Vestigia Vindictae

Hmm… Where to begin? Where to begin, indeed.

Perhaps a glimpse would suffice. But not into the future—nor from any fixed perspective. Maybe it is the past. Maybe it is something else entirely. Time, after all, is but an abstract construct, shifting and fleeting across all worlds.

But I shall not burden you with philosophy. Instead, I will show you the beginning… or perhaps the end.

***

Boundless expanses of white stretched endlessly in all directions, an infinite void untouched by time. A lone man stood at its center—his black hair streaked with gray, his lifeless gray eyes reflecting the emptiness around him.

Before him floated a translucent gray cube, just large enough to fit in his palm. Suspended within it, a black sphere rested in silence.

Then, the man uttered the word,

"Itero."

The cube began to rotate. The sphere within trembled, then spun in place—its movement dictated by the faintest motion of the man's hands.

Time passed.

The man continued his slow, deliberate rotations.

Time pressed onward…

Until, at last, the cube came to a halt. The sphere inside ceased its spinning.

A hush fell over the void.

Then—gently, steadily—the sphere began to expand whilst the cube cracked. Its form stretched outward, tendrils of blackness unfurling like ink spilled across a blank canvas. It crept forward, consuming all in its path.

The man exhaled, the barest flicker of exhaustion in his eyes.

But then—

"You were not the only one who reached me."

His breath hitched.

And then—nothing.

A sea of darkness swallowed all.

Yet, if one peered closely, they would see something stirring within the void. Faint, flickering shapes—predominantly spherical—drifting, forming, growing in the abyss.