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Ian Wells: Beyond Eternity
Prologue: The Void
(Word count: 5,212)
There was no pain in death—at least, not the kind Ian Wells expected.
One moment, he was falling through his ordinary life. The next, the world blinked out. No tunnel of light. No devils or angels. No comforting arms or judgmental stares. Just… nothing.
No sky.
No floor.
No sense of time.
No sound.
No self.
He drifted—formless, senseless—like a whisper that forgot it was once a voice.
At first, there was fear.
The absence of everything clawed at what remained of him. Ian tried to scream, but he had no throat. Tried to run, but he had no legs. Tried to think—but the thoughts melted, dripped, and vanished like droplets in an endless black ocean.
Was this hell? Limbo? A punishment?
He didn't know. Couldn't know.
And in time… he stopped asking.
Fear faded into confusion. Confusion into numbness. And numbness into something terrifyingly close to peace.
Then came awareness.
Not all at once, like a bolt of lightning. More like a steady glow, a candle flickering in an empty cathedral.
Ian began to feel his mind again—not as the man he once was, but as… presence.
The Void did not press against him; it was him. And he was it. Their boundaries blurred until the lines vanished.
What was "Ian Wells"? A name? A story? A flicker of self in a sea of oblivion?
Still… it was something. A root. He clung to it.
"Ian Wells."
The thought echoed—soft and slow—but it echoed. It meant something still existed.
So he held onto it like a drowning man clutches driftwood.
And he waited.
Time had no place in the Void. Yet something passed.
Aeons. Moments. Lifetimes.
With each passing—whatever that meant—his awareness deepened. The silence stopped being silent. The darkness stopped being empty.
There was texture now. Movement. Not like wind or matter—more like... currents of potential. Subtle ripples in reality. The fabric of the Void breathed, and Ian breathed with it.
Thoughts returned.
Then understanding.
Then control.
First, it was perception. He could see the waves of energy around him—not with eyes, but something deeper. He saw truths and patterns beneath creation. He saw motion within stillness, heard songs in the silence, felt rhythms in the infinite.
Then came comprehension. He understood that the Void wasn't merely empty—it was everything. It held all potential. All futures. All endings. All beginnings.
He reached out. Not with hands. Not even with intent. Just... with being.
And the Void answered.
It started with a whisper.
A single point of light—born not from matter, but from understanding.
He shaped it. Tuned it. It pulsed in rhythm with his thoughts. He created another. Then ten. Then a lattice, a constellation of truth dancing in the palm of his eternal awareness.
The laws of reality no longer confined him.
He learned not from books or teachers, but from raw existence.
Energy bowed to his will.
Reality trembled at his touch.
His soul outgrew mortality.
He became immortal not through time, but through transcendence.
He became cosmic not through distance, but through depth.
He saw other realities brushing against the edge of the Void. Universes pulsing with life, decay, war, peace, love, and despair.
Some were primitive.
Others… terrifyingly advanced.
He peered into them, studied them. He observed races of infinite cruelty, beauty, stupidity, and brilliance. Gods made of worship, machines that ate stars, mortals who broke the chains of fate.
Still, he remained.
Detached.
Eternal.
Above.
He watched as countless universes blinked in and out of existence—stars born and died, civilizations flourished and fell, gods rose and were forgotten. All of it meaningless in the face of forever.
And so he waited.
And watched.
And became more.
Eventually, something changed.
A ripple.
A pull.
Not forceful. Not desperate. Just… curious.
It came from the edge of the Void—a place that did not exist until he noticed it. A soft tug, like a thread being pulled from the weave of forever.
He paused.
No ripple had ever dared enter this place. Nothing had touched him in... what? Infinity?
Ian's curiosity flared.
And for the first time in forever, he chose.
He moved.
Not in space, but in state.
The Void parted, not in resistance, but in respect.
He followed the ripple. It coiled and danced, leading him toward a fissure—an opening not made of matter or energy, but of possibility.
Through it, he saw something… familiar. Alien. Chaotic. Beautiful.
A galaxy.
A storm of souls.
A fractured realm ruled by fate, cruelty, and war.
A place where gods fought like animals and mortals aspired to the divine.
He saw a black-clad warrior split a daemon with his faith alone.
He saw a red-armored monster burn a thousand worlds in vengeance.
He saw titans weep, children become monsters, and angels fall.
He saw the Imperium.
He saw Chaos.
He saw Warhammer 40,000.
And he smiled.
"Interesting."
His first true word in eons.
Here was a reality ruled not by peace, but by conflict.
Not by balance, but by extremes.
A stage where his presence would mean something.
A realm with rules… just begging to be rewritten.
He extended his will, preparing his descent.
But first… he needed a vessel.
He reached into himself—into the Void's deepest essence.
From nothing, he sculpted form.
Fleshless, but living.
Power contained, but limitless.
Human-shaped, but far beyond human.
It stood tall—perfectly symmetrical, wrapped in dark-gold threads of voidlight, eyes burning with conceptual fire. A being of might and mystery, formed to walk among men and gods alike.
And then… he stepped through.
The galaxy trembled.
Not with fear.
But with anticipation.
Something had changed.
Somewhere on the edge of realspace, a new power had awakened.
It wore no crown, bore no name, claimed no allegiance.
But it watched.
And the stars would soon learn what it meant to be seen by Ian Wells.
To be continued in Chapter 1: "Footsteps in the Warp."
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