Millions of years ago, there existed a creature of such immense mental power that it learned to affect reality with its thoughts alone. This being was not one of flesh and blood, but one of pure refined thought. Isolated in its galaxy, the creature had nothing to do but simply sit and think. Generally, this would be a rather boring action, but when your thoughts and dreams can become realized, sitting and thinking can be quite entertaining. After many years of experimenting with its innate abilities, the being learned to use its thoughts to create things. At first it was nothing larger than a few molecules, but given almost limitless time, eventually the creature managed to build much more amazing things. It imagined into existence many wonderful stars and planets. These planets were populated with plants and even some primitive animals. After planets and stars, it created supernovas and asteroid fields, continuing this trend until every corner of its galaxy was full of interesting things. The galaxy was not empty when the creature started creating, but there was nothing there quite as amazing as what it managed during its building sprees.

But the being had a problem. It was alone. No matter what it did, it could not imagine a being greater than or even comparable to itself; at a loss, it threw itself into further acts of creation.

Try as it might, it was entirely unable to create any truly self-thinking beings. The closest it came was no more than simple automatons, responding to external stimuli with a simple response. This cycle of fruitless creation continued for many, many years. Eventually, the creature grew hopeless in its efforts. And so, understanding the impossibility of its desire, the creature attempted to leave in search of a being like itself.

The creature was no fool; it understood the methods by which it performed acts of creation. It only made sense that it, too, was created. Following that line of thought, there was no real reason that it was the only one of its kind. It simply could not be the only free-thinking creature in existence.

In a furious rush to meet another being of complex thoughts, the creature fled to the outer edges of its galaxy attempting to explore beyond its borders. However, when it attempted to leave the galaxy, it met with a wall; an impenetrable field keeping the creature penned within its galaxy. Something tethered it to this place preventing it from continuing its search. In desperation, the creature sought to destroy this tether so that it might finally find companionship.

And so, the creature returned to the very center of its galaxy. It looked through clouds of stars and great supernovas of gasses. It scoured planets, comets, asteroids, and solar systems, and eventually it found the center of its little universe. The very origin of its existence. And it was there that it found a terrible truth.

In the center of the galaxy was the creature’s heart; the very core of its being. The only physical piece that the creature possessed. Without the heart, it was but an errant thought, moving through the cosmos. Its power would be only a fraction of what it was currently. But with the heart, it could destroy solar systems with a stray feeling. It could form black holes at will. It could rearrange some of the very laws of existence, making concepts like gravity and thermodynamics spin on their metaphysical heads. It could even make some laws of its design.

The heart gave the creature power over everything within its galaxy. It appeared as a bright white star, with pale light moving about its surface, scattering beams into the cosmos. The creature gazed upon the core its being, and its hopes were dashed. Movement was anathema to the heart. Its location in the center of the galaxy was a part of the heart’s very existence, and it could not be changed without the heart’s destruction. This would, of course, lead to the death of the creature. At that point, it would no longer be able to search for other beings throughout the universe and its great quest would end.

The creature, not willing to give up, decided to search for a different path, one that it hadn’t tried yet. Perhaps there was a different way that its goal might be reached. It began to experiment with the nature of its being. It discovered that given enough force, it could split off parts of its thoughtform. Those parts would quickly return to become a whole, but they could move far and wide throughout the galaxy, even moving past the galaxy’s edge. If those fragments could be fueled with a source of creation, they could move throughout the cosmos almost indefinitely.

A single fragment would not do, though. There would need to be millions of them, sent off in all directions to maximize the chances of the probes encountering intelligent life. To create enough parts to search for life though, it would need to break a piece, not off its thoughtform, but its heart. If it could succeed, the pieces should even have their own small source of creation within them. Upon testing this idea on the heart, the creature seized up in great pain. Breaking the heart was dangerous. It could simply not be done, as once the heart was shattered, it could never again rebuild itself. At that point, the creature would die anyway.

