March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

FIFTEEN

I felt like I was floating in an endless pool of thick, black tar. Everything was dark and maddeningly muffled, my eyes searching frantically for something, anything, other than the insatiable void around me. There was muffled shuffling around me, but I was unclear as to who or what it was. My eyes were burning, but they were burning from trying to focus on anything around me, and they burned the same when I closed my eyes against it, even if the darkness behind my eyelids was still brighter than the void.

I heard something different after a while, at least I thought it was a while; it could have been mere milliseconds. It sounded like a voice. It was calling to me from deep within the void, barely a whisper, but it was there none the less. I had the sudden urge to open my eyes, I saw something. Something I could not explain besides the epitome of beauty.

A light, small but bright, merely a dot the size of a grain of sand. It appeared white at first, but as it began to grow, ever so slightly, I soon saw that it was blooming with colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, silver, grey, colors whose names escaped me and colors for who I have never heard a name given. They all swirled and collided together, mixing and morphing in never-ending waves, dancing as if rejoiced at their new companions. Eventually, it grew to the size of a small ball that I could have fit between both of my palms; but it kept growing.

Eventually, it was the only thing I could see, the only thing I could hear a faint humming whisper from the inside of it, calling to me, beckoning me to look, to feel, to understand.

I never wanted to leave this magnificent sight; it felt so safe, so warm, so caring. How badly I wanted to touch this majesty, but the thought instantly fizzled out at the thought of my hands touching it. I would dirty it, taint this otherworldly beauty with the blood and dirt under my skin, maybe it would even shriek in pain and I would be forced to watch it turn dark as the darkness took over and strangled the light from this object of purity.

So I left it alone.

It was only when it got close enough to me, so large was this sphere, that it was forced to touch my skin, and I braced for the sound of screams, the sound of pain and disgust that I felt so sure that this object could emit. But it never did. Instead, it almost seemed to sigh in relief as it covered my body, absorbing me into its center.

I was no longer floating in a void of darkness; now, I was floating in a light-show of colors mixing with the pure whiteness of the object. I blinked, and was not surprised to see him standing there in front of me, a pure smile to his face and twinkling in his golden eyes.

"Wh... where are we? What is this place?" I asked him, even if my voice still sounded muffled.

He chuckled, amused at my amazement, before he spoke to me of this place, of which he called the Center of the Universe. He told me that I was seeing a sped-up version of its birth, that this was what controlled both the entirety of the Universe and all of the creations in it; this Center cast forth spheres of color and energy soon after its conception, releasing them to light the rest of the Universal void. Eventually, the spheres had run out and transformed into balls of indiscernible color so small that not even the Center Itself could see them; but their trails began to form new things, began to twist, twirl, and morph themselves into shapes unknown before. Then It released the first Creations, omniscient creatures that brought Life, name, Planes, and Dimensions to the Universe, giving it variety and making every creature the epitome of perfection without achieving Perfection, which was reserved for the Center and the Universe Themselves.

He then told me of the first Creations creating Time, the stars, and, eventually, the Gods, although he did not say which gods; perhaps he had meant all of them. His face darkened considerably, his eyes losing their smiles. He told me that one final Creation had been birthed by the Center, something terrible, something purely evil: a Monster. This Monster drove the Gods' believers to fight terrible wars, creating tensions between the Gods, allowing them to forget their once easy brotherhood. The Center had created Chaos and had given it a name, something that he also did not tell me.