Step by step, a horned shadow climbed the luminous stairs rising above the expanse of a lonely night. Gold poured endlessly below like falling glitter, filling the canvas of a dawning universe. Cold and somber, it marched against the silence, following the path toward a hollowed heaven.

  Along the ascent, it found an old man—once mighty, now fallen. The staircase held him in place, weighed down by defeat and exhaustion.

  The one veiled in darkness halted only to coil beside him. His presence drew neither notice nor resistance. In silence, they sat together, gazing down the dimming path.

  “Imagination…” the shadow muttered, his predatory jaws fixed toward the distant past. “Individuals dismiss it as mere child’s play. They grow to see it as immaturity—perhaps even an inability to grasp reality as it is. Yet I consider it essential. Would you care to guess why?”

  The old man remained silent, his dismissal serving only as quiet amusement for the grinning presence.

  “Children are unburdened by empirical knowledge. In that freedom, they are driven by near-infinite potential. They paint the world as though it were a blank canvas—reshaping their surroundings by loosening the constraints imposed by existence.”

  The fallen man finally intervened. “An interesting proposition, but one that borders on folly. Imagination divides reality. More often than not, it breeds delusion rather than enlightenment.”

  “And yet I contend the opposite.” The shadow lifted a clawed finger with deliberate intent. “It is not isolation, but connection—a sixth sense that allows a deeper cognizance of reality. Those who accept existence as it stands become prisoners of resignation. They forgo possibility, discarding the ‘what ifs’ and other forms of understanding that shape the ultimate state of all that is.”

  The shadow leaned forward, nearly dissolving into the surrounding abyss. “Imagination moves through the mind. It transforms thought until ideas spill into the world, taking vivid shape. In doing so, it manifests the authentic spirit of creation.”

  Reassurance only deepened the old man’s frown. Yet the darkborn remained calm—still as though he belonged to a world unbound by time.

  After a while, he rose and gazed down at the fallen figure.

  “Even you—once bearer of the highest authorities: almighty, all-knowing, almost omnipresent—must acknowledge the trial of reshaping what is already known and lived. We who stand upon the summit of knowledge, devouring all there is to grasp, have allowed our thoughts to stagnate. Novelty fades. Freedom relinquishes itself. Only the path laid before us remains.”

  “You show judgment at last,” the old man replied, before retreating into his thoughts. It had been the final revelation of his life, arriving like crimson light settling over a world already collapsing.

  The shadow’s grin faded, leaving only the raw manifestation of his will. “Only one with unparalleled imagination—someone capable of envisioning beyond what we have become—could ever sit upon the divine throne. That being said, neither you nor I, nor nearly anyone else, were meant to become God.”

  The fallen clung to his nihilism, each boundless second sinking deeper into labored breaths.

  “Spare me the monologue… and the sympathy. I knew what would happen long before I crossed the golden doors.”

  “Such is the sin that makes us monsters,” the veiled figure admitted, turning his gaze toward the summit of the ascent, where ultimate fate awaited.

  By then, the old man had deteriorated further. His matted white beard trailed longer, merging with wild hair, deepened wrinkles, and heavy, shadowed eyes.

  “Laplace… you insist we stand as equals. Yet I am the one crossing the furthest shore. Compared to your curse, mine is merciful.”

  The horned shadow—Laplace—remained silent, his gaze wandering toward the far edge of time.

  Five thousand years ago, Vir, the Transcended God—almighty and perfect—rose to the highest point of the heavens. Freed from corruption and having abandoned all that bound him, he reached beyond eternity to become one with truth and justice. In doing so, he opened the Gates to the Future and breathed life into a dying universe. Or so the legend endured.

  “Religious manuscripts from that era claim he left our plane of existence with a promise to return. Though unfulfilled, faith in the Transcended persisted through his apostles—until they claimed his holy inheritance for themselves, ascending as deities. A struggle for dominance followed, leading to a schism and a holy war between newly formed cults. Chaos spread for millennia. Humanity nearly fell into extinction.”

  The professor—a tall man with neatly combed graying hair—wrote across the chalkboard in rapid, disciplined strokes. His red tie hung slightly loosened beneath a tan trench coat dusted with chalk.

