It was still night.
Everyone was sleeping and there were no sounds, the village settled into that particular stillness that comes only in the deepest hours, when even the insects seem to have exhausted their nightly chorus.
Cold wind blew in through the window, drifting over Shree Yan's face and body, carrying with it the faint, mineral scent of distant rain that hadn't yet decided whether to fall. The window was open, curtains stirring faintly against the sill.
But still, Shree Yan remained calm, sitting motionless upon the bed, his breathing slow and even.
Shree Yan now tried to merge the saangee worm's ability to see at night into his eyes, focusing inward with the same disciplined stillness he'd used to stabilize the rana only hours earlier.
Energy surged through his veins, rising up to Shree Yan's eyes with a heat that seemed to press against the backs of his sockets from the inside. His body felt the pain, sharp and immediate, but Shree Yan endured it, jaw tightening as sweat gathered along his hairline. This ordinary pain couldn't shake Shree Yan, not after everything his body had already learned to withstand in this short new life.
And he succeeded in merging it into his eyes, exhaling slowly as the burning sensation finally receded into something more manageable.
Shree Yan's will spoke, "Now I have two eye abilities — first, Rana; second, saangee — and there's a last one I still have to search for." Now he wanted to go, and he was ready, rising from the bed with the quiet efficiency of someone who had done this exact thing, in some form, many times before.
Shree Yan walked towards the window, the wooden floor cool beneath his bare feet, then jumped off and landed on the road below, knees bending easily to absorb the impact. Shree Yan's house was surrounded by houses and forest. His house stood in the center. On the north side, forest lay behind Shree Yan's house, dark and dense even against the already-dark sky. To the south, west, and east, there were countless houses, most now dark, a few still flickering faintly with the last embers of banked cooking fires.
Shree Yan leapt up from the house, gathering himself in a single fluid motion. A gust of wind swept through the forest and his robes streamed behind him as he flew, the fabric snapping sharply against the night air.
Shree Yan thought, *I have to go now.*
Swiisss!
He rushed into the forest with great force, gathering all his star energy into his foot as he moved, the ground blurring beneath him in a way that would have been impossible for an ordinary child his age. Without a sound, he channeled all the energy — a skill honed through experience in his previous life, muscle memory settled deep enough to survive even reincarnation.
Shree Yan landed on the ground and activated his night eyes, the world sharpening instantly into crisp, silver-edged clarity. Now he could see clearly, every leaf and root and shadow rendered suddenly distinct.
A thick mist covered the forest, curling low between ancient tree trunks, muffling sound and softening the edges of everything it touched. Ordinary wild beasts moved among the trees — the faint rustle of something small darting through underbrush, the distant, low call of a night bird. The forest was silent otherwise. There was a saying: if you didn't hurt them, they wouldn't hurt you, and Shree Yan moved through the trees with the deliberate calm of someone who trusted that old wisdom completely.
Shree Yan started thinking. *Back in my previous life, my Master told me a story — a story of how our ancestors grew, and how astral energy came to be. The origins of the mystical worms, and the astral worms.*
*How they were created, how the astral worm came here. He said there was a story about it.*
Shree Yan pressed on into the depths of the forest, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch heavy with dew, remembering the story as it unspooled slowly behind his eyes. He didn't attack the wild beasts, so the wild beasts didn't attack him either, a pair of deer lifting their heads briefly to watch him pass before returning, unbothered, to their grazing.
The story of the Mother of Humanity, Miima, and the Father of Humanity, Rimi. The ancestors of humanity: Rimi-Aba and Miima-Aama.
At first, there were no humans. In space, there was an astral essence who had wandered off his path, drifting without purpose through the vast, silent dark between stars. By accident, he found Earth, its blue-green curve rising suddenly into view like something unexpected and precious. Seeing its beautiful places, its environment, its atmosphere, its blue sky, he liked it immensely. So he entered the Earth, breaking through its barrier in a burst of light no living creature witnessed.
He explored the world for days, drifting formlessly over oceans and mountain ranges alike. He saw amazing mountains, rivers, great waterfalls, wondrous mountain formations, each new sight pulling something like delight from whatever passed for his heart. After ten days, though, he grew bored — despite the beautiful scenery, he began to feel lonely, the vastness of his solitude finally catching up to him.
He stood on a rock in the middle of it all and looked down at the water, the surface glassy and still. He saw his own reflection on the surface as a cloud drifted over, covering half the sun, dimming the light into something softer, more contemplative. On the water's surface, a shadow appeared — the shadow of an astral essence. Seeing this gave him an idea. He watched a female fish and a male fish circling lazily beneath the surface, studied their bodies, the way they moved together, and it gave him another idea.
So he created two humans, shaping them from something between clay and starlight, and said to them with an extremely joyful expression, "You are humans that I created, so play with me!"
"....."
But they didn't respond, standing motionless and blank-eyed on the rock beside him, because he had given them everything — a face, skin, a nose, a mouth, a full human body, and wisdom too. But he had forgotten one thing: emotions. Without emotions, they couldn't talk, think, feel, or offer him any comfort, simply standing there like beautifully rendered statues.
"Oh… fool, I forgot to add emotions." He felt like a fool, the realization landing with an almost physical weight. Once he realized it, he gathered astral energy above his palms, the light pulsing faintly, and added emotions like his own, sending two currents of emotion into their bodies.
