"Mindful beings are much more complex than anything you have done so far." The woman continued, "The forest was a good start, with all its trees and bushes. Use their components to guide your creation." The man got up to pace around. As he walked, he flailed his arms in all sorts of directions, conjuring beasts and men alike, well, their carcasses at least.

Soon enough, the pile of bodies overcrowded the platform¸ causing the man to expand the cliff as he walked. "Stop," said the woman. But the man failed to hear her, too enamored with the activity of creation. "Stop!" she shouted. This time, the man heard her, and he appeared a bit startled, especially considering this was the first time the woman had raised her voice at him. Nevertheless, he followed her instruction and ceased his creations, pausing in step as well. The woman, seeing this, spoke further, "There is no need to widen the land upon which we stand, lest you ruin the view you worked to create."

"But there's not enough room for all of my creations," he innocently pleaded.

"Of course there is," the woman retorted, "simply get rid of your failures and you will be able to replace them."

A shot of realization hit the man, "I see!" The man, who before was rather stoic, was now completely entranced by creation, expressing emotions he had never before with intense interest in the activity itself.

He raised his arm, preparing to make a motion, then paused and turned his head towards the woman, "How do I do that?" he asked.

"Try to remember what I did," she replied.

The man sealed his eyes shut and furrowed his brow, "Remember…" he mumbled.

He opened his eyes, and in one quick motion he raised his hand to the sky and clenched it into a fist, causing the pile of corpses to explode. Blood and guts spewed everywhere, covering the pair in their grime and viscera. The woman, looking rather annoyed, snapped her fingers and was clean. The man, however, still seemed to lack the capability to do so. "Much better," he said as he prepared to resume his summoning.

"That is not what I meant," said the woman, interrupting his act.

"But I got rid of them, just like you did to the mountain."

She spoke sternly, "I was referring to the giant worm."

The man nodded, "Oh…" he paused, "but I didn't see you do anything to the worm, it just disappeared."

"That is because erasing is much easier than creating," remarked the woman, "the universe bends to your will, so all you must do is will your creations away, and they will be gone."

The man appeared a bit confused, "I thought I was already doing that," he said.

"Perhaps you were not willing them away but thinking about how to do so. You must plainly wish for their riddance. Do not think about how this occurs, just do it – believe in it, wholeheartedly, and it will come."

"I see," said the man. His eyes closed again, while his face contorted. He wrapped his arms around his body, as if hugging himself. With a sharp exhale, he opened his eyes. The mound of flesh was gone, along with the stains of gore, replaced instead by a large crater that ate into the cliff.

The woman looked pleased, and walked over to the man, skirting around the crater's edge. "Well done," she said, patting the man on the shoulder, "you cleaned yourself up nicely, but try to narrow your target to just the corpses next time."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Hmm," he muttered, rather unhappy with his mistake, "I pictured a large orb that expanded to swallow both me and the entirety of the pile, but this," he gestured towards the hole, "is beyond what I had in mind."

"But it is a start," reassured the woman, "I made errors like this too, but you will acquire increasingly precise control the more you practice." She left his side, amusing herself by dancing along the edge of the crater. After a few steps, she put one leg along the crater's wall and then slid herself down to the bottom of it.

The man looked at her curiously, "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making good on my promise to you," she raised her arms high above her head and continued, "you will see just how burdensome it is to affect a universe not your own." The woman swung her arms down.

BOOM

CRACKLE

SNAP

A series of ear-piercing noises accompanied an all-encompassing light that blinded both the man and woman. Within a few seconds, the light dimmed, leaving a crack in the air itself. The crack was relatively small – only about the size of the woman, and it was no more than the width of her fingertips. The length of the crack appeared to shimmer as the man inquisitively circled around it from above.

The woman, on the other hand, was unfazed, at least emotionally, by the crack's appearance. However, her breathing labored and she began to sweat, though she showed no signs of acknowledging this. With one deep breath, the woman reached her arm inside the crack, grimacing with pain and anguish as her arm throbbed with a sharp, searing sensation, as if a beast had bitten it.

Still, she carried on, not daring to retract her arm out of the crack without meeting her goal. Instead, she pushed it further, now up to her shoulder. Her whole body began to shake, and her breathing quickened despite her attempts to keep it controlled. The man looked on and started to grow worried.

Yet, she persisted, pressing her whole body into the crack until there was nothing left of her in the universe. The man panicked, scampering down the walls of the crater and towards the crack. He looked around it for any signs of the woman but could find none. So, he began to speak into the crack in hopes that she could hear him, "Are you okay?" He paused but received no answer. "Can you hear me?" Again, though he waited, all that responded was the whistle of the wind that blew above him.

Growing desperate, the man reached his arm into the crack, just as he had seen the woman do moments before. He too felt the immense pain. It was as if hundreds of needles had stuck themselves into his arm and were digging deeper with each passing second.

A few more moments of excruciating pain followed, but then he felt someone grasp his hand. The man pulled with all his might. Inch by inch, he retrieved his arm from the crack, pulling along whoever was holding on. Soon enough, his arm was entirely out of the crack, but his work was not done. He quickly reached with his other arm and took hold of the person grabbing him.

Again, he yanked and tugged with all he had, and his work swiftly bore fruit, as the hand of the woman appeared, finger by finger. Then, her wrist, her forearm, her bicep, her shoulder. Progress, however, slowed. As much as he jerked, he could only get parts of her body to appear for a split second before they recoiled back into the crack.

The man took a few sharp breaths, shook his head, then reached into the crack with both of his hands. Fighting the tortuous agony of the crack, he took a firm clutch of the woman's torso and leveraged his weight to lean back from it.

With a thud, the man fell to the ground and the woman collapsed on top of him. A third person, too, piled on – a short man dressed in colorful silken garments, who had fallen unconscious sometime during the ordeal. The man and woman laid exhausted, too tired to even speak, and so they rested in silence.

The man was the first to wake. He slithered out from under the woman and rose to his feet. He noticed that the crack had closed, but had no reaction to it, merely shrugging before checking the status of both persons and raising beds from the ground beneath them. Then, he turned, and with a sweep of his arm a staircase was carved into the crater walls. He climbed the steps all the way to the top, whereby he found himself looking over the town once more. There he took a seat, his legs dangling over the ledge.

He felt the wind graze across his body as it traveled up and caressed his face, tickling his nose as it passed. His eyes were drawn to a particular house in the town. It stood alone in a clearing, without any trees to obscure it from his view, but was too far to make out any details. The man smiled, and with a wave of his finger, a small, yet noticeable stream of smoke rose out from the house's chimney, which he busied himself with observing. There he remained, the wind keeping him company while the woman slept.