Pain.
It came first. A dull ache, then a sharp, searing agony that burned through every nerve in Aiden's body. He gasped, or at least he thought he did, but there was no air, no breath, just the sensation of falling.
What's happening to me?
Memories flickered in his mind like shattered glass reflecting a thousand moments at once. The sound of screeching tires, the metallic crunch of impact, the brief weightlessness as his body was thrown into the air. The cold embrace of asphalt, the crimson pooling beneath him. People screaming. Sirens wailing in the distance.
Am I… dying?
The thought sent a wave of panic through him, but even as it did, the pain began to fade. Not in the way wounds heal, but in the way sensations simply ceased to exist. The agony dulled, then vanished entirely.
Darkness swallowed him.
Aiden expected something—an afterlife, a tunnel of light, the voices of long-lost relatives calling to him. But there was nothing.
Just an endless void.
He floated, weightless and formless, his existence reduced to mere thought. There was no sound, no sensation, no heartbeat. Only the cold embrace of the abyss.
Am I… still me?
He tried to move, but there was no body to move. He tried to scream, but there was no mouth, no voice. Only silence.
Panic surged again, a primal terror clawing at his mind. Was this death? Was he doomed to drift in this emptiness forever?
Then—
A whisper.
Faint at first, like a distant echo traveling through the void. It carried no tone, no gender, yet it spoke directly to him.
"Welcome, Architect."
Aiden froze. The words reverberated through his very being, bypassing sound and embedding themselves into his mind. He tried to respond, to ask a question, but the void did not allow speech.
The whisper continued.
"Your world has ended. But your story has not. You have been chosen."
Chosen? Chosen for what?
As if hearing his thoughts, the voice answered.
"You are now an Architect. A creator of worlds. A shaper of reality itself."
Aiden's thoughts reeled. He had no form, no physical presence, and yet something within him shifted. It was as if an unseen force had reached into his very essence, reshaping it, altering it into something beyond human comprehension.
And then—
The darkness cracked.
Light erupted from the abyss, blinding in its brilliance. It surged around him, not illuminating the void, but replacing it. The endless nothingness peeled away, revealing something new.
Before him stretched infinity—not the empty infinity of the abyss, but a canvas of raw potential. Swirling nebulae, unformed stars, and vast cosmic energies flickered in and out of existence.
Something stirred within Aiden. A force he had never known, yet now felt as natural as breathing. Power surged through him—not physical strength, but something far greater.
Creation.
He could feel it. The potential to mold existence itself. To shape, to build, to breathe life where there was none.
A notification appeared before him, shimmering in the void like a divine decree.
[The Architect System has been activated.]
Lines of glowing text scrolled before his eyes, detailing the impossible.
[Status: Architect Rank 1]
[Available Functions: World Creation, Life Development, Civilization Management]
[Current Worlds: None]
Aiden barely had time to process what he was seeing before another notification followed.
[Initiating First World Creation…]
His surroundings trembled. The swirling energy coalesced, bending to his will. In the distance, something began to take shape—a world, unfinished, waiting.
And for the first time since his death, Aiden felt something other than fear.
Anticipation.
This wasn't the end.
This was a beginning.