Out, high above Avani, Jalen gazed down at the radiant blue marble suspended in the otherwise vacant cosmos, in a tight gravitational lock with the sun and its moon. He made all three celestial bodies spitting images of the ones he knew could support life—his home. Yet, Avani had evolved past that, its geography different from Earth, its sentient people originating from entirely different species of animals.
He flew away, leaving the planet behind, towards the largest celestial body in his otherwise blank universe. The closer he got, the more solar winds, ripe with radiation, bombarded his very being. It brought back memories, to the time when all this had begun, eons ago, as he hurtled towards the Seed of the Universe. When the sun encompassed his full view, he arrested his movement. The corona flares erupting from its superheated surface still nearly reached him. The sun spoke to him, its voice ethereal whispers deep in his mind.
“Four billion years have elapsed. Four billion years to go until I grow red and expand.”
A wave of understanding passed through him. If what the star stated rang true, then the terisar and any other sapient race had four billion years before the sun that nourished them would become a red giant and end life as they knew it. This phenomenon was par for the course, even for Earth, too. Stars, even though long-lived, practically eternal from a mortal’s perspective, faded into nothingness, sometimes going out in a blaze of glory.
To rectify the situation, he stretched out his hand. From it, floods of his life force came out and were pulled in by the sun’s gravitational mass. With this, the star’s lifespan effectively tripled.
He left the sun and headed outward. With all gates holding his life force open, avalanches of the golden cosmic energy followed behind, its sheer ferocity momentarily brighter than the sun. In the heart of his dense life force cloud, celestial bodies formed; planets of rock, ice, and gas. Some of which dwarfed Avani by several magnitudes.
“It’s time to liven this place up a bit,” he noted.
In collaboration with the sun’s gravitational pull, he carefully set the planets in place so as not to disturb the balance between the sun and Avani. It was impossible for Avani to remain unaffected by the presence of the new planets. His goal was to make the transitional period smooth as the planets settled into an equilibrium. So, after shifting them into position, he observed his work—hands folded in front—to make sure everything was in working order.
What’s going on?
The last ice giant at the edge of the solar system swung in a safe orbit around the sun. The problem originated much closer to the sun. Something pulled Avani out of its set orbit and placed it on a crash course with another rocky planet.
Shit!
He soared forward, willing his life force into a giant golden net that he cast wide, spanning a few million kilometers, to catch the other rocky planet, which had one and a half times the mass of Avani. Then he pulled, his muscles straining as much as the net, which nearly snapped under the insane tension. It seemed as if he was in a tug-of-war with the gravitational pull of another star. And technically, he was contending with the astronomical mass of the planet and its intended orbit, coupled with the immense gravity of the sun. However, his senses alerted him to the gravitational pull of another massive celestial body in the solar system.
The net dug into the planet, ripping off massive chunks of its crust, which shot into space, as well as chain earthquakes brewing deep under its surface. At last, with his muscles dangerously close to exhaustion for the first time, he managed to pull the planet away. Then he carried on for millions of kilometers and flung the planet away into its previous orbit.
Next, he flew to the gas giants, towards the source of the problem. One of them illuminated the cosmos like only a star would. It was a red dwarf star, similar in size to Jupiter. But after probing it, he discovered it had over 200 times the mass of Jupiter. No wonder it disrupted the orbits of other planets. In fact, a turquoise gas giant was pulled into its orbit.
“Mass used to birth, too great for gas giant,” it said. “Became star instead.”
He smacked his forehead, hard at that, for miscalculating the amount of life force released in his excitement. Now he had to find a solution fast. Destroying the star first sprang to mind, but the repercussions alone discouraged him. The sheer toxicity of the radiation expelled in the star’s death would strip Avani of its ozone layer and bombard its habitants with solar radiation.
So he did something he’d never tried before, which was becoming a common theme during this journey. He figured out the orbit between the sun and the red dwarf star, determined the red dwarf’s movement path, and placed a portal ahead, which spanned half a million kilometers across. His life forces reverse bled dry during the process. Thankfully, the close proximity of his first universe replenished him faster. He had placed the exit location of the portal light years away from the sun and Avani. From that distance, the sun was a speck of dust while Avani was all but lost to the cosmos.
Before leaving through the portal ahead of the approaching star, he diminished his life force reserves again by pausing the passage of time in the solar system, save for the red dwarf. As he contemplated how to go about the next phase, the red dwarf, in all its colossal mass, ventured through the portal, appearing behind him, like a colossal red eye blinking open. That gave him an idea. However, it was something only his true self could accomplish with his god form’s meager life force reserves. So he opened another portal and passed into the plane above—the universe where his life force resided.
To where his true form also resided, suspended like a humanoid-shaped black hole, with astronomical amounts of cosmic energy orbiting it. As he drew nearer, swimming through oceans of the same energy that fuels him, his consciousness slipped into the Cosmonar. Then, for the first time in billions of years, his eyes, each the size of that red dwarf star, opened, the light expelled from them brighter than the aforementioned star. He closed his fist. The impact alone from that action cleared a sizable area around him of his oceans of life force.
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“It does feel good to be back,” he said, his voice expelling mass shockwaves.
