When I awoke, there was nothing but...nothingness surrounding me. It's difficult to explain, because in this nothingness, in this chaos, in this Void, there is neither darkness nor light. For there to be light, there must be darkness, and for there to be darkness there must be light. Without one or the other, all that's left is nothingness. For a second, or perhaps longer, I sat there staring at nothing, attempting to grasp what was going on. The feeling of floating in this nothingness (though was it really nothing anymore, as I am here?) is akin to staring at the wall and letting all thoughts flee your mind...only you're deprived of every single sense...and your body...and everything else.

I'm lonely. So very, very lonely. Some small part of my mind told me that I should desire warmth and light andsubstance,but that was cowed by all-consuming isolation of being the only being in existance. As if in response to my thoughts I felt something within me surge, andsuddenly, in this void which was no longer a void, other things appeared. They were minuscule, so infinitesimally small that I might have missed them were it not just me and them in this desolate Void. With budding excitement and interest, I tried to move forwards, to extend a hand that didn't exist to pick up this tiny thing, but only found it slipping through my grasp. Frustrated, I tried again, focusing intently on grasping the thing without breaking it or letting it run free.

A small wisp of something,power,I realized, reached forth and wrapped itself around a handful of the miniscule objects, dragging them closer so I could really examine them. What I found left me both excited and thoroughly dissappointed. The tiny object was something akin to a soul -a truesoul. It was the base form of an actual soul, without all the memories from reincarnating many, many times, taint from those lives, and without the touch of those beings called gods. All there was, was the very base personality of the soul, and a little bit of strength. This was the exciting bit. The dissappointing bit was that the souls were incredibly weak, trembling and on the verge of collapse merely from being near me, and...well, let's just say they were not what I was looking for.

With a frown I let the souls go, scooping up another bunch and examining them before letting them go as well. This process repeated itself for a long time, until in my frustration I let out an incomprehensible yell. I couldn't talk to these souls, I could barely even touch them. If I tried, they'd shatter.

After a few moments of sulking I felt another surge from within myself, and two new souls appeared, catching my attention. They were much larger than the souls around me, but still smaller than myself, and slowly drawing closer. Tentatively I reached out to touch them, pulling them closer so as to simply see them. For a few moments I simply examined them, not communicating, just examining them. Satisfaction rose up in the core of my being, and power began flowing from me to the two souls. Slowly, ever so slowly, the two souls began to grow from invisible, nigh-undetectable beings into small balls of existance. Upon reaching a threshold I began to mold the two existances, forming corporeal bodies from memories I was unaware I had. Each soul was fed two very different, yet very similar sources of power that I had yet to understand, but channelled anyways. It was strange...though I had a bit of control, the changes to the two souls were largely automatic. So, with bated breath, I awaited their "birth."

The brighter of the two souls turned into a girl with long, blonde hair and graceful features. Four white-feathered wings stretched from her back, emitting a resplendent aura and matching the feathery ears that sat on the sides of her head. White, runic tattoos stretched across her beautiful body, and with but a thought white robes fell about her. Her twin whip-like tails gently curled around her in response, the feathery fans on the very ends gently twitching. The other soul turned into a boy with bronzed skin and a chisled body. His black hair fell about him in waves, matching the four scaled wings that emerged from his back and black tattoos that were very similar to the girl's. Dark horns curled off of his head, and I covered his body with black robes in the same style as the girl's. Two thick, spine covered tails curled around his feet, sitting incredibly, incredibly still.

They were shocking forms ofsomethingin this realm of nothingness, and I loved them both.

