To say that I met God would be wrong, for God existed within the context of Earth.

No, what I met was a being of Supreme Power beyond Comprehension, its body containing multiple universes and infinite stars. Its eyes were Darkness and Void, the sheer Black deeper than the Vantablack ever created by my Earth’s Humanity.

I knew, as I stared at the Incomprehensible Vision, that my already dead mind turned deader.

With but a blink, the world compressed, my little bit of sanity intact in the little confines of my little mind. I was filled with existential terror, yes, and if I had a physical body, no doubt I would be shaking, peeing and shitting myself; but in front of that magnitude of Power, there were only resignation and acceptance left.

They spoke to me within a nanosecond that lasted a minute.

In a form that I saw but couldn’t see, an outline of stars spoke to me. “You have died an untimely death. I plucked your lost soul amongst destined many, and I have determined to give you purpose. With my will, you shall be the Hearth of my new world. What say you, lost soul?”

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Their words, I interpreted not as a question but as a command. I bent my metaphorical knee and bowed my metaphorical head towards, who I dubbed to be, the High Supreme. “I accept your judgement.”

They waved their hand over me, and the ground that I metaphorically stood on gave way to a black hole. My soul stretched and elongated, spaghettified until my self was translucent, able to phase through the barriers of universes itself. I descended upon a world so dark that Sunlight itself had not yet pierced through the Dark. Stars were tiny pinpricks that held no wonder.

Amidst the Dark, however, what I knew and felt to be life burned a scalding image in my nonexistent brain. The planet glowed in one tiny spot, and there I felt spikes of Burning Fire. Lightning split the sky, the flash of light illuminating an altitudinous volcano in an island ravaged by towering waves.

I plunged closer to the Light, and the stars blurred as an unknowable force projected me into the planet. I entered the atmosphere and burst forth the torrential rain and waves, leaving a straight line. I pierced through terrifying waves and passed through the soil. A deep force called to me, and I not only saw magma but felt its scorching warmth.

The next thing I knew, I was climbing out of a lava pool, my own vaguely humanoid body coated with volcanic matter. I stared at my dripping hands, then up at the sound of rough but sharp clicks of hard object on the stone floor. There, a statue looked down on me even though it held no eyes nor face. It knelt and leaned forward. It spoke.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Esse.”