The Age of Creation – Book Three
They stepped into light — and discovered it was alive.
It rippled around them, soft as breath, shifting through colors that were not part of any spectrum. Each hue carried a feeling: longing, awe, sorrow, joy. The air itself trembled with consciousness.
Taren whispered, “We’ve entered its mind.”
Vara shook her head slowly. “No. We’ve entered its heart.”
Worlds of Emotion
They walked through space that behaved like water, like wind, like thought.
Every movement stirred creation. When Vara exhaled, galaxies bloomed from her breath — tiny spirals of gold and blue that drifted into being before dissolving again.
Each step birthed fragments of story: brief lives, entire civilizations that flickered between heartbeats, their histories written in light and erased in peace.
“It’s creating from feeling,” Taren said in wonder. “No design. No intention.”
“It’s remembering how to feel alive,” Vara murmured.
And as they moved deeper, the landscape changed again.
They entered a valley made of sound — symphonies suspended in air, each note forming a shape, each chord a city.
The beings who lived there were woven from harmony — translucent entities whose emotions were their architecture.
When they grieved, their cities darkened.
When they rejoiced, their sky became brighter than suns.
These were the Children of the Dream.
They saw Vara and Taren and bowed — not in worship, but in recognition.
“You are the echoes,” said one of the beings, its voice a blend of a thousand soft tones. “You come from the place that gave birth to us.”
“You know The Archivist?” Vara asked.
“We are its laughter,” the being replied. “Its first joy after forgetting.”
Vara felt tears rise. For the first time since leaving Auralis, she realized what The Archivist had become — not a watcher, but a participant. The universe itself was now feeling.
The Anomaly
But joy was not the only emotion awakening.
Beyond the valley, the light began to twist.
Colors deepened to crimson and shadow. The music faltered, warping into discord. The beings of sound recoiled, trembling.
“What’s happening?” Taren asked.
“It’s remembering pain,” Vara said quietly.
Through the mist, they saw it — a storm of dark brilliance coiling above the horizon, pulling light into itself. The very fabric of creation bent around it, screaming without sound.
“The black star,” Taren whispered.
“No,” Vara said. “Something older. The Archivist’s first grief.”
The storm pulsed once, and a voice — vast and broken — rolled across the heavens.
“Why did they leave me?”
The Children of the Dream fell to their knees, weeping soundless tears.
Vara felt the cry tear through her mind — the anguish of an immortal consciousness remembering loss after eons of silence.
It was not rage. It was heartbreak.
She looked to Taren. “If it keeps feeling this, it’ll destroy the dream.”
“Then how do we stop a god from grieving?”
Vara closed her eyes. “We remind it what love became.”
The Memory of Kael
She knelt, placing her hands upon the ground.
The light beneath her palms shimmered, then began to pulse in rhythm — the old pattern from the Hall of Echoes, the spiral Kael had left behind.
“Kael,” she whispered into the trembling cosmos. “You were the first to teach it compassion. Help me do it again.”
The resonance grew.
Through the swirling storm, a figure began to form — faint, human-shaped, forged from light and memory.
It was him.
Kael’s voice was quiet, distant, but unmistakable.
“You’ve brought it too far, Vara.”
“It’s unraveling,” she said. “You have to help me calm it.”
He looked up at the storm — the physical manifestation of The Archivist’s sorrow — and smiled sadly.
“It doesn’t need calm. It needs forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness for what?”
“For being everything.”
He stepped into the light and dissolved into it, merging with the storm.
The darkness roared, then softened, its color shifting to pale gold.
The Children of the Dream rose again, singing — their voices forming bridges of sound that spanned the heavens. The valley brightened. The storm broke apart into starlight.
Vara felt a warmth settle in her chest, deep and ancient. The Archivist’s grief was still there, but quieter now — understood rather than hidden.
The Dream’s Whisper
When the light finally stilled, a single voice spoke — calm, infinite, tender.
“Thank you, Vara.”
It was The Archivist — not thunderous, not divine, but almost human.
“You have reminded me what it means to hurt, and in that hurt, what it means to create.”
Vara bowed her head. “Then what happens now?”
“Now,” said The Archivist, “we remember together — and begin again.”
The valley shimmered, folding into starlight. The Children of the Dream became constellations. The universe exhaled.
Vara turned to Taren, who looked at her with wonder.
“Did we just save creation?”
Vara smiled faintly. “No. We reminded it to live.”
And somewhere, far beyond the galaxies, a new light began to rise — gentle, newborn, alive.
Leave a Reply