# Whispers from the Historical Void
Looking back, taking the long view, I should have gone mad long ago.
Yes, if an individual's sanity was determined by the judgment of the collective, then I was indeed mad, as no one had ever been before, and probably no one would ever be again. Because this planet seemed close to its end.
A life that had never experienced madness could not understand what it was.
And mine was the strangest madness of all. I broke free of the collective ocean of thought and could no longer hear the thoughts and inner voices of my kin. There were no ceaseless prayers to the god, no hungry whispers or mournful cries of fear at death. An unprecedented peace surrounded me. Only much later did I learn there was a word for it: "silence." My consciousness stretched endlessly outward, my thoughts left the collective, and I became myself.
I went mad.
I did not seem to be alive. I wandered in a daze, following the only light in my consciousness. Yet I did not seem to be dead, either. I heard my kin lingering around me, complaining that I should not have eaten the enemy's priest, leaving them without food, and then discussing whether to divide me up and eat me.
Then I saw the doorway.
Beyond the door, I saw stars: the boundless Sea of Stars, where gases and fragments of every hue formed dazzling nebulae. The great Dreamlands and all manner of races beyond imagination had built civilizations of every kind, some praising the All-in-One, others praising the great Mother of All Things. I saw countless doors, and before the great gate waited the Silver Key, which knew all, understood all, led to all, and held dominion over all. Faceless Chaos approached living beings according to his whims, composing stories on the stage that ended only in madness and death. The green Flame of Energy brought rot to the world, spiraling upward like a flower that blotted out the sky. There were many, many more gods, existing eternally, as though they were the world itself. At the end of all things, in a palace floating at the singularity of the universe, the blind, idiotic sole supreme god lay asleep. The dazzling worlds, the civilizations flourishing or declining, even the gods themselves were merely parts of his dream. When he awoke, everything would crumble to dust.
First came light; last came sound.
Only dreams were real; only the blind, idiotic god was eternal. I saw myself in that green flame, yet realized it was a perfect form I could never attain. I realized that being alive was nothing but emptiness, that my world and my life were utterly meaningless. Only chaos and primordial order were truly eternal, such as life and death.
I did not want to die yet. After surviving in a daze all this time, I had only just truly become myself. I had never really seen the Sea of Stars. I had so many questions to ask: God of Order, why did you claim to protect us, yet never grant us any blessing except death? Why did you claim to love everyone, yet never stop us from slaughtering one another? Why could we live for only one cycle? Why did I have to die according to your divine revelation? I closed my eyes in the dream and returned to my world. I opened my eyes. I had never seen or heard so far before. The things around me had been my kin a minute earlier; now they were another kind of life-form I could not understand. I had become myself, and they had become things.
It was like waking after a full night's sleep, yet also like being reborn after dying once. I heard the wind whipping up sand and dust. I heard snow grains brushing against mountain peaks in the distant tundra. Every minute detail of the world became apparent. If a thousand birds sang before me, I could still clearly distinguish which one's wing had lightly brushed a branch. Everything became so clear, as though its skin had been stripped away to expose it before me.
I heard prayers. I heard laughter. I heard them whispering, complaining that they would have to go hungry again because I had not died.
Except.
I did not hear this planet's heartbeat.
The planet where I had been born was already dead.
This civilization had once had the concept of Beyonder Abilities (which was why the God of Order had come into being), but no longer, because she had erased it.
Without the concepts of sequences, potions, or rituals, everyone relied on luck to survive, with the god occasionally returning to guide them. Decay ate a demigod from an adjacent pathway when he was only Sequence 7. He went mad.
Or rather, his SAN dropped to zero, and he became sane.