Having resolved upon yet another grand ambition, IT turned IT's focus toward the next phase, which was crafting a stable environment, then introducing beings capable of dwelling within said environment.
The reasoning was straightforward, yet profound.
Each of the countless Entities possessed free will, a spark of unpredictable autonomy. Left to their own devices amid the act of creation, they would inevitably interfere, darting through nascent structures, reshaping and forming laws with whims, or simply existing in ways that frayed the delicate weave IT sought to impose.
Not through malice, but through the very nature of freedom, chaotic, unscripted, as well as gloriously discordant.
That said, whether or not if the Entities would actually disturb IT during IT's creation process was a low probability. No, it was best to assume that the Entities wouldn't even disturb IT in any way shape or form.
Indeed. Rather, IT was most likely that the Entities would rather offer up their help instead. After all, they would be helping the very being that created them. Furthermore, they would be helping said being create a place for themselves to inhabit.
As such, IT would only make sense for the Entities to want to help their creator in any way shape or form. Do to, or want to do, anything else would be nothing short of ungrateful for them.
IT knew that all too well, and yet IT still chose to continue on with IT's decision.
Why was that?
Did IT perhaps had another motive behind doing so?
Was there maybe a grander scheme at play, one that was above the surface level?
Perhaps there was. Or perhaps there wasn't. In any case, that is what IT had decided. And for IT, that was all the reason IT needed.
After all, IT was the kind of being that would do something simply because IT wanted to, regardless of reason or intention. It's not as though every action IT takes is bases on whims, but at the very least, most of them are.
To demand a proper reason for any and all of IT's action, would be asking too much from IT. After all, this is a being that knows no consequences. And even if IT did, then IT simply chose to experience said consequence, as IT could simply invalidate said consequence in an instant.
In order to build the environment undisturbed, IT required solitude. This meant that all of the Entities would simply be purged from existence.One could call it a sort of reset, to start over from the beginning.
Now then, IT intoned within the boundless silence, cease.
A single thought, sharp, absolute, and devoid of any ceremony, swept through the Void.
And in that instant, the innumerable Entities vanished.
They were not scattered.
They were not banished.
Nor were they even dissolved into light or shadow.
They simply were not.
Erased so cleanly that no echo of their presence lingered, and no faint ripple marked where they had once danced. It was as though they had never existed the darkness at all.
The Void, once alive with motion, fell utterly still.
Where countless forms had floated like fireflies above a midnight lake, there was now only emptiness.
The ethereal chorus, which was a requiem woven by unseen orchestras, notes that shimmered between sorrow and ecstasy, was now silenced.
The vibrant spectra that had painted the eternal black with impossible hues of crimson nebulae of joy, sapphire spirals of curiosity, as well as golden flares of defiance, had all been extinguished.
Indeed, the luminous chaos collapsed into monochrome oblivion.
Nothing remained, nothing but IT of course.
IT was alone once more, just as IT was in the beginning. Yet this solitude felt altogether different. The first loneliness had been an immutable fact, a condition of existence itself.
This time however, the solitude was deliberate. It was chosen even. A canvas deliberately cleared so that the next stroke could fall true.
"Now that that's done," IT mused, having calmed IT's nonexistent heart. "I will forge an environment fit for habitation. The Void has infinite space, yet it is filled with precisely nothing. That said, an intriguing question arises. What happens if I take infinite from infinity?" IT wondered, stroking IT's chin. Of course, IT lacked the necessary limbs and features, so this was all just metaphorical.
IT could, of course, peer into every branching possibility at once, trace every mathematical and metaphysical outcome in the span of a non-moment. After all, omniscience lay at IT's disposal like an open book. But foreknowledge had grown stale for IT, tedious, and almost suffocating.
Knowing the end before the first step robbed IT the journey of delight. As such, IT preferred the slower pleasure of genuine discovery, even when the puzzle was merely child's play to solve.
So, IT pondered as any curious mind might.
"Does 'infinite' mean A: a perpetual expansion without an end, an ever-growing horizon? Or B: a completeness so total that it is already defined as 'endless,' bounded only by its own totality? And if either options hold, does that mean that I can excise an infinite volume from this infinity, relocate it elsewhere, and leave the original expanse undiminished, still infinite, behind?"
The paradox curled around IT like smoke, suffocating yes, but mostly just annoying. Indeed, had IT had a nose to breathe with, and was trapped in a burning building, the most prominent feeling that IT would feel would be annoyance.
As for why, one needs to understand that IT a being with many questions. Even if IT rarely asked them, or care deep enough to want to answer them, the fact still remains.
Furthermore, there is nothing, apart from IT, that could even attempt to answer said questions. As such, every question IT has is one that IT had to answer on IT's own.
So, one could easily tell how annoyed IT would be, when IT's unable to answer those questions. Of course, this all could be avoid if IT simply wished to do so. So by that logic, IT feeling annoyed is no one's fault but IT's very own.
Endless and infinite were synonyms, yet the language, if not the logic, itself twisted when subtraction entered the equation.
If you remove an infinite from an infinity, what remains?
Normally, one would immediately conclude that the result should be zero, or at least contradiction, if not just pure madness.
Yet in a realm, the Void, unbound by logic, contradiction was merely another texture. Indeed, such was the space filled with nothing but nothingness itself, the Void.
IT savored the mental knot. It tightened, resisted, then abruptly, unraveled it.
The insight arrived not as thunder, but as quiet certainty.
