The first sensation he experienced was weightlessness. He tried to move, flailing his limbs in search of something to grab, something to stand on, or anything to feel. Yet he touched nothing. Did he even have limbs? He couldn't be sure.
When he opened his eyes, or what he perceived as eyes, he saw not just emptiness, but a bizarre blend of everything and nothing at once. Visions of the past, present, and future flashed before him, only to be forgotten almost instantly.
He closed his eyes, no longer wanting to confront the void.
.....
He waited and waited for something to happen. How long has it been? Time seemed meaningless here. Perhaps only a few seconds have passed, yet why does it feel like an eternity?
.....
A touch. He felt it. He didn't know when or how, but something resembling tendrils wrapped around him, pulling him somewhere. To where? He had no idea. Yet anything that was not the void would be welcomed.
As the unknown tendrils drew him closer to their destination, a single question emerged in his mind, a question he hadn't considered before: "Who am I?"
.....
Murmurs filled the air, a series of words he couldn't comprehend. That was the first thing he heard when the tendrils seemingly arrived at their destination. His "head" rested on something soft while his body felt submerged in a liquid-like substance.
He attempted to open his "eyes," but something obstructed his sight. He tried to move his "body," but for some reason, he was unable to do so. When he attempted to speak, no sound emerged from his mouth.
With nothing else to occupy his mind, he concentrated on the inhuman conversation, hoping to catch any words he could understand.
"Az..." A girl's voice broke through the cacophony of the incomprehensible, a fleeting whisper swallowed by the abyss. He strained to sense her essence, but it slipped through his fingers like smoke.
Everything. That singular word captures her essence most profoundly. She is the embodiment of everything: the past, the present, the future, the cosmos, the void, the primordial beginning, and the ultimate end. An all-consuming enigma, she weaves the fabric of reality itself. She is everything and nothing, a paradox that defies the very nature of existence.
Another voice, belonging to a different girl, slithered through the shadows. He could only grasp a fragmented syllable, a whisper from fathomless depths: "...g...th..."
In that moment, a singular notion crept into his mind: sleepy. This girl, ensnared in the tendrils of an ancient trance, lingered on the brink of awakening, as if the very fabric of reality threatened to unravel and pull her back into the abyss of slumber. Darkness coiled around her, and the air grew thick with an unsettling sense of primordial dread, a feeling that nothing was truly as it seemed in this eerie half-light. Faintly he could hear sounds of flutes and drums accompanying the being.
While the two girls exchanged whispers in a tongue lost to time, a spectral hand glided over him, a sensation both unsettling and intimate.
His "head" twisted lazily to the left, drawn away from the undecipherable dialogue swirling in the ether. This presence, unlike the ephemeral voices, pierced the veil of ambiguity; he could feel its touch with a jarring clarity.
Chaos, a maelstrom of sensations swirling within him, entwined with a baleful mischief that sent tremors through his very essence. They crawled in multitude brushing against his "skin," a legion of unseen legs orchestrating a dance of disquiet that sent shivers rippling through his being, awakening emotions steeped in the unspeakable.
He decided to go still after that. Not even making any sort of movement.
After what felt like aeons, the two girls finally finished their conversation, whatever it was about.
? number of eyes stared at him as he felt his body being lifted by an unknown person beside him.
Footsteps? are heard as they walk with him in their hands? "What a lucky soul you are. Not being obliterated beyond infinite is already a blessing." For the first time in forever, he finally heard clear, full words of a much older girl.
"What?" He asked, surprised to find his own voice.
"The mortal speaks, truly remarkable." The being praised. "Unfortunately, you've been given a purpose by Mother and her. However, given what I have planned for you, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise," The girl continued.
He then felt a finger press against his forehead. A wave of tiredness enveloped him as he struggled to resist it.
Desperately he tried to ask. Ask her anything! Where is he? What is he? Who is he? Yet the words died in his "throat".
"Ahh... questions, questions. Your head is filled with them." He felt her opening some sort of portal. "Given that you'll soon forget about what you've seen and heard here, it will be meaningless to answer them." She answered much to his disappointment.
"You will be thrown into a universe foreign to your original. You will be given a new life, body and name. There, you will embark on an adventure and turn the new universe on its head." Her face went closer to his "ear" as she whispered, "Entertain us from our endless boredom and we will reward you with your old memories and perhaps more."
Before he could ask any more questions, he succumbed to sleep, his memory of the encounter with these beings already erased as his body fully entered the portal to a new reality.
.....
THUNK!
THUNK!
The sounds of hammer smashing against flesh reverebated throughout the vast and empty cosmos.
SCREECH!
The pained screech of an Aeon is heard as their children, untold in numbers, fly around THEIR shattered bodies to protect THEM from further harm, their flapping wings coalescing into a deafening silence.
Although, if one were to carefully hear, they could barely make out the sounds of a symphony accompanied by sounds of laughter. A gigantic hammer hovered above THEM, its owner ready to deliver the final blow to hopefully stop the Swarm menace.