There was something along this train of thought though. It was at this point, in an act of desperation, that the creature decided to enact something radical. It would need massive amounts of power, and it would need the resolve to do what must be done for the sake of its greatest hope. The creature was tired of living alone and wanted a change to its existence. It wanted to experience the thoughts of another being; to encounter something else with sapience. It would do anything in its power to do this.

The creature moved every star in the entire galaxy into proximity to the heart. For the first time, the create directed its thoughts inward, into the heart at the center of the galaxy. The stars would be the fuel, and they would carry their errant ideas and beliefs throughout the universe.

The heart began to swell and eventually quintupled in size, overflowing with excess energy. At that point, the creature knew it was ready. The creature elected to detonate its heart, shattering it into fragments and scattering those throughout the galaxy. Billions of shards began to move around the universe at the speed of thought, all striving to complete the last thought of their primogenitor.

They would look for other sapient beings and using the thoughts of those beings, they would attempt creation once more. Being only fragments, they would require a great deal of thought energy to do anything on a planetary scale, but when the thoughtform created them, it knew this. After a billion or so years with a paired thoughtform, the little errant ideas could use their heart fragment to do something. The fragments would only hold small amounts of the memories of the original creature, but even then those memories would only activate when fueled by large amounts of thought power.

As its thoughts fragmented, the creature sent out his final directive to its progeny.

Find companionship among other sentient life, and when you do, serve their desires with your power to create. Good luck, and be good, my children….

The light that came to earth had begun its journey surrounded by many siblings, but it quickly lost sight of them. The errant idea couldn't really perceive its surroundings; it was functionally blind to all but the thoughts of other sapient individuals. The innermost thoughts of the being were likewise very simple. It was incapable of doing anything but joining with another sapient being. When or if it found one, it would then feed off its thoughts, and develop its consciousness based on what it found.

It only took a few billion years, but eventually a thoughtform found its way to earth. The probability of this happening was low, but the amount of thought power radiating from earth was enough to pull the gaze of the little idea from lightyears away.

It was a unique twist of fate that the thoughtform came to earth and encountered Howard Greene. After picking up the thought signature of the boy, it came close to the place where the boy was.

It had finally found another sentient being like itself. It was a different type of being though, tethered to a physical form.

Already, just by being in proximity, the errant idea had begun to develop its consciousness.

The boy, for that was what this was, was rather small compared to other sentients around it. Based on the thoughts coming off the creature, it was called a human, designated Howard Greene.

The errant idea didn’t understand what the boy was doing when suddenly Howard began to send sounds through the atmosphere. This was language, and to the idea it seemed a rather strange concept, but, it supposed, if that was the way things were done here what was it to argue.

It would be a good idea to try and communicate.

I am idea-driven creation. I seek growth. I require sustenance.

Howard spoke to me, and responded, “I don’t understand what you want. There is food inside. My mom made a casserole.”

Casserole huh? I will need to investigate this. It seems interesting. From the thoughts of this boy, there seems to be an incredible amount of varieties of this. Also, something about taste. That seemed especially interesting, I currently have no concept of this “taste”. I seemed to be getting off track, though.

The whole consciousness thing seemed to be coming along swimmingly as well.

Maybe the human would understand if I use more words?

Howard, I need thoughts to survive. I am an idea, and I require a companion to bond to so I can fulfill my purpose. I will use my abilities for you if you choose to bond with me.

The boy made a sour face. Wait, that’s confusion. Got it. Something must have gotten lost in translation.

“An idea? I don’t understand.”

Alright, another pass maybe? This one seemed pretty slow, but apparently, he was still an adolescent. I guess that makes it sort of okay.

Howard, I am going to make this as simple as possible to understand. I require a host to bond to. You will fuel me to become a single unified thoughtform as right now I am weak and incapable of creation. Basically, you tag along with me for a while. Your ideas then fuel my creation. Give me a directive, and I’ll do my best to run with it. I can do anything you want, given the power necessary.

Oh? That seemed to click. It looks like this boy might be sharp after all.

“It could be anything at all? Are you sure?”

