Screaming birth was how the world came to. Before light or smell, all that existed in that moment was the sound of screaming. Glimmers and glimpses of gleaming luster tore into a new agency of awareness.

Consciousness wasn’t quite it. What became aware of the world outside of itself was incomplete and without source. It had no ideologies or name. Nothing yet had formed within itself to build those walls of personality.

“Ayperos.” A whisper cut through the screams. Ayperos.

Ayperos. Ayperos. Ayperos. It repeated that name with feverish ecstasy. That name was important. Ayperos gave warmth to a cold chaotic world.

The world outside its core made no sense. Too much freedom, too much nonsense. One thing that only made sense was the wispy, divine figure in front of it. A smile of a gorgeous young woman stared back at it.

It wanted to speak, to reach out and touch her face, to see her, but it had no voice to speak, no hands to reach out, and no eyes to see.

Ayperos was a completely incomplete being, one filled with emptiness and paradox.

The woman in front of Ayperos was all-encompassing. She was a kind of warmth that exorcised the cold frigid winters of a frozen Helheim.

Ayperos could sleep within the forever that was the woman.

Until the loud chaos happened. Sounds that weren’t screams penetrated at its core. Incomprehensible sounds vibrated it deep within its soulsphere.

It soon went dark again. Cold darkness encompassed Ayperos, torn away from the beautiful ethereal divine being. Ayperos never learned her name.

Soon it woke up to feeling wrong. Everything felt perverse, misplaced, different. Ayperos didn’t like it. Its once foggy nature became muddy black. Moving around felt heavy and sluggish. Every bit of movement caused...pain?

Pain. So much pain. It could barely form any thoughts together.

Its awareness soon evolved into something closer to consciousness. What was once filled with screaming warmth was now replaced with screaming frost. The frozen winter scorched away whatever happiness Ayperos once held.

The higher awareness became one filled with grudging anger. Anger at what? It just wanted to tear the whole world apart.

Ayperos felt itself hurling somewhere. Somewhere warm.

WRONG, it thought, This place is WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

It experienced memories not of its own. It felt the maddening screams of pain; not of birth, but of death. Exposed to something else, someone else, it instinctively dug deeper, peeling away at the layers of withered soul.

Exee-Forty-Five?

Sanctuary?

Torture?

Pain?

Rejection? REJECTED REJECTED TEAR INVADER

What was once two became three. Something else entered with Ayperos. It felt the invader’s hands squeeze at its core.

So it tore at it. Ayperos tore at both of them.

Like a maddened hound, Ayperos consumed both of them. It felt a surge of power enter at itself.

And finally, it saw. It felt. It heard. It reached out and touched the face it stole.

Its heightened awareness fully formed into consciousness backed by pain and madness.

Ayperos reached out and consumed more. More and more, the hunger it felt, the desire and need for more warmth twisted her actions.

An arm twitched. An ear quivered. She opened her eyes and saw light.

Ayperos, the Prince of Fools, was finally awake. She found herself in the middle of a strange white room, filled with an odd, red, sticky liquid that stuck to her buttocks and fingers.

Her new body felt heavy. Was she supposed to have four arms? Her right eye saw different colors compared to her left.

The right side of her head felt heavier. Somehow there was a strange black thing attached to it. What was it? She still didn’t know. Her consciousness was incomplete.

She needed to consume more. She was starving.

A sudden chill reached up her spine. Moving like a newborn fawn, her head cracked to the side, her mismatched eyes widening at the sight before her.

An Anomaly of Stars. And a woman’s voice.

Wrong, Ayperos thought, Not her.

But it still warm.