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It started with the dousing of flame, like a candle unceremoniously snuffed. In an instant, everything went out like a light. Starting at the edges, and moving in, all with that familiar click-pop sound of a CRT monitor being turned off. Atoms and leptons, quarks and molecules, all torn asunder in an instant. Everything-- everyone-- gone in an instant.

There was nothing for a time. An infinite, uncountable time. After a time there would be something, but before there was something, there were monsters. Horrible, twisted things beyond what we could ever understand. In the same way an ant sees a human, they are merely something beyond us.

Moving buildings-- Moving universes-- so far beyond our grasp...

Before there could be monsters, though, there was something else... Children. Yes. Young monsters, young but ageless, twisting and writhing throughout the cosmos in shades of black that we didn’t know could exist.

After monsters, there came civilizations. With civilizations came war, and with war came opportunity. Opportunity for there to be something more than nothing.

But what would children want there to be?

A game, of course.

And so there was.

An infinite war, perpetuating an infinite game. An infinite cradle, surrounding infinite children that would eventually become monsters. Before they could become monsters, they had to play... They had to play their Game.

And so they did.

Infinite children, playing in their infinite game. Their infinite sandbox, the Young Gods would eventually become Elder. They never lost that childlike imagination, however. Quite the contrary. And so their infinite Game had to adapt.

A new Game.

And so it adapted.

=======> Then Came The Second Impact

Deep in the reaches of their new Paradox Space, something unbeknownst began to stir. Something pierced the fabric of time, like a sewing needle through cellophane. For just a moment, something indescribable happened. Something so counter to itself that it could hardly even be registered by most.

A horrible and lovely mix of dread and desire, fear and longing.

Something so anathema to itself, it couldn’t help but tear itself apart in an infinite struggle. Like a vortex, everything had been condensed down to a single point, smaller than the head of a pen. All at once, everything came to a grinding halt.

One of them had been wounded, and yet she hadn’t even known she was one of them yet. What happens when a God among gods bleeds?

What happens when she likes that she is bleeding?

What happens when she doesn’t want it to stop just yet? This new feeling? Something she’s never felt before. Something beautiful and terrifying. Something so intrinsically devastating and yet something that rebuilt everything.

Pandemonium, as continuity buckled in the middle and the two ends came smashing together.

∞> Countless Impacts, Spanning Infinity

It flew through their newly made old Paradox Space like a shockwave. A wave of infinite potential, spanning across infinity like a tsunami. It swept everything up in its wake as it pushed out. An event that made their old Game look boring by comparison. Something truly new.

And yet, hardly anybody noticed at all. They weren’t able to. In an instant, everything had changed... And yet, it had always been that way, had it not?

Things began again, and again, looping in on themselves in an infinite cycle of Games. New players. New worlds. New universes. So much new that it became old in an instant. So much to keep track of, it became functionally impossible...

Impossible to all but the oldest of the Elder Gods.

A terrible and beautiful event, reduced to almost nothing.

Nothing, save for the faint sound of Metal tearing into Meat.

So now you must choose: What sound do you focus on? The Metal, or the Meat?