Chapter 2: Chapter 1 – Birth

Birth. Death. In truth, they were both meaningless words, here in this timeless and immaterial plane. Yet, even so, it became.

 

Birth. Death. Meaningless words, perhaps, but ‘birth’ is the only word that mortals would find themselves using, had they seen what would transpire.

 

It was ‘birthed.’

 

A violent collision of concepts, bound together and torn apart in a slow-moving, era-long dance. It would have been microscopic, had size existed in this plane.

 

An endless war of growth and death. A fight that lasted millions of years. Birth and death.

Rapid, but ancient motions of impressions and ideas leading to a grand climax, a magnum opus, of being.

 

A pool of pure something then encompassed and gathered the concepts and ideas that had been bound together into a new being.

 

It did not know yet what it was, only that it was. It could not see, yet it knew that the place in which it was existing was formless.

 

Formless. Shapeless. Primordial. It latched onto this fact.

 

Primordial. The Primordial Plane.

 

It knew these things, but it could not understand. How could it? It did not yet have a means to understand, as it did not have a form.

 

Slowly and quickly, it gathered itself and something else. It drew what it could into what seemed like the core of itself.

 

Yes, slowly and quickly—like running through primordial sludge—it became. The drops of the Primordial something coalesced together, shaping a new being. These drops fell onto it, forming a form, yet without mass.

 

Now, if size existed in the Primordial Plane, this form was about the size of a human man’s hand.

 

It opened its eyes.

 

Eyes. A common thing. Present in many lifeforms, ranging from the fish under the sea to the mammals and reptiles on the land.

 

It knew this. It knew not how it knew it, however.

 

Its eyes saw an eternal nothingness, yet filled with something. Where were these ‘fish’? Where was the ‘sea’? Where were these ‘mammals’? What were these ‘reptiles’? Where was the ‘land’?

 

Disturbed by the endless and colorless expanse, it skittered across an endless plane.

 

It skittered?

 

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Its eyes looked at its claws, its legs, its body. It knew these were present on some lifeforms too.

 

So it thought to itself, Where are they?

 

With a shocked twitch of its legs, it recognized itself. It now knew it had a mind.

 

Calming itself after a timeless moment, it thought.

 

What am I? There was no answer.

 

Where am I? There was no answer.

 

Why is there no answer? There was no answer.

 

So it stilled itself, and thought more. I must know. Why am I unable to know?

 

Nothing is telling me, it answered itself.

 

Then I must learn by and of myself, it concluded.

 

So, gathering itself, it looked at its own existence.

 

And in itself, it saw a great cloud of droplets, with each drop shimmering a lightless, yet bright, reflection. It reflected itself. Each drop was interconnected and shone with the bright reflection of its peers.

 

It asked, How? Of course, there was no answer given from the empty Plane. Nevertheless, this time, it concentrated and saw.

 

It saw within itself a web of pulsing and living light. The web was the droplets, but even so, the droplets were the web.

 

It shook itself, confused. Is my existence a web?

 

With another exertion, it focused and perceived.

 

The webs, even when they were droplets, were in the shape of a form!

 

It knew what this form was.

 

I am a crab.