And the world began to form.

[[Welcome to A Shattered Reality.]]

[[Here, there is you, there is the Narrator, and... well, I don't want to spoil anything.]]

"Hope!"

Hope turned, holding their awkward handful of nuts in one hand and the rock for cracking them in the other.

"Harmony? How'd you find me?"

Harmony pointed at the path behind her.

"I was right by the other end when it showed up."

"Oh." Hope paused, looking at the still-waiting fireflies by the entrance to the path. "I guess it started existing so I didn't get lost."

Harmony looked up and away, thinking. "Probably. With how everything keeps showing up there has to be something making it that cares about us. Probably the same thing that made the world."

"What kind of thing do you think it is?"

Harmony shrugged. "Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow. I want to have some food and sleep."

-lonesome

... Maybe that's a bit silly, but, it's worth a shot...? -Soul

Fireflies came into existence as the voice spoke, flying around the way Hope had come. They almost seemed to be waiting for them.

I can't do much about that problem either, I don't think. I certainly wasn't able to control what happened with all of *you* by narrating.

"You can eat these?" they asked to themself as they bent down, picking one up to take a closer look. The shell was hard, and overall it seemed closer to the stone some fruits had that you needed to discard than to anything edible. But still, that animal *had* been eating one...

Carefully, they walked over to where they'd seen the animal to see if there was anything different about the one it had been eating. Once they found where it had fallen, they realized that there was... and there wasn't. Some of the hard shell had been chewed away to reveal something in the center, mostly white but with a small ring of brown around where it touched the shell, but other than that it looked exactly the same as the one in their hand. Did all of these have that inside them?

Hope picked at the broken shell with their fingers, eventually succeeding in pulling more of it away from the middle part so that they could break it out. As it turned out, the brown ring they'd seen had been parts of the outside of the nut, with the white obviously being the center. They hesitated a moment, then popped it into their mouth.

It was good. Very different from the sweet fruits they were used to, but delicious in its own way. If they could figure out how to break open more of the shells, they could have a great meal here. And after that, they could take a handful of nuts back to Harmony for her to try.

-lonesome

-lonesome

Hope is alone. They promised Harmony they'd come back as soon as they found food, and that they'd bring some back to share with her.

But... beyond setting the record straight, that part isn't really important. What is important is that, well...

I suppose you voices are much newer around here than I am. You never got to experience the old world, or what it was like for a being like you or me to exist there. So it's understandable you wouldn't know that nothing and no one is able to hear you except for me. Harmony may have seen the world come into existence around her, but she doesn't have a clue what we were talking about at the time, or that we were talking, or even that we exist.

Oh sure, and where exactly do you expect the restaurant to find its staff? If you create them, what are *they* going to eat? What are they going to *cook*? What are they going to *use* to cook? You can't just introduce something as complex as a restaurant if the world isn't able to support it.

As they lay looking up at the stars with Harmony, Hope noticed their stomach rumbling. They could, of course, have taken one of the fruits growing on the vines around the strange monument, but they'd eaten enough of that fruit in the last days to be quite sick of it, so they opted instead to head out to look for something else to eat.

Time passed as they wandered through the dark forest, assuming time existed of course, and the further they went, the less sure they became of where they had come from. It would have been wisest for them to stop and get their bearings, but their mind was focused enough on food that they decided they could find their way back later.

I do *not.*

Harmony and Hope have been well. With how simple the world is at the moment, there's not much out there for them to worry about. Though now that day and night exist, it *does* get a little chilly when the suns have set.

Well, that's all right. I was alone in the void for a long "time" before there were any voices there with me. I can handle being alone again, particularly given the children exist now and I can spend my time watching and narrating them.

Hm?