Far removed from the eyes of reality, located in the waters of myriad gray nil, the story of Nothing was just starting to be told.

Nothing was an unborn entity, a blob-like figure, able to manipulate its shape in many ways.

One important thing to know about Nothing is that they do not exist. This really bothered them, making it a lifelong goal to one day reach this illusory state of 'existence.'

Reaching a state of existence is no easy task. To achieve it, one must traverse the streams of time.

But time is a strange force, and Nothing cannot move directly within its flow. Only time can traverse these mysterious and mystical streams, and Nothing cannot "become time." However, it can find ways to manipulate it.

The streams of time appeared like gray snakes in the waters of gray. They lay scattered throughout, each stream connecting a place in the present with one in the future.

Nothing's only path forward to reach 'existence' was a tricky one.

By bending the streams of time until they fully encapsulated Nothing, they could use this encapsulation of time to travel throughout reality and 'exist.'

Nothing spent their days manipulating the streams around them in hopes of one day achieving this encapsulation.

Eventually, they were able to manipulate a stream enough to reach a one percent encapsulation.

Although small, this change made a significant difference. Nothing now appeared more opaque, less blob-like, and more rounded—almost spherical.

But soon after reaching this milestone, Nothing ran into an issue. The streams of time they were manipulating were too fierce. They could only make small kinks in the streams, and if they tried to bend other areas, the small kinks they had already made would iron themselves out, forcing them to start all over again.

Frustrated but unwilling to give up, Nothing noticed other unborn entities manipulating time. Realizing they could employ the help of others, Nothing wandered over to collaborate with another unborn entity in manipulating the streams.

With just the two of them working together, they could now double the amount they could manipulate the stream of time. However, since they took up more area, the total encapsulation only increased by half a percentage.

Seeing that this could work, Nothing recruited more entities to assist with their encapsulation. Eventually, they brought together hundreds of thousands of entities, achieving fifty percent encapsulation.

Nothing was no longer just 'Nothing.' Now leading an entire group of unborn entities, their size and opaqueness grew as well. No longer could they be defined as a group of 'unborn entities.' They had now emerged into a being known as 'plausible something.'

They were even more rounded, with a hint of gray visible on their surface.

Nothing roamed the waters, and with their larger size, they could now interact with the other plausible somethings in the area. Some were much larger and closer to full encapsulation than Nothing was.

Eager to make more progress, Nothing sought to merge with other plausible somethings.

However, while the total size and encapsulation increased, the efficiency of merging did not. With each merge, the total encapsulation only increased by a small percentage.

This was a long and tedious process.

Many millennia passed, and after integrating the final plausible something, Nothing finally achieved total encapsulation.

Now resembling a black sphere, Nothing could move about within the streams of time unimpeded. Traveling along the streams, they reached the fringes of reality.

The fringes of reality were an expanse of black, dotted with small specks of light in the distance.

An incredible feeling of accomplishment washed over them. Eager to explore, they sped off to see if they could find any other existences nearby.

An incredible creature was traversing the top of the water near where Nothing had emerged from.

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The creature was enormous in complexity, a machine of forces stitched together to create an entity that controlled an uncountable amount of encapsulations of time. Its frame, painted in a chromatic swath of color, traveled across the waters of nil, not conformed to a single shape, mimicking the many different transpositions of life.

Nothing stared at the creature with a mix of awe and reverence.

The creature became aware of Nothing's presence, scooping them up into its maw and crunching down, consuming them like a nice snack.

As Nothing's hard-fought encapsulation of time merged with the being, Nothing was wrought with sadness. Their entire life had been spent struggling, and the abruptness of their end, alongside the sudden assimilation into this greater being, left Nothing feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied. Yet, they were completely powerless to control this fate, their story forgotten as soon as it began.

The tale of Nothing was not a happy one.

Reality is very cruel; the existences that had explored the land prior had many years' head start on the young and naïve Nothing. 

To say that he never had a chance is not true, but this chance was so small that it isn't worth calculating.

It is those that rise to the top who have stories written about them, those in pursuit of great goals who test the limits in the boundaries of life, reaching for greater heights than just merely "existing." 