  “It was not until the true apparition of the ‘New Gods’ that humanity recovered, entering an era of prosperity among the stars. With these foundations established, we will continue examining the formation of our current society in the next seminar. You are dismissed.”

  He did not glance at the students behind him.

  Attentiveness dissolved at once. Chatter filled the auditorium as students scattered before the minute hand reached the first quarter.

  The history teacher remained, packing his belongings into a worn leather bag, age pressing quietly upon his joints. Before leaving, he noticed one figure still seated.

  A young boy with dark blond hair, pale skin, and muted silver eyes—so unremarkable that he nearly vanished within the room.

  The grant-holding student, he recalled. The name escaped him, but not the reputation. The youngest admitted to the university—barely fourteen. A rare talent, though diminished by a fragile appearance. Promising, so long as his mind endured the weight of expectation.

  The boy hurried to gather his belongings, packing them into a battered canvas backpack. The seams strained under the weight. Time had already called him elsewhere.

  He moved through pillars and sunlit stretches of brick and stone, weaving past indifferent clusters of students. A footbridge beyond baroque mosaics marked the transition to bare industrial walls heavy with heat—the university’s mechanical wing.

  The rhythmic clatter of tools greeted him at the workshop entrance. Oil and scorched metal thickened the air—a scent he had long grown accustomed to. Compared to the pristine main halls, this place offered something closer to belonging.

  He crossed the room in haste, breath uneven, heading toward his workstation after passing the supervisor. “Good afternoon, Professor Zenith,” he greeted, thumb and middle finger pressed to his forehead.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The bald man behind the desk absentmindedly twirled his mustache while reviewing scattered notes. Upon noticing the silver eyes, he offered a faint smile. “And a good afternoon to you, Lorien.”

  The boy nodded and reached his station. From his backpack, he unpacked metal pieces and a half-finished mechanism, arranging them carefully across the oil-stained surface. Each component clicked softly into place.

  He drew a steady breath.

  It’s time to start working…

  Some of his older classmates paused their own work just to watch Lorien in action. There was something hypnotic in the way he handled and soldered the metal. Every movement reflected careful craftsmanship and deliberate intent. Despite lacking physical strength, he handled the tools with precision—guided by intuition and years of accumulated experience in prototyping.

  As the hours passed, however, his steady progress faltered. One of the salvaged components in his design cracked under pressure. He searched quickly for a replacement, but there were no spare parts available.

  Slightly frustrated, Lorien rose and brought the unfinished mechanism to his tutor.

  “I’m sorry, Professor Zenith. I’ll have to take this back home to finish it,” he admitted, lowering his head beneath the quiet weight of defeat.

  Professor Arin Zenith examined the prototype and assessed the boy’s progress without a trace of disapproval. “It’s still impressive that you manage so much on your own. Your work consistently exceeds my expectations.”

  Lorien exhaled in relief, though doubt lingered. “I’m still not sure it will work…” he confessed, scratching the back of his disordered hair.

  “I suppose it’s beyond both of us to verify its functionality for now,” the professor replied with a faint chuckle. “But I trust it will.”

  With renewed confidence, Lorien paid his respects and left the workshop with the same haste he had shown upon arrival—leaving the older man to reflect quietly.

  The promising youth… how nostalgic indeed.

  New Liceas University rose high above the city, its marble staircases gleaming beneath the afternoon sky and overlooking busy cobbled streets below.

  The silver-eyed boy straightened his white linen shirt as he descended, joining the steady procession of workers and bureaucrats crossing the Central District.

  Regardless of status, the city’s inhabitants were known for their formal attire. Men wore long-tailed overcoats, high-buttoned vests, stiff collars beneath shadowed hats, and polished boots that clicked rhythmically against stone. Working women dressed in similarly tailored garments, though members of the mercantile nobility and government favored vibrant, flowing designs.

  Lorien preferred comfort and simplicity—looser clothes that stirred in the breeze like white pigeons bursting against the blue sky.

  The main avenue of the Central District was lined with glass and brass fa?ades that caught the orange sunlight like mirrors. Intricate latticework reflected the sky in gold and silver, though their towering height left the streets below in cool shade.

  Light returned briefly as Lorien climbed the steel staircase leading to the Gondola Station—a public transit system engineered with ingenuity reminiscent of a monorail.