After opening another portal, he passed back into the nearly empty universe. The red dwarf floated aimlessly, acclimating itself to its new surroundings. He stretched his hand, careful not to destroy the tiny star between his fingers.
“Now, what do I do with you?” he pondered out loud, the star floating in the palm of his hand. “It would be a waste to let you be, considering you were my second star.”
“Time elapsed, insignificant,” the star said. “Lifespan, trillions of years.”
That made sense to him. Red dwarf stars were far dimmer and burned through their hydrogen supply less rapidly than main-sequence stars like the sun. That meant this little star would live a very long time.
“I will come back for you when I have something in mind,” he said, then released the star.
In one moment, the red dwarf assumed an orbit around him. In the next, he existed trillions of light years away from the star with enough distance between them to field more galaxies than there were grains of sand on Avani. He clasped his hands together, willing an infinite amount of portals to form in the universe. The portals filled every nook and cranny, every corner of the expanding universe. Through these portals, oceans of his life force flooded in, superheating the otherwise cold cosmos with cosmic energy. When the matter reached a sufficient level, he closed the portals and surged ahead, his colossal form taking some time to reach the speed he wanted.
He flew through the universe, now simmering with energy, an avalanche of creation left his wake. Wherever he passed, stars, black holes, planets, and every other celestial body formed. Gradually the cosmos filled with flashes of light as stars were born in the trillions. Through their gravitational might, planet systems formed. During this chaotic process, the stars jostled and fought with each other as they marked their territories. Some died, consumed by larger and more powerful stars, or stripped by supermassive black holes.
He let things fall into their natural order, only having played as the catalyst in their creation. After all, that was the rule of the cosmos. Eat or be consumed. Fight or be killed. Survive or perish.
The Black holes continued to that effect, pulling millions of stars into their orbits and forming galaxies. He could not discern the passage of time during this great creation process. After all, in this form, why would time matter? One year, a hundred years, or a few billion years, all felt the same.
At last, his work was done. Though teeming with celestial activities, the universe had settled. He watched it for some time, to see if any issues came to be. Under his watchful gaze, some stars died while others were born from their ashes.
“I must be forgetting something.” He cupped his jaw. “Oh, yes!”
He returned to the corner of the universe where he left the red dwarf star. The star now orbited the same black hole as Avani among a million other celestial neighbors.
Oh yeah, I stopped time for them.
He suddenly remembered that for the life on Avani stood still, frozen in time. Their night sky probably remained dark and empty since he had disconnected from the rest of the universe. He filed that matter to be rectified later. There was the red dwarf to deal with, after all.
With eons of time to think, he finally found a use for the star. He doused the red dwarf in massive amounts of his life force. It was going to need it to complete the tasks set ahead. Next, he gave it sentience so that it could think and make adequate decisions. Other abilities he granted included cosmic perception, eternal memory, interstellar teleportation, and so on.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
It took a while, but the star eventually replied.
“Yes, Father.” Its voice was derived from a modulation of sonic harmonics and vibration frequencies, so it sounded ethereal. “Thank you for giving me life. I shall not fail you.”
“How do you feel?”
“Empowered. Yet, unenlightened. Much transpires in the vast cosmos, but my knowledge of it remains limited.”
He nodded. “Well, do not worry. I’m sure the time ahead of you will rectify that. I would like to stay and converse with you longer, but I suspect that I have spent too much time here. So I’ll give you your duty. You are to witness and record all events across the cosmos. You will also serve as my arbiter while I and Yun, my partner, are away. Judge, protect, and destroy life when the situation calls for it using the knowledge and forethought I bestowed upon you. Goodbye.”
“Wait, Father. I remain nameless. I humbly request that you bestow upon me a name.”
“Oh, yeah.” He sidelong stared at the red dwarf with the portal already open behind him. “Forgive me, I just have a lot on my mind. I can’t believe I forgot something so important.”
“Please do not apologize. You have committed no wrong. My lack of a name is no cause to delay you from your duties.”
“Nonsense. I made a mistake and I will correct it.” He cupped his jaw as he studied the star. “I shall call you Aleph, the first sentient star, and the Primordial Watcher.”
“Thank you, Father. Know that I shall carry my duties to the fullest. Can I create helpers to aid me?”
He could feel the waves of appreciation and praise radiating from Aleph.
“Yes,” he replied. “Do as you see fit.”
Then he used the portal, switched his consciousness back to Erebus, and exited another portal above Avani. At the snap of his finger, the passage of time resumed. Then he descended. Suddenly, the planet was bathed in the greatest light show ever as millions of stars flashed into existence from the perspective of any lucky inhabitant gazing up at the sky at night.
It turned out to be nighttime where he headed—the forest the terisar lived in. This time, Nola and Naru’ma weren’t his objective. Aldo was.
It proved easy for him to sneak through as almost all terisar were high in their trees, gazing up with awe, fascination, and fear at the millions of stars that just filled their night sky. He was sure Aldo didn’t climb amongst the Tigna Claw Tribe members to partake in a view the man saw every night back on Earth. Even if the man did, Aldo would stick out like a sore thumb. So he searched the houses, starting with the one assigned to Aldo.