In the vast, swirling expanse of the aetherium, where the boundary between universes was but a thin veil, there was only oy who existed beyond time, beyond form, and beyond prehension. The monster of monsters, the being of which all creation was but a passing thought, shifted its eternal gaze across the infinite yers of reality, seeing and knowing everything and nothing all at once.

  Today, whatever that meant in a pce with time did , something caught her attention—a small soul, adrift in the current of the iridest river that carried the spirits of the deceased toward reination. This one was different. It didn’t belong here. It had slipped far beyond the reach of the natural order, drifting away from its intended path, being a deviant in the great, unending cycle of life ah. The monster's many eyes focused on the anomaly, narrowing in curiosity, and for the briefest moment, a rare flicker of amusement danced across its impossibly vast presence.

  Nothied from the pn, at least, nothing that wasn’t part of the pn itself. Everything, every creature, every soul, every universe, was just a pie her game—a game she trolled. But this soul? This was a surprise. It was not in the parameters she had set. No, it was something... different. Something worth iigating. Chaos, after all, was always at its most delightful when it broke the rules, even her own.

  And so, she seized it.

  With a hand like the deep o—cerulean, vast, and unknowable—the monster plucked the rogue soul from its path. The crack that ran through the essence of the soul was no act; it was a fracture, a breach that no other entity would notice but her. She held it up before her uling, ever-grinning face, a smile brimming with malid curiosity in equal measure.

  The soul, delicate and pale, could not perceive her, could not prehend her existence, but that did not matter. She would speak to it anyway. After all, it was not her fault that she was the oy in all of creation who could truly uand the vastness of the universe.

  “Oh, you poor little mote,” she mused in a voice that echoed through the very fabric of reality, “you’ve been through so much, haven’t you?”

  With a cwed finger, she traced the fracture along its form. The soul didn’t react—how could it?—but the crack closed with her touch, as if she were sealing a rift, closing the possibility of returning to the flow of the river of souls. She tilted her head, her grin widening. The little soul had just bee a part of her game. There was no going baow.

  She lingered ohoughts for a moment, w aloud to the drifting essence, “Hmm, what to do with you? Where are you from? A universe, a realm, some other time?” Of course, she already knew. She could sehe ins of the soul like a tangible thread woven into the fabric of the os. But knowing was different from enjoying the discovery.

  "Yes," she mused again, her voice turning pehis is far more iing than I thought it would be." The void around her rippled in aowledgement, as though reality itself were ughing along with her musings. She had all of time at her disposal, all of creation, a, she always yearned for something more.

  Boredom was the only enemy of the eternal after all.

  And then it hit her. "Ah yes, Earth. Layer one, Universe one." Her ughter echoed through the expanse, making even the os tremble. "How did one from the trol universe create a deviation? This should be fun!"

  The monster’s form, ever-shifting, began to ge. Her tentacles merged into legs, plush and smooth, more human than monstrous. The of eyes and shifting flesh that marked her existence as the true power of all the universes trembled and reformed. A delicate of silver appeared atop her head, and the void around her hummed in approval.

  With a tap to her own forehead, she watched as memories of the pn fell from her, casg into the endless void below with boundless glee. Amnesia was one of her favourite pastimes. How else would she be surprised?

  The room materialised with the ease of a thought. It was ornate, filled with sculptures and paintings that stretched across time itself—artefacts from tless worlds, ages, and dimensions. There was no unifying style, no harmony to the pce; just a cacophony of images, impressions, and relics from every er of existence.

  “Yes,” she murmured, taking a seat in an ornate chair of bck wood, surrounded by paintings that had long since lost their meaning. “This will do nicely.” She snapped her fingers, and a chair opposite her materialised, occupied by a doll-like struct, its featureless face turo the side.

  With a simple gesture, the soul accelerated towards the doll, drawn into it as if the creature were a vacuum. It disappeared into the chest of the i figure.

  Akhenna sat back, admiring her handiwork, her eyes glinting with delight. “What shall I do with you?” she asked no one in particur, but the question was more rhetorical. She already khe answer.

  After a moment, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Ah, yes... Universe thirty million four hundred eighty thousand and two, iteration seven, yer four... it's getting rather stagnant, isn't it?"

  Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if speaking to herself. “Yes, that will do. I’ve grown bored of that oime for a ge. Let’s see what we stir up.”

  She rubbed her , tapping it thoughtfully as her form began to shift again, her features now being more human, the dark, enigmatic visage of the monster slowly blending into something more familiar—something more approachable. Her skin softeaking on a more mortal hue. Her hair darkened until it was as bck as the void itself, and her eyes softened into something almost... gehough the predatleam never quite left.

  The doll-like body began to stir, its fiwitg first, then the arms, the head turning slowly. The soul was rousing. It was no longer in its dormant state but awakening within the vessel she had prepared for it.

  With a final, decisive motion, the body lurched to life, its head snapping upright, staring directly at Akhenna with vat eyes, despite the actual ck of eyes the doll had.

  “Wele to my realm, Vivienne Castillo,” Akhenna said with a slow, cruel smile. “I am Akhenna, the Goddess of Chaos. It’s so lovely to meet you.”

  And in that moment, everything shifted. The universe bent around her whim, and the game had begun.