When the changes were finished and I stopped pouring power into their forms, their pairs of blue and brown eyes fluttered open to look at me. A sense of parental pride welled up inside of me, and the duo both bowed. With a chuckle I shook my head and spoke for the first time in who knows how long.This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Go." I said, and my two children stood, smiling and spreading their arms. In an explosion of power suddenly the void was filled with the clashing powers of the two, white and black mixing and crashing together. It was utterly chaotic, and I, for one, fled some distance away so as to watch what the two were doing. It was much more interesting than simply sitting there, playing with the souls that surrounded me. Gold and white clouds were the creation of my daughter, covering the same amount of space as the black and silver clouds created by my son. (For a moment I examined these parental feelings I had. I created their bodies and grew those two souls, so yes, they were my children. And as such, I felt pride for all they created.) However, with a frown I realized that although the two, black and white, were two sides of the same coin there was no balance between the two. It was chaotic. A mess.

While I hoped that eventually the two would come to an equilibrium, after watching the two forces fight it out for a time, I intervened. Where the two forces met I created another power, forged from both the powers of my son and daughter, and filled with a little something else.I pulled this power from the very core of my being, and in the chaos where the black and white met was where the new power was born -albeit much weaker and smaller than the other two. It was all kinds of shades of grey, with black and white and silver and gold bits floating around all within it, merging and melding together in a brilliant display. I could even see the beginnings of new colors, though they were mere flashes.

Still, I was not satisfied. This had been but a temporary solution, as the forces were still too unbalanced. So once again I set about to work, trying my damnedest to find a balance between the three powers. Surprisingly, the answer came rather quickly. The three powers I had created were all part of the whole, and yet still inherently separated bysomething.So, I took thatsomethingand turned it into a power that covered and connected all three, both real and not real, both tangible and formless, both physical and spiritual, yet there all the same. It acted as a glue of sorts, and stabilized all the other powers. Then that I sent out another call, because my work was not yet complete, drawing forth two more souls to mold.

The first I created for the grey power. To create its corporeal form, I did something different than I did with my first son and daughter. I pulled out the same power from my core that created the grey, and pulled pieces of the grey power itself forward and fed it into the soul. With those powers as the basis I began to form the body, from which was sculpted a woman. Like before I didn't have complete control over the creation of her body, though I did add a few changes. Long green hair that fell down to her waist, flowers forming a ring around her head, branching horns like those of an elk, cute round ears, beautiful earthy skin, and a dress made of fresh green leaves; these were the features that made up my new daughter. When she opened her gorgeous green eyes she simply smiled at me, and I felt warmth spread throughout my being.

She wasted no time, bowing politely to where I floated before moving off to the center of the grey, planting her feet and spreading her arms. The grey surged and abruptly expanded to the same size as the main two powers in response to her presence. With a smile I turned to the fourth soul, and began the process over again. Thesomethingwas a mysterious power, and I saw obvious changes in my creation. He wasnot strictly humanoid like the others. Although I clearly granted him the power to assume a humanoid form, he stuck with what could be considered his original -a great Dragon. His serpentine body was covered in thick metallic scales of a myriad of colors, two mighty angelic wings stretching from his back. His two sinewy arms stretched and flexed, the dark claws on his four-fingered hands retracting in and out like a cat. With a yawn his great maw opened and closed, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth.

"Go." I said, seeing not the viscious visage of a dragon, but instead a cute child of my own creation. The dragon's eyes snapped open to look at me, his whiskers twitching in response, before he leaned forward to nuzzle my incorporeal form. It was strange, feeling the touch of another living being after so long. "Get going, you!" I laughed, playfully pushing the dragon away. With a deep rumble-like chuckle the dragon retreated, flying forth and merging with the fourth power. Almost immediately the four powers underwent a qualitative change. Each expanded to four times their previous size, covering a vast expanse of the previous void, and what had once been chaotic now seemed balanced between chaos and order. It was wonderful, not too calm, not to wild.

As I gazed upon what had been created, I felt deeply satisfied. It was finally, finally stable, yet there was still something missing. I could see the colors, but without light and darkness, there could be no colors. And so, finally, I spoke the words that all beings like myself yearned to speak from their awakening.

"Let there be light." I said.

And there was light.