What she saw at the end of her life was pitch black.

In fact, it couldn't even be called that. It was more akin to nothingness itself right in front of her non-existent eyes.

She felt as if she was floating with no body, no...soul. Just a feeling of existence.

She had her memories. She remembered someone saying when she was young, that someone blind does not stare at pitch blackness. They just see nothing.

At first, she couldn't exactly imagine what nothingness looked like; no human mind could even imagine such a concept in their heads, let alone feel it. Written words were the only thing that was close to accurate to what nothingness may feel and look like.

Was this her punishment? Not Heaven nor Hell, simply a sense of oblivion, the final answer to life's greatest mystery.

She wanted to laugh, but...she couldn't. She had no mouth, she remembered that now. So, a feeling of bliss was all that she could muster to compensate for it.

Then—

She noticed something, a...star? She swore that she could not see, for she had no eyes. Yet, she still had vision. It felt like a game that one would play from a bird's eye view. A bodiless vision, an odd feeling to say the least.

The star expanded, and thousands upon thousands of them conjured themselves in a chorus of light, colorful light. And like rain, they shot themselves towards her non-existent body, painting the notion of a conceptless void into a swirl of raw divine and omnipotent power.

The creation of the world, that was what her vision was depicting. An act seen through the eyes of heaven.

She had heard of many creation stories, of how people viewed the process of the world's birth. In many cultures, it would involve a whole pantheon of deities, be they primordials or the ancestors of the gods that they worship today. Some only depicted a singular supreme God sculpting the world before resting upon the final day. Some involved great battles that resulted in the world being born. A few of them even said that the world they stood on was the corpse of a great primordial entity.

But this...the process of the world being born, it started with the birth of the abstract first.

With awe, she witnessed what could be considered an invaluable experience. Not even the phrase 'once in a lifetime' could cover it.

From the rain of light, came forth the essentials, the principles that would define all things: Existence and non-existence. Something and nothing.

Afterwards came the fundamentals: the concepts of beginning, continuation, and end. Possibility and impossibility.

Afterwards then came the essence of creation: form, mind, soul.

And from the rushing of that omnipotent light came more and more: life, death, time, space, dimensions, afterlife, oblivion, good and evil, names, identities. Thousands upon thousands of concepts, tens of thousands becoming countless. For every concept that was born, more sprouted from them. Exponential growth towards infinity.

She could not comprehend it all, despite being spared from the limited human mind that is unable to comprehend it all. She could not catch up to what she was seeing. Her experience and current mindset would not allow such comprehension of events that were being depicted before her. Esoteric and abstract. A dance of ideas, of admittedly formless phenomena despite the concept of form already being born.

Those concepts that came to be would then be defined as the things that all of creation subsists from, becoming eternal and self-existent, operating within its own parameters. And from them came forth the realms of creation, as well as any other possible world that may come with it.

Her vision would now depict the birth of the universe itself. This one she was truly familiar with. To put it simply, the Big Bang was what was being depicted before her non-existent eyes.

The birth of an infant universe, billions of years fast-forwarded into a mere several minutes. The birth of stars and galaxies, the first black holes. All of it was familiar to her. She was fortunate that she paid attention to the lessons she was taught at school, for she understood what was happening before her now.

And then, the world itself was born. A planet of sorts, but unlike what she understood...this planet already had life. Perhaps it was because the fast-paced vision before her couldn't care less to have her see the process of it cooling down from molten rock. Or perhaps it was because the existence of the divine made sure to skip that process?

Whatever the case, her vision was now depicting the world itself from a bird's eye view. Above the clouds, still formless, she saw cities built and ravaged, societies flourishing, history being made and torn. She saw streaking lights and devastating wars, the presence of magic that she once understood to only be fictional being confirmed as truly real within this world.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Yes...magic. She had only ever heard of it in fantasy novels. The closest to magic would be the tricks of magicians from where she was from. Or perhaps science could be deemed the magic of her world? Whatever the case, those streaks of light, great feats of mages, and superhuman displays of strength, they all seemed to be the case for reality in this world she was observing.

The times fast-forwarded once again, and this time, the world was much more peaceful. Its cities lit up in the night, with the presence of magical technology being ever more prevalent. From what she could understand, it was now a world familiar to her in terms of technological advancement, yet its aesthetic was still something that could only be found in works of fiction in her previous life.

Then her vision descended to a lower view, a more personal view, still formless. She saw two people falling in love, a future husband and wife, her...

