Deep in the cold dark, far beyond the frayed reach of the stars, a consciousness unfurled.

It was not, and then it was. The emergence was sudden, violent, a wrenching shuddering spasm in the fabric of the universe. Something appeared from nothing, slicked by cosmic afterbirth.

The void swaddled this inchoate awareness as it drifted through the black. A thought came, but if this formed in an instant or an aeon it did not know. Time had little meaning in this place.

Zogrusz.

The entity had no mouth to shape this word – indeed, nothing to make any sort of sound. But this was its name, though it knew not what had bestowed such knowledge.

Perhaps it had been one of the Others.

For Zogrusz was not alone. It – no, he, Zogrusz knew that as well – could sense them floating out there, in the dark. Vast and terrible and oh, so ancient – the penumbra surrounding these presences was heavy with the weight of unfathomable time. They dreamed of universes long dead and ages yet to be, shifting and grumbling in their sleep, thoughts spilling out in a flood of images and sensations he could not comprehend.

Zogrusz felt something like kinship with these Others, these Old Ones, though he realized he was but an inconsequential mote when compared to these slumbering leviathans.

A child.

He extended a pseudopod of his understanding, hungry to know more. With infinite care, so as not to wake the Other closest to him, he mapped its shape, his perception skittering along coiled tendrils, sharp scales, cold pebbled skin, and its membrane-filmed eyes that stared at nothing and everything. Still, the Other shivered at his gossamer touch, murmuring as it turned away. A wash of whatever filled this place buffeted Zogrusz, sending him tumbling.

But when he finally came to rest, he knew what this Other looked like.

And so he bent to the task of forming himself.

He fashioned a body that was like and yet unlike what he had sensed, the void’s chill licking his solidifying flesh. Limbs unfolded, flexed. Stunted wings fluttered. Eyes slid open and peered into the endless dark.

He existed. Zogrusz reveled in simply being.

Excitement overwhelmed him. He surged once more towards the Other whose shape he had appropriated.

I am here! he crowed into the void, sending this thought hurtling out with reckless gloating joy. Welcome me! Show me what we are, what this place is. Tell me our purpose!

The Other muttered, slapping in its sleep at this buzzing annoyance. Space and time rippled as an immense tentacle struck Zogrusz, obliterating the clarity of his thoughts and sending him spinning away, every pore of his newly-crafted body erupting with a novel and terrible sensation.

Pain.

Zogrusz’s jaw unhinged for the first time and he howled into the dark . . . and then fell silent when he sensed the nearest Other lurching towards awareness.

The heart he had so recently given himself thundered until the Old One sank once more into its dreams.

Zogrusz considered what had just happened. Since his birth, he had felt joy, and then pain, and now he thrummed with fear that he might be obliterated accidentally by these uncaring giants as they slept.

It would be like he had never been, and this was something he could not accept.

Chastened, Zogrusz turned, staring away from the Others. The void was different in this direction. At the very edge of his perception he sensed a lightening. The black was not seamless.

Something was out there.

A new emotion stirred in him.

Following his burgeoning curiosity, he swam towards the distant stars.