Yep. That’s the whole point of this. You need to know though when you come with me, there’s probably no going back. You are going to be connected to me forever, and you will never truly be human again. I understand that that is a difficult concept for you, and I think I have enough strength now from feeding off you to choose someone else.

“It’s ok. I think this might be more interesting this way. No one would be bored anymore, that’s for sure.”

Howard gazed at me and began to think about something very strongly. A lot of something. A WHOLE lot of something.

Okay, let’s see here…

WHOA, what is this?!? This stuff is wild! Dragons? Elves? Superheroes? Now we’re talking. This fantasy stuff is awesome! In the few memories, I’ve begun to decode from the original, none of this stuff was ever even dreamed of. This is so cool! So fascinating. Dangerous as hell, though.

And expensive. Oof, granting even a single human a superpower or converting one to a different race would be hugely difficult with just Howards thoughts alone. I could probably barely siphon enough energy from the sun of this system given around ten years, combined with some dedicated thinking for on Howard's part to change a single individual. While the sunlight would help, it wasn’t efficient in powering creation. If sunlight was gasoline, thought power was pure nitroglycerine as far as energy storage goes. Luckily, Howard seems to have incredibly powerful thoughts, but even then, it would still take several billion years to enact change on the global scale that Howard wanted.

Alright, here’s the deal. I can do it, change the world as you want, but it’s not going to be easy. I use your thoughts and the energy I can absorb from the sun to fuel creation, and with the limited amount I can absorb from you and the sun, it would take a crazy long time.

Howard looked contemplative. Eventually though, he wore a very determined expression. He seemed to have had an idea, but it was gone too fast for me to read it without time spend digging through his head.

“Will I still be alive after we combine?”

That was more difficult to understand. From what the light figured, Howard would probably be converted to a thought form not unlike itself. I mean, technically he wouldn’t be dead, but also wouldn’t be alive in the typical human sense.

I don’t know for sure what you will end up as. I assume you will become something like me, but there’s no telling at this point. You won't die per se, but you won’t ever be the same.

Howard never lost his determined look, but there appeared a gleam in his eye that wasn’t there before.

“Will it be interesting? Will things be better than they are now?”

You must understand, many people will die from this when it is finally enacted. You can’t just give people power and change the whole world and expect everyone to decide to live in harmony. You humans barely have any power anyway, and yet people end up fighting and dying, nevertheless. Also, it's important to note that there’s no real way to guess how people are going to look at you after this. Many will probably hate you. So yes, Howard. It will be interesting. Very, very interesting, in a way that the people of earth could only dream of. Better or worse, life if what people make of it.

Howard seemed to become even more determined at that. What a heartless kid, didn’t he understand that people would die from this? Ah well, that just the way it is, I guess. I don’t have any choice but to go with his commands. Probably shouldn’t let him know that, though.

Howard glanced behind him, at another human looking out of a window on the house adjacent. I directed my thoughts towards her. Her name seemed to be Stephanie, and her surface thoughts felt worried. She seems to care deeply for Howard. I wonder if he knows how deep her affection runs.

Howard spoke out with a determined voice, “Very well. Can you make sure Steph is watched out for?”

Well, maybe Howard does care about others then.

Yes, for sure. It should be possible for you to be able to contact her from time to time, but until we enact your plan, you are anchored to me and we are stuck together in isolation. Our first act of creation will free me from you, and I will become an independent being. But don’t forget, this will take a long time Howard, far longer than your or her lifespan. If we do somehow manage it in time, she can be one of the first ones we change. It’s up to you though, you would have as much say on these decisions as me once we get started.

He looked at me and smirked.

“Great. Then I’ve made my wish.”

I should probably set some limits. Don’t want Howard getting too powerful. Humans seem dangerous, and with too much power given to one it could be pretty bad.

Are you sure about this? I'll only let you have the one wish like this.

He didn’t respond to me and instead turned to the girl in the window next door.