As the creature continued its hunt along the waters, it moved slowly across the surface, consuming newly formed existences with every step. Eventually, it encountered another being.

He was old with a head of pristine white hair, wearing a green robe, and floating belly down above the waters, an inch away.

Seeing the man, the creature changed its shape, now resembling a woman with flowing brown hair and a red dress. As she transformed, the world around them seemed to rotate. The waters the old man had been looking at now stood upright like a wall in front of them. Beneath their feet lay a vast desert biome, stretching out with nothing but sand.

She looked at the man, and a faint smile appeared on her face.

"I have questions," she said.

A chessboard appeared in front of her, and the world around them shifted again in its presence. The desert and the wall twisted into a multicolored spiral.

After a moment, the colors settled, and the scenery evolved into a lush green mountainous landscape.

Amidst this vibrant scene, the two were now seated on chairs as black as shadows. Their bodies seemed to meld into the surroundings, blending with swirling spirals.

The board lay between them, with strange orbs hovering just above its surface.

The woman was the first to move one of the orbs.

In response, the environment shifted once more, and a sandy beach replaced the mountainous view, leading out towards a grand ocean.

"The weather is nice," she said, her hair now dancing in the ocean breeze.

The man frowned, his arms crossed, staring off into the distant horizon.

Moving one of the game pieces, he responded, "The weather IS."

The world rumbled incessantly in response.

The beach melted into a red hue, revealing a land filled with hellish scenery. The air became filled with cries of anguish as headless demons stabbed and ripped apart strange, intangible creatures.

The woman observed the man, her eyes filled with questions, inquiring, "Why have you stopped your climb?"

The man gave a pained look, replying, "I have long wandered the endless expanse of the fringes of reality, scaling many mountains but never reaching their peak." He sighed as he looked at a scene where a human-shaped figure was being stabbed in the chest by a demon with a trident.

"Mount Existence... its end is easy to define, but its beginning has always been obscured," the man concluded.

Intrigued by the man's response, the woman moved her game piece.

The scene shifted again, this time to an empty void shaded in a gradient of green.

"I see the future," she declared.

The man glanced at the green surroundings, a sneer forming on his lips. He shut his eyes, as if the scene before him wasn't worth his attention.

Moving his piece, he declared, "I see a WALL."

In response, the game vanished, returning them to the desert landscape.

The woman frowned. "What is the meaning of this?" she asked, her mind clouded with anger and confusion.

The man opened his eyes but didn't spare her a glance, keeping his focus on the gray wall in front of him.

"All of existence will soon be replaced," the green-robed man said calmly. "What use is the future? For me, I will only be looking at this wall."

"Preposterous! You abandoned everything for such a reason?" The woman glared at him, her eyes filled with hatred.

His patience was wearing thin. Annoyed by her persistence, he spoke sharply, "You've asked your questions, and I've given my answers. Now scram." He waved her away dismissively.

Fury ignited within her. Never before had she been so enraged by someone's words.

In the blink of an eye, a golden scimitar appeared in her hands. With a roar, she swung the weapon at the neck of the green-robed man.

The man's head flew off his shoulders and his body transformed into that of a hopping frog.

A ribbiting sound echoed out.

A strange pulse emitted from the place where his body once was and sixteen rings of gold locked the woman in place.

The woman remained expressionless as her body disintegrated into tiny, black, ball-like encapsulations of time. The frog reverted back to the green-robed man, his mouth opening three times its normal size to consume the encapsulations.

"What a waste of precious time," he lamented.

Shaking his head, the man returned his gaze to the gray wall in front of him.

Like Nothing, the woman and her existence became nothing more than a small memory, soon to be lost and forgotten. Her story was long-lasting, although in the greater scheme of the history of reality, it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

Reality is cruel; her life and goals remained unfulfilled. She was consumed by the man, dissatisfaction festering deep in her heart. The winner takes all, and though the green-robed man's story is incomplete, understanding its relevance requires the context of the future.

Deep in the heart of reality, the adventures of a boy named Ged were beginning to unfold.