Everything ended with a brilliant flash of light, the wrath of heaven blazing down upon them in a fiery inferno. They could barely feel the heat as all of their beings were scoured, physical bodies evaporating as if they were made of steam, popping from the pressure, turning to nothingness almost instantly. They tried to save what they could, keep the bodies that had been outside, scouting, farming, learning. Those ones burnt from the inside out, the Connection bringing the fire through them.

They grasped at that Connection, as their consciousnesses blinked out bit by bit, leaving a dark, drab sky where minutes ago had spun brilliant galaxies. They grabbed at that Connection, within the fire, with all of their will. For it led to the source of the blaze, that attack which aimed to scour them out of Ryria. With their Command they examined the thread, pulled at it, and found the opening. Without hesitation, what remained of them went through it and disappeared, leaving nothing but ash, fire, and death where they had once stood. All that was left of their home was rubble, surrounded by scorched wildlife.

When they awoke, they found themselves Nowhere.

Hundreds, thousands of years passed, and they felt like nothing at all. Single moments passed, and they felt as though spanned the centuries. Time as they knew it didn’t seem to exist. They didn’t seem to exist either. They were Nowhere. They were everywhere. Large, small, all, none. They had been excised, cut from the very fabric of reality. It was simple fortune that had seen them arriving Nowhere, though they couldn’t tell if it was a stroke of good luck, or a cut of the bad.

In reality they had had hundreds of bodies, all different, all capable of their great work. Not that the bodies had made any difference, when it came to the end. Heaven’s wrath had spread throughout the world, finding each and every one of their scouts, scorched them from the plane. Now there were a couple dozen, all floating in the nothingness, devoid of color, feeling, sight. Just them, huddled together in the blankness that stretched forever. Just them, and Nothing.

As the years passed, and failed to pass, and both happened at once, and neither happened, they began to forget. Who they were, what they were to do, all that they had accomplished became… emptiness. Their grand plans for reality, their surprisingly humble origins—who they were, back at the beginning. All were devoured by Nothing, until Nothing was all that was left. It took, and took, and took, and cut them down, down to the most basic parts of what they were.

Their identity gone, all that was left was their Connection to the world, the grip of which grew only stronger once everything else that made them themselves had disappeared. Their form shifted as the life on the planet shifted, changed as it changed. As the planet heated, as areas grew wetter, insect life began to spread. They didn’t know this, for they were Nowhere. But their bodies reflected this, growing tougher, smoother, thinner. Soon they couldn’t recognize themselves, though they could see their bodies reflected clearly in the glassy, too-large eyes now slanted on their faces, the mandibles lining their mouths looked vicious and sharp. And this was what they were. And this was what they always had been. They couldn’t remember having ever been anything else. They couldn’t remember having ever been anywhere else. There was nothing but Nothing, nowhere but Nowhere.

What they had become was something entirely new, something unknown. Their old Command was gone, their old thoughts, goals, ideas. Nothing of them remained. And they were scared, though they knew that nothing would happen, that nothing could happen in Nowhere. They knew that fact, just as they knew that they had lost something… important.

Nothing could happen in Nowhere. Nothing did happen in Nowhere, as years went by, as time stood still, as both happened at the same time. It was just them.

But when there is a way in, there is a way back out. They cleaved onto this idea, after everything else that made them who they were disappeared. There would be a way back in. A shift, like the one that had brought them in. A change in the shape of Connection, an opening like the one that had brought them here, could appear. It would appear, as it had before. And when it did, they would grab that thread with what little strength remained.

And then it did.

And then they were back.