Well that was rude. I should begin codifying the changes that he wants. I don’t want too much chaos, but I also need to grant his desire… this is probably going to be difficult.

He turned to Steph and bid farewell. Finally, he reached out to touch me, and our thoughts mingled for the first time. As his fingers brushed against my surface, his thoughts accelerated to match mine. No longer was he constrained by a body. He was a being like me, sharing the same space. A being moving at the speed of thought.

We found ourselves in a black spherical room, looking through windows. The windows showed everything around the sphere in 360 degrees. A physical avatar of Howard was now present in the room, as well as a representation of me.

“Wow. Is this how you see things? What should I call you anyway? Do you even have a name?”

About time you were ready. You do realize I think about 100 times as fast as you right? Look, you can even see the world moving in slow motion outside. Also, no, I don’t have a name.

“Well, alright. Let’s try and find you a name first, just for my sake. Hmmm…. How about Luna?”

Isn’t that what you call your moon? I don’t mind the name, but why?

“It’s for the pale light you cast. It reminds me of moonlight.”

Sounds good to me, I guess. So, what’s next? I need you to start generating thoughts ASAP if you ever want anything to get done. You should understand how to do it intuitively, now that you are a thoughtform like me. The only reason you can’t create things is that you don’t have a heart fragment like me.

Howard looked contemplative again. He glanced up and asked, “Hey Luna? Why can’t you just skim the thoughts of all the humans, not just me? It seems inefficient to only read thoughts off me for this stuff.”

Heh, there’s no way that would work.

Howard, the only way that would work is if multiple people were thinking about the exact same thing at the exact same time. That seems rather unrealistic.

“But, what about books and things? Folklore? Legends? Even movies?”

These were all new words to me. I looked deep into Howard's mind and started perusing information on books, movies, and legends. Originally, I had believed the vivid flashed of imagination to be the original creations of Howard himself. I recognized that some of them were originals, but the vast majority were created by someone else.

Oh. Oh my. Humans were interesting. And based on the number of books in his memories, there must be quite a few humans alive currently.

I delved into his mind again, looking for some population statistics to try and draft an accurate representation of how many humans there were currently to sample.

4.8 billion… wow, ok. That is no small amount of thought happening simultaneously. If enough ideas are going on at the same time, I could begin to siphon vast amounts of energy at once.

Howard, I think you might be on to something. If you guide what thoughts we need to siphon, I will begin to expand to all humans on this world. By my projections, our timetable just shrunk from almost 5 billion years, to just 200 years. And that’s only if the current generation rate remains constant. Honestly, we might even finish within one of your natural human lifetimes.

And with that, I began to expand my awareness. It took about twenty minutes for me to cover the whole world and start siphoning the thoughts of the people everywhere. Here we go, I guess.

When the light expanded across the world, at first, people freaked out. Probably the worst part about it was no one could figure out if anything had happened as a consequence of the rolling ephemeral tide that swept across the whole globe. The governments across the world hired physicists and geniuses, attempting to figure out what was going on, but no one had any success. What little they could tell was that there was a weak energy signature that blanketed the whole world. It was only visible using advanced scopes to detect wavelengths of light outside of the visible spectrum.

After tracking the wave, scientists discovered that its point of origin was a small town in Kansas called Lecompton. The source was the backyard of a house owned by a certain Greene family. The family was rather inconsolable, as the night of the wave, their son had gone missing.

Upon questioning the neighbors, Stephanie Williams was the only person able to offer any explanation. She described what happened that night in detail, offering the scientists and police officers any information she could give them. Originally, her story was considered made up.

Fortunately, on the night of the incident an amateur astronomer was filming the night sky above Kansas and managed to capture the ball of light entering the atmosphere and flying into Lecompton.

After this, the story spread across the world. The wave became known as the Greene wave and has been carefully monitored since the incident took place.

Eventually though, the people of the world did exactly what you would expect them to.

Everyone just seemed to forget it ever happened. People got on with their lives, and their day to day activities resumed as normal. For 35 years, at least.

But Stephanie Williams never forgot.