For the first time in the universe, THEY went still, stopping their Primum Mobile, as a portal opened up amidst THEIR forms. The Aeons went still as a small figure emerged from the portal.
A human. A human who is currently curled up, unconscious and unaware of the chaos around him.
The hammer of Qlipoth which would seal the fate of the Imperator Insectorum halted, THEIR gaze was directed at the intruder who had just emerged from a place even beyond THEIR grasp. A place housing horrors far surpassed the Leviathans of old and could easily shatter the walls that THEY had built as if they were made of sand.
As THEY observed the mortal, the newly ascended Xipe stopped THEIR melodious symphony in horror sounds of accursed flutes and drums drowned their Harmony, threatening to mute THEIR harmonious choir.
Akivili of Trailblaze looked at the mortal and at where he had come from. It was then THEY accepted the fact that there are places, realms beyond reality that not even THEY could or should explore.
HooH faltered as the Equilibrium of the universe was disrupted beyond their control as concepts far beyond THEIR understanding threatened to leak into the universe. No, not disrupted, but merely revealed that THEY were never in control in the first place, that THEIR control this entire time was merely an illusion.
Far beyond the battlefield, Nous the Erudition's red eye flashed repeatedly in puzzlement at what THEY gazed. THEY tried calculating the future of this unknowable unknown, extrapolating billions upon billions of time to calculate the future which has now remained uncertain. When the results only showed errors, THEY, in an unprecedented move, decided to merely bypass the unknown by ignoring the variable the mortal presented.
Far away, for the first and perhaps the last time, IX opened THEIR eyes before closing them just as quickly. Perhaps meaningless is much more preferable than the horror that THEY have gazed at.
Terminus of Finality, for a split moment so brief that it might not have happened, stopped as THEIR future became uncertain. The universe was fated to meet Finality, yet this event has made Finality almost impossible to happen in the future. Perhaps there is something that not even Finality could touch.
Yet, out of all of them, Tayzzyronth of Propagation saw one thing as THEY gazed at the mortal. Salvation.
In the instant, time resumed. Qlipoth's hammer, mere inches from Propagation to seal THEIR fate, missed its mark. THEY instead smashed the encroaching Swarm which intends to hold THEM back while their progenitor makes THEIR hasty retreat.
Tayzzyronth approached the human whose form is but a speck compared to THEM. None of it matters as THEY made THEIR decision.
THEIR form shrank as THEIR essence and power forcefully made their way inside the human's body fusing with it sacrificing what remains of THEIR intelligence as a trade-off.
The Aeons watched as Tayzzyronth were fused into the mortal. An impossibility that should not have happened given normal circumstances. This mortal, however, was anything but mortal.
When the last of THEIR essence was absorbed, a shell began to form around the human's body, encasing it in an insectoid egg, awaiting the day it would hatch.
The Swarm, no longer sensing their Aeon, scattered from the scene, their mission accomplished. In the meantime, they will cause destruction across the universe as they await the day their Aeon will be born anew.
The other Aeons also dispersed, their mission of eliminating the rampaging Propagation finished even if THEY didn't manage to seal THEM entirely.
One Aeon however stayed at the spot where the portal, which had now closed, was. THEY remained uncomfortably silent as THEY watched the egg lazily floating in space before a laughter, much louder than THEIR first reverberated across the universe as THEY realised the entertainment that would come in the future.
.....
THUD!
"Woah! What was that? Did the train just hit something?" March exclaimed as she fell onto the ground from the impact.
A man with brown hair adjusted his glasses and looked around. "March, Dan Heng, stay here. Himeko and I will investigate," he said.
Dan Heng nodded, readying his spear.
A frightened Pom-Pom clutched their broom tightly while Himeko and Welt checked the furthest train car where the collision had occurred.
The trio held their breath as they waited for the two to return.
Suddenly, a vibration in their pockets made March jump in surprise. She pulled out her phone and discovered a message from Himeko.
"Dan Heng, March, come over here. There's something you need to see."
Both of them exchanged glances and nodded, realising that whatever they had discovered must have been extraordinary. As they left the train car, after Pom-Pom wished them good luck, they arrived at the designated train car. Their initial tension was soon replaced by confusion when they found Welt and Himeko standing in front of a giant egg.
"Is that an egg from the Swarm?" Dan Heng asked, uncertainty lacing his tone. He had seen what an egg from the Swarm was like, this one, however, was much different and seemed much closer in size to a person similar to a Vidyadhara Hatching Rebirth.
"I don't know. Still, just because it seems harmless, we need to be careful," Welt said, his eyes analysing the potential danger the egg might pose.
"This isn't the start of some horror movie, right? You know, the one where a crew on a space station is being hunted by a monster?" March added. "Wahh!"
As March finished speaking, the egg began to shake, revealing that whatever was inside was trying to break free from its shell.
The crew of the Astral Express readied their weapons, holding their breath as they awaited the emergence of whatever was inside, hoping it wouldn't be dangerous.
Plop
When the egg fully hatched, the crew of the Astral Express could only look on in disbelief at what had just come out of it. A human boy in a fetal position with some odd-looking insectoid features.