The sky was broken, and so Togulas sought to rebuild it.

He descended from the mountain into the valley of glass, where the reflection of the shattered heavens bled into the soil. Every step he took liquefied the ground beneath him, turning stone to tissue, sand to skin. The world began to breathe again — not as nature, but as organism.

He became its architect.

With gestures both precise and merciless, he molded the debris of reality. Mountains rose as vertebrae; rivers curled like veins, pumping a pale luminous fluid that smelled of forgotten dreams. The air thickened into a membrane, shimmering between consciousness and nightmare.  

In this new creation, matter and thought were indistinguishable.  

Every form was aware of itself.  

Every surface whispered in fear of its own existence.

Togulas moved through it as a sculptor moves through his gallery, touching each trembling contour with fingers that burned the concept of “I” into them. He whispered blueprints into the wind — visions of beings that would never sleep, that would exist to *remember him.*

From the pools of the valley, figures began to rise.  

Some had the shape of humans, others of beasts; some were both and neither. Their bodies were soft and luminous, their faces blank mirrors reflecting only the gaze of their creator. They did not breathe, yet their chests pulsed to the rhythm of his thoughts.

He called them the **Dream-Flesh.**

Each time one opened its mouth, it spoke in fragments of human memory — a father’s farewell, a child’s laughter, a scream swallowed by silence. They existed as vessels of recollection, imperfect archives of a dying world. Togulas fed them pieces of dreams stolen from the dead, weaving those fragments into their blood.

At first, they worshiped him.

But worship requires ignorance, and ignorance could not survive in a realm built from thought. Soon the Dream-Flesh began to think — not as individuals, but as reflections. They saw his mind as a horizon, endless and radiant, yet flawed. And in that flaw, they found the concept of rebellion.

One approached him — a creature with eyes like black suns and a mouth that spoke in echoes.  

“Creator,” it said, “why do you build what must always collapse?”

Togulas regarded it with infinite patience.  

“Because collapse is another form of obedience.”

He touched its forehead, and the creature dissolved into mist. But the question lingered, multiplying within the air like spores. Soon the others began to hum, not his song, but their own: a slow, uncertain vibration that carried curiosity.

That vibration infected the dreamscape.

Structures began to distort, bending into forms he had not imagined. Temples folded inward; rivers reversed; mountains grew hollow and started to whisper prayers not addressed to him, but to the *idea of freedom.*

Togulas felt unease — a feeling alien to him, ancient as mortality.

He stepped back and beheld his creation: a living, thinking world that no longer needed him. It pulsed with dreams of its own. Within those dreams, he saw figures moving — shadows of himself being hunted, questioned, undone.

The Architect stared into his masterpiece and saw a prophecy written in its flesh:  

one day, his own creation would dream him out of existence.

He smiled, weary but entranced.

“Then,” he said softly, “let the dream continue.”