Norman whirled around, trying to find the source of the voice. But there was nothing except the chain of planets.

Then he tried to respond, only to realize he had no mouth. Then it dawned on him that he didn’t have a body at all. How was he even perceiving this place without eyes? More thoughts and questions swirled through his being before being arrested by the voice once more.

“Apologies,” it said from everywhere, yet nowhere all at once. “I shed my mortal form long ago and have been alone for longer than I care to think. Sometimes I forget what it was like existing.” That last word made his thoughts thrum uncomfortably.

There was a tug on his consciousness and his attention was drawn to a growing ball of grey nearby. Soon the grey ball started forming into a shape. That shape quickly started taking on features: eyes, nose, arms, legs, …tentacles.

If he had eyelids, Norman would have blinked in shock. The thing in front of him looked exactly like storybook descriptions of Cthulhu. Only instead of a skyscraper-sized being, this thing was about the size of a child. Not that it felt any less powerful than what he imagined Cthulhu might feel like.

“Now for you,” the creature spoke.

There was another pulling sensation, only this time it felt like he was being sucked inward. His once diffuse consciousness screamed as the creature brought its hands together. With that simple motion, it seemed like he was pressed flat and compacted. When the sensation passed, he blinked, truly blinked.

Norman extended his hands, staring at them in shock for a moment. Then he looked at the thing that had done it. “A- Are you a god?” It was the only thing he could think of to explain this being’s power. If this creature was a god, he probably needed to apologize for being so blasphemous.

“No. I am simply a lost soul, much like you. Only I didn’t come here by accident. I chose to send myself here.”

For a moment, Norman’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Why would anyone choose to destroy their own soul?

“Why indeed?” The creature asked as it turned toward the planets in the distance.

Wait, how had they gotten so far away? Hold up, did you just read my mind?”

“This place isn’t like the firmament. Natural law does not hold sway here. And no, I did not read your mind. You are communicating your thoughts rather loudly to anyone wishing to hear them.”

Norman tried to still the questions in his mind, but the creature only chuckled lightly.

“It is fine. You have questions, ask them.”

“What are you?”

It let out a sigh that set the tentacles over its mouth waving. “I suppose I am the last of my kind. A race long dead before any of the current species waked the multiverse. The name would be meaningless to you. But you can call me a great old one, a primal, or Cthuhlu. All are valid.”

“…You don’t look like an evil cosmic entity?”

The sides of the creature's face scrunched up into what Norman assumed was a smile. “Ah yes, the psychic bleed-through from other realms isn’t always clear. I’m sure you noticed this yourself.”

Norman nodded slowly.

“Your minds usually fill in the blanks. I’m sure to humans, I must seem like a monster out of some horror.”

“But you’re not?” Norman asked tentatively.

The thing shrugged. “I am me.”

That wasn’t a no.

Then there was a minute of awkward silence. Seeing he wasn’t going to get anything more, Norman asked a different question.

“Did you bring me here?”

“Yes and no.” It waved a hand and it was like he was looking through a window positioned over the array.

Norman quickly realized it was showing a record of past events like a recording. It showed a bird's eye view of the array. Donovan was standing there looking smug, while he was trapped inside the dome of energy. Soon his son Vincent appeared along with Kaila. Then the ring golem killed the fucking idiot. After that, Donovan gave his little speech and got himself Cursed. Kalia raged against the dome, trying to free him, Grobert then appeared and took her to safety. The images seemed to flash by in fast-forward.

Then it was just him and Grobert, until a flash of white covered the recording. When it was gone, all that was left was a familiar hole.

“It failed.” His heart dropped.

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“No. This is what would have happened had I not intervened.” The view shifted, zooming out and out and out. Soon he could see the entire planet in the window. It was far larger than he realized. There was that same flash of white. And instead of the multi-mile-wide hole Norman expected to see, over three-quarters of the planet was simply gone.

“Wha…”

“Your soul was much too strong. Had it been torn open and left to expand, this is what would have happened. I intervened before it could completely annihilate the world.”

“Did it work then? Did the array save the planet?” He had to know.

“Your spell worked as intended, some of the essence of your soul was fed into the array network to power it.”

“Thank god. Or whomever, I guess.”

“But it did not do as you hoped.”

Norman looked at the creature. “What?”

“The spell was designed to reinforce the barrier between worlds. It did do that. I must say, it was an ingenious combination of magic to accomplish even that. But the spell was based on the wrong assumptions.”

Norman went cold, he almost didn’t want to ask but his morbid curiosity won out. “Where did we go wrong?”

The creature gestured to the stack of worlds. “All of these. They were all once one world. They are only reverting to their natural order after I miscalculated.”