"Ahem. Creatures, I made you with my astral energy. I made you because I felt lonely — I need friends to play with me," he said nervously, suddenly self-conscious in a way he hadn't been moments before.
"Creatures — what a shameful title," they both replied, annoyed, their voices sharp with newly-formed indignation. After saying this, they looked at each other and realized, with simultaneous horror, that they weren't wearing any clothes.
Miima immediately raised her hand and slapped Rimi across the face, the sound cracking sharply through the still air.
"Ouuuuuch!" Rimi roared loudly in pain, clutching his cheek.
Miima quickly hid herself behind a rock, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Rimi hid himself in the water, submerging until only his eyes showed above the surface. Seeing this ridiculous scene, the astral essence couldn't hold back his laughter. He laughed and laughed, the sound echoing strangely across the empty landscape.
Miima said furiously to the astral essence, peering out from behind her rock, "Don't laugh, you brat — give us clothes."
"Okay, okay, don't be angry." He stifled his laughter, still shaking faintly with the effort, and gave them clothes, the fabric materializing from nothing in a soft shimmer of light.
The clothes weren't anything special, but they were good enough — rough-woven and simple. Their clothes were like something from the Stone Age.
"I don't like the title you gave us — change it." Miima was thoroughly irritated by the name, hands planted firmly on her hips now that she was decently covered.
Rimi said, wading closer, water dripping from his hair, "Don't fight over it. You should appreciate that we have a title at all, and remember that he's the one who created us."
Miima turned to Rimi, incredulous. "Wha— what?! Are you crazy? That name is disgusting." Miima felt like he'd lost his mind, hearing such a stupid answer. Her expression turned to disgust.
The astral essence nodded, considering the matter with sudden, unexpected seriousness. "Okay, I'll give you two different titles. You'll recognize them, and you'll like them. Hi… hu… me… u… me… hah… human! How's that?" he said after some thought, testing the sound of it against the quiet air.
Miima liked the sound of this title, something in the shape of the word settling comfortably against her tongue. "That's the title, now what about our names?" she shouted.
"Your names…? Umm… Miima-Aama and Rimi-Aba." He gave them their names, the syllables rolling out easily, as though he'd been holding them ready all along.
Miima asked quickly, "What do these names mean?"
"They mean First Woman and First Man, because I created you two first," the astral essence replied smoothly. But he didn't tell them that Aama meant Mother, and Aba meant Father — in short, First Mother and First Father. The Mother and Father of humanity.
Seeing her reaction to even the simplest naming, he was too afraid to tell her the truth, tucking the fuller meaning away for some safer, later moment that never quite arrived.
Finally Rimi said, stepping fully out of the water now, water still dripping steadily from the hem of his new clothes, "Creator, please tell us, what is your name, and how can you speak, see, hear, and feel with us, when you have no human body, no ears, no mouth, no eyes? How can you do all this without them?" he asked politely. Even if he wasn't the smartest, even if he was foolish and stubborn, one thing set him apart from the others: curiosity, the desire to know everything.
Miima still looked at him as if he were a fool, rolling her eyes where she stood — someone who asked foolish questions and got foolish answers, in her estimation, deserved little sympathy.
The astral essence replied coldly, some old, ancient impatience surfacing briefly in his tone, "Foolish human, you owe all of this to me, and still you ask me such a question? My name… is Rana. I can hear, see, feel, and speak because I am no ordinary essence. I am an astral essence who can give life and give death."
Even though Rana answered coldly, Rimi still replied politely, bowing slightly at the waist, "Thank you, Creator, for your answer."
Miima gritted her teeth, thinking of Rimi. *What's wrong with him, why does he keep answering so politely?* She sighed, shaking her head slowly. "This guy is crazy."
Rana began gathering astral energy above his head, the light building steadily brighter, casting long shadows across the water below. The energy formed into a giant ball, pulsing with barely contained power, and Miima and Rimi instinctively stepped back to back, some shared, wordless understanding passing between them. Miima asked Rana, voice edged with sudden alarm, "What are you doing?!"
He gave no answer.
Boooooooooom!
A great, brilliant light erupted across the world, washing out sky and sea and stone alike in a single, blinding flash that seemed to last far longer than any single instant should.
But nothing happened.
Rana was gone.
In that moment, Rana's astral energy spread across the earth like something poured rather than exploded, seeping down into rivers and soil alike, and from it, astral creatures were formed beneath the water, stirring to life in the dark, silted depths.
That released astral energy stayed at its peak for only three generations. After that, it grew weaker and weaker, diluting slowly across centuries like ink dispersing through water, and the creatures it had formed grew smaller and smaller, generation by generation, until almost nothing remained of their original, staggering scale.
Today, we call that same astral energy star energy, and we call those same creatures mystical worms. Once, they had been far stronger and far larger, towering things that modern imagination could barely reconstruct.
So that's what happened... Ancient astral energy became today's star energy, and those ancient creatures became today's mystical worms.
At last, Shree Yan reached the cave, its mouth yawning dark and silent before him, the mist thinning slightly at its threshold. The story of Miima and Rimi ended in his mind, the final image of that ancient, blinding light fading slowly into the present moment. Ahead of him was the worm he had come searching for, its presence already faintly perceptible through the enhanced clarity of his borrowed, night-adapted eyes.