The light was gone.For the first time since the collision of worlds, the sky was empty — not dark, not bright, simply hollow.
Heroes stood in silence. The air felt heavier, like the planet itself was holding its breath. The First Light had vanished, but in its absence… something else began to whisper.
At first, it was nothing more than a tremor — a vibration beneath thought. Then came the sound: a low, endless murmur, like every forgotten fear learning to speak at once.
Doctor Fate's helm glowed violently. "This presence… it's older than creation."Strange nodded grimly. "Before light, there was the void. And it remembers what was taken from it."
Beneath the Earth, deep within the fractures of reality, shadows began to move. They weren't absence — they were will.
From the darkness emerged a figure shaped by nothingness itself. No form, no face, yet every gaze fell upon it.The voice that followed was neither sound nor thought, but existence unraveling itself to speak.
"They gave themselves to light… but they were born from me."
The ground cracked open. Entire cities flickered, as if their memories were being eaten alive.
Superman clutched his chest, his heartbeat faltering. "It's draining existence… not energy, but meaning."
Cyborg's systems screamed as data dissolved into static. "It's rewriting me in reverse!"
From above, the Prime Eternal — now broken, desperate — laughed, his body half-shadow, half-light. "You thought light was perfection? Foolish mortals! You've only freed the thing it feared most!"
The darkness reached upward, swallowing the remnants of the Citadel.
Thor hurled his hammer, a bolt of lightning tearing through the void — it passed through harmlessly.Batman spoke sharply. "It's not physical. It's the concept of nothing. You can't fight it with force."
Aurin, his once-radiant form flickering, looked to the others. "Light defines itself by shadow. When the First Light divided, it weakened the balance. The darkness is what was left behind — unanchored."
Wonder Woman raised her sword, its glow dimming. "Then we must anchor it again. Give it form."
Strange's eyes widened. "Form means identity. Identity means consciousness. You want to give the void a soul?"
"Yes," she said. "Because only then can we make it choose."
As the shadow spread, swallowing light and sound, the heroes stood united once more — not as gods, not as legends, but as fragments of existence refusing to fade.
Superman planted his feet, light flaring through his wounds. "Then we make it remember… what it means to be alive."
A voice responded from the abyss, cold and endless.
"Alive… I remember the word. It hurt."
The void shifted, forming a colossal silhouette — neither god nor monster, but the memory of all that never was.
The heroes stared up, dwarfed by its sheer vastness.
The Prime Eternal fell to his knees, laughing through tears. "You wanted creation without gods… now behold the price!"
The stars went out, one by one.
And in that infinite black, a single heartbeat echoed — fragile, defiant, human.
The darkness paused.
It had heard them.