The void didn't *end*. It simply... persisted. A canvas stretched taut across infinity, painted with the absence of paint. I—*Ojas*, the name surfaced like a bubble in tar, unbidden and heavy—stood there, or what passed for standing in a realm without ground. My feet, if they were feet, pressed against nothing that yielded like the soft underbelly of a dream. The two thuds echoed in my bones, not as sound but as *memory's ghost*, twin hammer-strikes against the forge of my chest. *Lub-dub.* Not mine alone. Something else's rhythm tangled with it, a counterpoint that made my pulse stutter like a lute string plucked by clumsy fingers.
I laughed. Or tried to. The sound died in my throat, swallowed by the endless. *Comedy in the cosmos*, I thought. *The god of all things, tripped up by his own echo.* What was a void without an audience? Without eyes to witness the grand joke of existence? I, who had woven stars from sneezes and galaxies from idle thoughts, reduced to chuckling at my own shadow. If shadows had shadows.
Philosophers would call this a crisis. Mortals, with their tidy little infinities, would scribble treatises: *On the Nature of the Nothing That Birthes the All*. But I? I felt it in my marrow—the itch of creation denied. The cage wasn't iron or bone; it was *choice*. To step forward was to unravel. To stay was to rot in the silk of complacency. And yet, the pull... oh, that treacherous pull. It tugged at my navel, a silver thread spun from longing I couldn't name. Romance, perhaps? The word floated up, absurd and warm, like sunlight on a winter's lie. *As if gods courted with thunderclaps.*
I moved. Not walked—*glided*, the void parting like lovers' sighs. Each "step" birthed faint ripples, ghost-trails of light that fizzled into motes of what-might-be. Dust from unborn worlds? Echoes of forgotten wars? The air—if air it was—tasted of ozone and regret, sharp as the first bite of forbidden fruit. My senses, god-sharp even in amnesia, drank it in: the subtle hum of potential, vibrating low like a hive of stars preparing to swarm. Immersive, yes. The void wasn't empty; it was *pregnant*. Swollen with the weight of all tomorrows, whispering secrets in a language of silences.
"Why cage the architect?" I murmured, my voice a velvet rumble that folded back on itself. The question hung, unanswered, until it dissolved into the black. Philosophy's cruel jest: answers only for those who fear the asking.
I pressed on, the void folding around me like silk curtains in a theater with no stage. Each glide forward revealed more of the same, yet *different*. Subtle gradients of black, from ink to obsidian to the velvet of a raven's wing. The thuds had faded, but their aftershocks lingered in my ribs, a duet now, *lub-dub… lub-dub…* syncing with something outside me. Two hearts? Impossible. I was alone. The only pulse in all existence. Right?
A shimmer.
Not light, exactly. More like *memory* trying to wear color. A faint spiral, no wider than my thumb, spun lazily to my left. I reached for it, fingers (were they fingers?) brushing cold fire. The spiral *sang*. Not words. A feeling. *Curiosity*. Pure, childlike, the kind that births suns. I laughed again, this time real, a low god-rumble that made the spiral bloom into a miniature galaxy. Stars winked into being, then winked out, embarrassed by their own audacity.
*Comedy in creation*, I thought. *One touch, and the universe blushes.*
But the galaxy didn't die. It *waited*. Orbiting my wrist like a bracelet of fireflies. I shook my hand. It clung. Stubborn. *Mine*, it seemed to say. *Yours to keep or crush.* The weight of choice settled again, heavier now. Destroy it? Nurture it? Let it drift and become someone else's sky? The philosophical knot tightened: *To create is to be responsible. To destroy is to be free. And to do neither? That's the joke.*
I let it drift.
The galaxy spun off, growing, trailing stardust like a wedding veil. Somewhere in its heart, a planet cooled. Oceans formed. A single-celled thing divided. *Life*. My accidental child. I felt it, a tug behind the sternum, not unlike the thuds. Pride? Regret? Both. The romance of letting go.
Then, a *crack*.
Not sound. A fracture in the void's fabric, jagged and glowing like a lightning scar. Through it leaked… *color*. Not the tame hues of mortal worlds. This was *raw*. Violet that tasted like thunder. Gold that hummed lullabies. It poured in, pooling at my feet into a mirror-smooth lake of liquid starlight. I knelt. My reflection stared back, no face, just a silhouette of pure *presence*. Behind me, in the mirror, two shapes flickered, too fast to catch. One reached. One recoiled. The thuds again. *Lub-dub. Lub-dub.*
I dipped a finger.
The lake *spoke*. In my voice, but older. Wiser. Tired.
**"You left the door open, Ojas."**
**"Some things follow."**
The crack widened. Something on the other side *breathed*. Not air. *Intent*. Hungry. Loving. Both. I stood, galaxy-bracelet now a crown of fire around my brow. The void trembled. Not from fear. From *anticipation*.
I smiled, god-sharp and reckless.
"Let them come," I said. "I've been alone long enough."
The lake rippled. The crack *laughed*.
And somewhere, in a corner of the multiverse I hadn't yet named, two hearts beat faster, drawn by a thread only I could see.