  Crowds waited impatiently on the suspended platforms for the arrival of a brass shuttle. Noise and restlessness filled the air.

  Before the expected clatter of gears and chains, however, commotion erupted.

  Shouts and startled cries followed a hooded man forcing his way through the crowd. His boots struck the metal floor in hurried rhythm, his long coat flaring as he cut through commuters. Lorien glimpsed only the hood clinging to the man’s face, concealing labored breath and frantic eyes searching for escape.

  The stranger rushed up the stairs opposite Lorien and ran to the platform’s edge, where solid ground gave way to open air—a precipice promising certain death.

  The cause of the chaos appeared to be a sack of stolen goods slung over his shoulder—taken only minutes before.

  Commuters on both platforms watched as the thief measured his distance. For a brief instant, time seemed suspended. Then he sprinted forward and leapt into the void.

  Arms outstretched like wings, he soared through open air. Baton-wielding officers pursuing him stopped short at the edge, whistles shrieking above shouted commands.

  Breath caught in every throat. Lorien’s eyes widened as he witnessed the impossible. A pulse of cerulean light flickered around the man—unnatural, alive, beyond reason.

  Gravity seemed to forget him. His body lightened, drifting across the gap before crashing violently onto the opposite platform. Though the landing scattered most of the stolen goods, he remained alive.

  The police could not follow. Furious and confused, they waited for the arriving shuttle. Once it halted, they stormed aboard, ordering passengers out.

  Many bystanders on Lorien’s side withdrew quickly, unwilling to remain near the unfolding chaos. The boy, however, stood frozen, watching the thief gather what treasure he could salvage.

  Batons nearly struck before the man abandoned part of the haul and hurled himself down a staircase to the main street below. The officers resumed pursuit, leaving only a few behind to calm the unsettled crowd.

  As the chaos subsided, Lorien noticed an ornamented brass box among the scattered goods. Though murmurs still lingered in the station, the more he stared at it, the stronger its pull became.

  Compelled, he bent and lifted the object, ignoring the remaining valuables. The cube was light in his palm, its surface carved with refined patterns that suggested no obvious mechanism.

  Its brass casing seemed cheap—hardly worth notice to most. Yet it carried a subtle weight, a quiet purpose that defied its unremarkable exterior.

  At first, Lorien considered returning it to its place. But the arriving gondola began filling with indifferent passengers. Unwilling to waste more time, he stepped aboard before the doors slid shut, leaving the station behind.

  Buildings blurred past the windows as the shuttle moved. Lorien sank into a seat, breath uneven as the weight of the moment settled upon him—the cube still locked in his grasp.

  Passengers stared. Their silent judgment felt heavier than words. Their gazes shifted between his modest appearance and the strange object in his hand.

  Quickly, he unpacked spare scraps from his bag, concealing the cube among tangled metal. Gradually, attention drifted elsewhere.

  Relief washed over him, only to be replaced by a dull ache of regret.

  I am no thief… Why did I pick it up?

  He was accustomed to salvaging discarded materials from the streets, but this felt different.

  The Police will search for it sooner or later…

  He considered bringing it to the police, claiming he had simply found it—which was not entirely untrue. Yet he preferred to keep his distance from the white-uniformed officers, especially given what he intended to do. The thought was postponed.

  Instead, the faint cerulean shimmer trailing the thief replayed in his mind. Each recollection stirred a strange sensation—not quite near him, yet not entirely absent. For an instant, he thought he perceived closed eyes somewhere beyond sight.

  No… I must have imagined it. Perhaps my imagination is taking the best from me...

  The unease gradually dissolved into the ordinary chill of routine.

  The gondola sailed above rust-red rooftops and steel spires reaching toward the deep blue sky. Pipes gleamed like veins across the city, and vents exhaled plumes that curled into drifting clouds below. At the center stood the Cathedral of Possibilities, rising like a promise as its bells caught the fading light. Around it, the airborne city of New Liceas shimmered in grass and shadow beneath the descending sun.

  High above, a dark silhouette stood among pigeons perched upon a weathered chimney. Its outline wavered in the light as it watched Lorien’s gondola drift away. Though its expression remained indistinct, the faint curve of a confident grin lingered.