I’d been working the graveyard shift at the gas station for four years. Not because I liked it, or even needed it. I just didn’t know where else to go.

There was no plan. No dream. No finish line waiting for me on the other side of all this.

Just the buzz of flickering lights—those same tired bulbs that never quite stayed steady.

The hum of the refrigerator that never shut up.

The silence of being alive but not really living.

Sometimes, during the dead hours—3 a.m., maybe 4—I’d lean against the counter and stare at the rows of candy bars and energy drinks, trying to remember what it felt like to care about anything.

My name tag—DAN—hung crooked on my threadbare hoodie, faded like everything else about me.

No one came in. The door didn’t chime. The world just kept turning, and I stayed still.

Like I didn’t exist.

And maybe I didn’t.

I hadn’t spoken to anyone outside a transaction in over a month. My phone stayed dead, even when I charged it. Not a single call. Not a single message. No one waiting for me. No one wondering if I was okay.

I started talking to myself just to remember what my voice sounded like.

Sad, right?

I didn’t even feel human anymore. Just a placeholder. A shadow filling a space no one cared about. I kept thinking—if I disappeared, would anyone notice? Would anything change?

Maybe tomorrow I’d quit. Maybe I’d finally go somewhere that mattered. Not tonight. But maybe.

The uniform I wore felt scratchy and loose, like it didn’t belong to me anymore.

Then one night, something did.

It started with a pain.

Nothing new. I’d had chest pains before. GERD, stress, caffeine—take your pick. But this time it felt different.

Like something was tearing its way through me from the inside.

I pressed a hand to my chest and winced. My knees buckled. The floor rushed up.

I fell, knocking over a rack of gum and lighters on the way down.

The world tilted.

My breath caught, then refused to come back.

No air. No strength. No time to call for help.

I stared up at the ceiling tiles—the same stained ones I’d cursed for years—and thought: So this is how it ends.

No grand finale. No last words. No one holding my hand or whispering it would be okay.

Just me—gasping on the cold tile of a place no one cared about, half-curled beside spilled menthols and crushed energy bars.

A pathetic ending for a life no one would remember.

I caught my reflection in the dark window nearby: tired eyes, unshaven face, the slump of a man who’d given up long ago.

My vision blurred. My chest burned. My arms felt like sand.

Then the cold faded.

Everything else too—the pain, the pressure, the fear—all of it slipped away like someone flipped a switch.

There was only darkness.

But I was still there.

Still… something.

I couldn’t open my eyes. Couldn’t move. But I was. I existed. Somehow.

I don’t know how long I floated like that. Minutes? Hours? An eternity?

Then—a spark.

Not light exactly. More like a ripple. A shift in the nothingness.

And from it… something shimmered.

A golden slip of light, glowing softly in the void. Thin, like a ticket—almost holographic.

It hovered in the blackness, just beyond reach, pulsing gently with warmth. Words etched across it glowed with divine clarity.

CREATION TICKET – ONE USE ONLY

I didn’t understand.

Had I gone crazy? Was this a dream? Some final brain flare before death?

But something deep in me stirred. A memory not from this life—or maybe beyond it. Something ancient and vast and buried under layers of forgotten lifetimes.

And that something whispered:

Touch it.

I didn’t have a hand. Not a body. Just the shape of thought. But the moment I wanted to reach out… I did.

The ticket pulsed brighter as I drew near, glowing like it recognized me. Like it had been waiting.

And as I touched it—

Everything changed.

The void bent around me.

My mind expanded, cracked open like a shell to reveal something endless underneath.

Knowledge poured in—chaotic, blinding, overwhelming.

But in the center of it all, a voice rang out. Not loud. Not harsh. Just… absolute.

WELCOME, CREATOR.

YOU HAVE BEEN SEEN.

YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. But I felt it.

Someone had heard me.

Someone—or something—had answered.

Even in my final breath, even in my obscurity… I’d been noticed.

That hopeless, forgotten man on the gas station floor?

He died.

And what came after…

That was where my story really began.