“Wha- what do you mean?”

The creature seemed to deflate at the question. “Back when the world was whole, there were many different species. Much like there are now. Wars broke out, and some of these species were wiped out in the conflicts. Then peace would reign for a time before another violent conflict erupted. Eventually, only my people remained. But even then they weren’t satisfied. They fought devastating wars amongst themselves. In an effort to halt this neverending series of conflicts, I sundered my own soul from the firmament and shattered the planet into individual ecosystems. This killed off my people and left these new worlds devoid of complex life, but I knew in time it would return.”

And yet this creature claimed it was not a god.

“I am not. You are capable of the same thing if you choose to do so. But I leave that choice up to you.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“My time is coming to an end. Most of my soul was spent trying to save the world by splitting it. But I failed to see the long-term ramifications of my actions. And now they are coming back to haunt me.”

“…The collapses!”

“Yes. The worlds above are unstable. Like all things, they long to be whole.” As the creature spoke, one of the worlds crumbled apart and the world at the bottom grew.

The creature sighed and held up his hand. Norman watched as a little worm crawled along his fingers. “When I had first sensed another soul cast out of the world I had hoped for someone to take up my mantle. But this little guy is only a creature of base survival. That act cost a good portion of my remaining power and only hastened the rejoining. But It gave me hope. So I waited and watched until another soul was cast out. And you came. But I’m afraid I used almost all of my power to bring you here. With my power drained, there is nothing I can do to slow the collapses any longer.”

“What!” Norman screamed. “You have to do something, my family is down there.”

The creature started to fade out, like smoke blowing away in the wind. “I have done something. I am truly sorry for burdening you with this responsibility. With the last of my energy, I will transfer my knowledge to you. I hope you have more luck.”

Norman rushed over and tried to grab the thing, demanding that it stay and fix this mess, but his hand passed through smoky mist instead of grabbing onto anything solid.

Then it felt like a spike of lightning was driven into his skull. He would have fallen to his knees had there been a floor to fall to. Instead, he grabbed his head and screamed as unfathomable knowledge was dumped into his mind.

His human brain had a hard time comprehending half of what the thing was shoving into his mind, but he grasped enough to expend a bit of his soul energy to slow the collapse. During his time insensate, three more planets had collapsed.

At first, he was struck with horror as he thought they had all collapsed at the same time. That would have been catastrophic for everyone. But the memories from the creature told him that time did not work the same way here as it did in the firmament or physical world.

His first thought was of his wife and children. The world spun, or he revolved around it, he wasn’t sure. Eventually, it stopped and he was left staring at a section. His vision grew sharper and sharper until he could make out the crater where his soul had exploded as well as Ashvale, well distant from the destruction. Then his vision sharpened even more and he could see his wife and kids.

He screamed for them to hear him, but it was meaningless. It was like watching a stop-motion movie. Time zipped past and his kids grew, the city changed. Tears welled in his eyes as their lives zipped out of sight. He tried to focus back on them but it was like trying to grasp at a soap bubble. Soon he found it hard to focus on even Ashvale. His vision was being pulled farther and farther away. Eventually, his mind was even pulled from viewing Normenia as a whole.

It was the physical weight of dozens of planets that forced him to finally look away. He cursed the being that brought him here, all the while thanking him. It had known that the world would end without outside help. But it had no power to reach into the physical realm to affect anything. Not after using most of it back when he first arrived in this place.

When Norman first detonated the worm soul, he had no idea that the test would destabilize the entire multiverse. Going by the few memories he was able to pull from the collective knowledge of uncountable millennia, the rejoining would have eventually sped up anyway, but probably not for a dozen years or more.

Knowing you were inadvertently responsible for hastening the end of the world was not a comfortable feeling.

Then when the second soul detonated, the being was ready. It pulled him through. It didn’t matter to the thing who it was, so long as its soul survived the journey and it was capable of rational thought. Despite having his soul torn apart and put back together, Norman was glad it was him and not someone like Donovan.

He couldn’t imagine what someone like that would have done with this power. Not that Norman wanted it or even knew what to do with it.

With the knowledge given to him by the creature, he had the ability to stop the collapse. But he didn’t do that. He didn’t want to be stuck here watching time pass him by until he too faded from existence only for the rest of the worlds to all come crashing back together as soon as he was gone. Using only a small bit of himself, he slowed the decay down. Just enough to give the planet and the people time to acclimate before the next one.

With that done, Norman floated in the black expanse. He refused to be stuck here for all eternity. He may not be physically present but thanks to the old one’s knowledge, he knew there were things he could control to ensure his family's continued survival long into the future.

And so Norman did what he did best, he worked on a solution to a problem.