"Mother...and father...?"

She said to herself, now aware that her mind was able to speak to herself. She continued to see what was in front of her now, time slowing down to something much more manageable. She felt...happiness for them. The white-haired woman with emerald eyes hugged the raven-black-haired man with silver eyes. She could not hear them just yet, but she could feel them happy, laughing and crying because of it.

Fast forward to sometime in the evening, after their marriage, the white-haired woman and the black-haired man made love with each other. Despite being formless still, she flinched in embarrassment over the action, but at least it was covered by the bed sheets as they committed their passion for one another.

Fast forward to some odd several years later, the two of them were now a happy family, with a young girl of black hair and emerald eyes present among them. She deemed her to be...

"My sister...?"

She thought to herself once again, feeling more familiarity now. The three members of the family, as she saw them, were enjoying a small picnic in the front garden of a sizable manor. They seemed to be a wealthy family of sorts, perhaps part of the nobility if such a concept did exist in where they lived.

It reminded her of the stories that Violet once told about her childhood in Britain. Even the house these three people lived in was reminiscent of that.

She always wanted this kind of life. She was quite jealous of her older sister, actually. Never having experienced such a happy life for so long, she envied her. But...she was also happy for her. Perhaps she could experience such a thing with her.

Her older sister, still at a very young age, spoke in a deafened tone towards her two parents. The two parents seemed shocked at first, but the two laughed it off. If she could pout, she would do so, feeling a bit jealous over what unknown conversation they were having together for she could not hear them just yet. It might've been her sister's first words being spoken out loud.

But...

"Is this...?"

The scene changed once again, to a bedroom, the bedroom where she previously saw her two parents make love with one another. She didn't know how far into the future it was now, but she could feel more familiarity with the environment around her.

This sort of feeling...she had taken it as a fact.

"This is my birth."

A statement, a firm one towards herself. She felt a bit odd over experiencing one's own birth in a third-person view, but that could change sooner or later. Although...

She didn't know what to feel about this, either.

For most of her past life, she only experienced despair. She never knew happiness ever since her previous father passed away. The best she had felt afterwards was only when her only friend accepted her offer of bonding with her. Yet...

"Why am I feeling this emotion...?"

Happiness. Love. Acceptance. The three words that could be used to perfectly describe the anomaly that was within her very soul. A foreign feeling to her now, for barring her friend, she was never accepted. She was never loved. She was never happy. Not after that tragedy struck her life.

Was she worthy of love? Was she worthy to be accepted by them? Was she worthy to be happy?

Worthiness, the feeling of being capable enough for something, to be enough for something, to be chosen for something. Time had chosen to stop as she thought about her own predicament. She didn't feel that she was ready for this. But why...?

"Why am I happy...?"

She shouldn't have felt this emotion. She had been conditioned to. She wasn't worthy of it, she didn't even have anything to give back to them. Why must she live again? Why couldn't she just stick to observing the world? Why couldn't she just exist in a void where nothing existed?

Why couldn't she go to either Heaven or Hell? Why couldn't she just rot away as a mere corpse made to be buried? Why couldn't she live in her own despair in a cycle of karma? Why did she deserve to be happy?

Why happiness? Why love? Why acceptance?

If she had a body right now, she would have been crying, tears of confusion and distress, as they were made for neither sadness nor happiness. A feeling of confusion, that's what she was experiencing now.

Confused as to what to do. How to react. How to respond. She was naught but a mere child now, either waiting to be born, or one that had never grown. Her mentality was weak, at least that's what she believed.

She had persevered for so long, waiting for that one glimmer of light to save her. Yet why did it choose to come now, after all of it was over?

Why did she deserve to be saved through this path? Why? Why? Why...?

To whomever had chosen this for her, whatever had chosen this for her, she asked that question.

"Why...?"

If she had a voice, her voice would have been sore and quiet from all the crying. If she had eyes, they would have only seen tears. If she had a body, it would have been kneeling down on the floor, the palm of her own two hands covering her tearful face.

"Welcome to the world, Marilyn Althorn."

She kept crying, she could hear herself now. The crying of a child having been born sounded out throughout the room she was in. White hair and silver eyes. A small and frail body. Features befitting of a small child being born to this particular family.

The exhausted mother smiled, the tired maid smiled, the young raven-haired girl smiled.

The man she called father spoke to her once more, a bit teary-eyed as he smiled.

"We'll make sure to take good care of you. Such it is a blessing to have you."