POV: Thea

The portal opened and I stepped into nothing. Not the nothing of empty space. The nothing of before existence. The silence that predated sound. The void that predated the void.

I was fifteen years old and I was walking into the domain of a cosmic entity that wanted to unmake reality itself.

My legs shook. My heart raced. But I kept walking. Because this was the only path where everyone survived.

The nothing gave way to something. A structure. A palace of pure mathematics. Geometry so perfect it hurt to look at. Every angle precise. Every line exact. Every surface without flaw or variation.

Beautiful in the way...