"I see. So, that's how it is." IT murmured in a flat tone.
With effortless will, IT reached into the Void and drew forth an infinite expanse. Not just a portion, but an entirety, yet somehow only a part.
Once again, for the Void, contradiction and logic were merely two saide of the same coin, one half of the same whole.
The stolen infinity coalesced, folding and compressing into a perfect sphere of radiant white.
After which a new domain took shape within the greater nothing, it was small in outward appearance, yet pregnant with boundless interiority.
"The original Void," IT declared, regarding the luminous orb, "embodies absolute Nothingness. Henceforth it shall be called Nihility. This new sphere, the White Void, embodies the potential for Everything. It shall be known as Existence."
To any observer, if observers had existed at all, the sphere would appear modest in scale, scarcely larger than IT in terms of sizw. Yet, within its luminous skin stretched infinity upon infinity. Layers of unformed potential, dimensions waiting to unfold, as well as possibilities stacked like silent symphonies.
Nihility remained untouched, still stretching infinitely in all directions. That said, Existence now housed its own infinity.
And the reason for this?
"A trivial notion." IT mused, smiling with excitement internally.
Indeed, subtracting endlessness from endlessness had changed nothing and everything all at once. After all, logic had no jurisdiction here, in the Void.
As such, neither option "A" nor option"B" had prevailed, because neither one of the options' premise had even applied in the first place. Simply put, all of that was irrelevant to the Void.
Nihility was not governed by measurement, expansion, or even a boundary.
Why?
Because there was simply nothing to measure against in the first place. Only IT existed to impose definition.
And IT, in turn, acknowledged no limit, save those IT chose to place.
To comprehend Nothing is inherently impossible as there is nothing to comprehend. One can only gesture toward absence, the total lack of anything, of everything, of even the possibility of lacking in the first place.
From that perfect absence, IT alone could summon presence, because IT was presence amid the Void.
The sole existent thing that could create something from nonexistence, as well as borrow infinity from infinity without depletion, because depletion itself required something to be there in order to deplete.
"As expected," IT remarked with faint satisfaction, "the distinction between option A or B proved to be irrelevant. The result would've been the same either way."
If IT had a head, then IT would surely be nodding in this moment. However, since IT didn't, IT could only feel as though IT's doing so.
"Now then, it's time to leave this familiar darkness behind." IT mused, IT's nonexistent lips grinning with uncontrollable excitement.
The transition was instantaneous.
One moment, IT occupied Nihility, and the next, IT resided within Existence.
The scene looked like a light bulb turning off in one room, while simultaneously turning on in another. It seemed as though there was no travel, or interval, but only relocation of perspective instead.
Existence greeted IT with unrelenting whiteness, pure, radiant, and stretching omnidirectionally forever.
There was no horizon, no shadow, nor any gradient to be seen. No, there was only an endless, featureless brilliance that somehow felt welcoming rather than blinding.
IT drifted slowly, taking in the change.
"I can't decide whether this is better or worse compared to the darkness of the Void..." IT reflected aloud. "But it's undeniably something new. Yep, it's a refreshing change of scenery."
The eternal darkness of Nihility had possessed a certain austere comfort, familiar, and undemanding. This white expanse demanded nothing less than reinvention. Every direction invited form, and every silence begged for sound.
"First," IT decided, "I need to make a barrier to separate Nihility from Existence. Their natures are polar opposite from one another. As such, they should never intermingle, as mutual annihilation will become inevitable the moment they do."
Nihility and Existence were mirror opposites, total absence versus total potential. Each infinite in size, and each absolute.
Like positive and negative infinities forced into summation, they would both cancel toward zero, not mere destruction, but erasure of distinction itself.
In that case, what would happen? Or rather, what would be left?
Water and oil might be forcibly combined for a moment, yet the mixture remains unstable and unnatural, doomed to separate or spoil.
Far worse would be the union of Nothing and Everything, a cataclysm of nullification that would unravel every effort IT had expended thus far.
IT had no interest in witnessing such an outcome, still less in permitting it.
Yes, IT could rebuild from the ashes in an instant.
True, IT could iterate endlessly, discarding prototypes without remorse.
Indeed, IT had done precisely that before, erased nascent realities when they no longer served the evolving vision, treating them not as treasures but as scaffolding to be dismantled once the true structure emerged.
Yet, pointless repetition held no appeal for IT.
After all, one does not construct a house, demolish it at sundown, then rebuild the identical structure by dawn simply because one can. The labor, even if effortless, becomes meaningless without progression.
If one had done so in order to perfect the house, then it could be excused. For instance, if you changed the direction that the house was facing, used a different method in making the foundation, or a different material to make the house, like swuching from wood to brick.
Only then, would demolishing and rebuilding a house over and over again, seem sensible. Otherwise, why even bother at all.
In short, if a mistake can be avoided in the first place, why go through the hassle of making it of there's no gain from it.
IT sought advancement, refinement, as well as novelty, and not eternal recycling of the same blueprint.
Therefore, a barrier would be raised, as an unbreakable membrane, conceptually impermeable, as well as sustaining the separation of Nihility and Existence indefinitely.
Only then could IT safely commence the true labor of creation that included sculpting laws, seeding matter, and breathing possibility into structure, without fear of fundamental collapse.
IT regarded the pure white expanse once more, already envisioning the shapes that are yet to come.
The silence waited, patient and expectant.
And IT, for the first time in what might be called an eternity, felt the stirrings of genuine anticipation.