose to honor each other with restraint and loyalty. Saw broken people still choose to be good to others.
I saw love.
And loss.
And the fragile, precious string connecting the two.
My eyes witnessed the world's beauty and its ugliness.
My mind wrestled with questions that never had answers.
My heart felt everything—more than it could bear.
Some nights, I stayed awake under city lights, feeling an entire world of emotions inside my chest.
Other nights, I wished that world would leave me alone.
The heart monitor beeped beside me, its beeps echoing like a cheap imitation of life.
beep…
beep–beep…
beep…
My gaze lifted to the window.
The full moon hung above the city—sterile white light bathing the skyscrapers, the streets, the tiny moving lives far below me.
A perfect, glowing circle.
So distant.
So unreachable.
I wondered what it would feel like to sit upon it—lounging in a cheap lawn chair with a bottle of wine, no gravity, no responsibilities, no lungs required to breathe. Just silence. Just peace.
Regret crept into my mind like a tide.
Did I do enough?
Did my life mean anything?
Was I kind when it mattered?
Cruel when I shouldn't have been?
Cowardly?
Brave?
Did I waste my chances? Or did I make the most of them?
I wasn't afraid of dying.
I was afraid of dying alone.
I looked around and my room was empty.
Four white walls and the cold glow of medical equipment were my only companions.
Then came the thoughts I never escaped:
Mom… where did you go? Why did you leave me alone? Would I have been different if you hadn't vanished when I was nineteen? Why couldn't I find you? Why did I have to hurt without anyone to lean on?
The pain wasn't in my body.
It was buried deeper—in the parts of myself I pretended didn't exist.
My hand twitched.
Then went numb.
Cold spread through my limbs.
But strangely… it felt like warmth layered on top of the cold, like a blanket being tucked around me by invisible hands.
My heartbeat slowed.
"I see… this is it…"
A single tear escaped, warming my cheek.
I tried to wipe it, but my arm refused to move.
Voices rushed into the room—urgent, panicked.
But they felt so far away.
"I'm coming to see you again, Mom…"
The sounds faded.
The lights dimmed.
The world slipped into stillness.
And then—
nothing.
…
Silence.
Not emptiness—the silence of the beginning of creation, when everything is possible and nothing yet exists.
Then—Light.
A vast canvas of shifting colors beneath, rippling like a colorful cosmic ocean.
A universe nine gigaparsecs across.
Light-years stretching beyond comprehension.
Galaxies swirled like pigments in water.
Nebulae pulsed with newborn stars.
Dark matter webbed the void like ancient roots.
And above it—A woman.
She stood like she owns it—cough— she does.
The one whose presence alone bent reality around her like soft fabric.
She stands there dressed in white robes making her look holy and sacred. She has long white hair that sparkles with cosmos adding a divine touch of color to her. Her skin is fair and milky white and shines like the stars. Her facial features are soft and delicate and her all golden eyes seem to hold countless universes. A woman so beautiful, Emperors, Tyrants and Kings would wage war over.
Then she stopped all her actions.
Her gaze drifted to the side—not toward any star
or nebula or cosmic phenomenon—but toward some empty patch of void that had no reason to exist so pointedly.
Her lips twitched.
Her expression annoyed ever so slightly.
A quiet, eye roll and unmistakable click of her tongue rippled across the cosmos.
For a moment, she looked as though she were silently judging something that only she could see.
Something unnecessary.
But she let it go with a subtle shake of her head, as though deciding it wasn't worth derailing the moment.
She returned her attention to the gray egg floating before her.
She smiled.
crack
A hairline fissure raced across the egg's surface.
Then another.
And another.
Until the shell was covered in spiderweb cracks that glowed with soft gray luminescence.
She leaned forward, anticipation softening her expression.
boom
A shockwave rippled out.
Nebulae shuddered.
Stars dimmed and stilled in response, like anticipating spectators.
CRACK
The egg shattered inward, swallowed by its own collapse, leaving only a swirling mist.
A silhouette emerged—not visible at first, then clearer as the mist was absorbed into the body.
He stands there with his eyes close and without clothes as he just came into the world. He looks to be around 18 years of age with a lean physique. His height is difficult to define in a void of space. His long black hair flows within the void as though the void is playing with his hair like a curious little child. His facial features are sharp with sword like eyebrows and a thin nose.
His skin glowed a faint gray with the last remnants of his creation.
His eyes opened.
His sclera are black as though containing the abyss, his pupils are a gradient of purple to blue and his irises seem to hold infinite universes within.
The cosmic ocean beneath them pulsed—light brightening like cheers, like celebration.
The young man—Vesper—turned his gaze to the woman.
Confusion.
Recognition.
Disbelief.
A memory buried so deep it felt like a dream.
His lips parted, but no sound came.
A tear slid down his cheek.
The woman's eyes softened. Tears welled in her golden irises.
She moved—not walked, but glided, space parting gently for her—and wrapped him in a tight embrace, as if afraid they wouldn't see each other again.
"It's okay," she whispered, voice trembling.
"Momma's here, Vesper."