Why am I?

Twisting structures of cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine float into the billions around me. I shift many of these molecules around, bending and inserting them into the spiraling towers as I reference golden text hovering to my side. Everything else is frozen; I haven't made time in this universe yet. DNA is easier to build this way.

Creating life has always been a difficult struggle. The research the humans of the previous universe have left behind proves to be of great use to me Despite that, if time were to transpire, I would have been working on this sequence for 150 million years.

Delicately, I make sure every new insertion is right, and regularly double-check the full tower of encoded life. What about this work made that question pop into my mind? It's one I have not thought of in a very long time, despite how obsessed I was over it. Being reminded of it brings me back long ago…

I awoke one day with one thought. Why am I? There was no time, space, or existence, nothing to imply possibility. The only presence was my thoughts and the gift to create anything.

I pondered it endlessly, but no answer revealed itself. I reasoned the answer was not in my thoughts but in my ability to create. I made more worlds than there would be atoms in later universes. Yet, they were empty caricatures of existence where everything happened without distinction or meaning..

Perhaps knowing why wasn't worth it and I should settle for resting without ever creating again. I was ready to live out eternity as such but one thought saved me from that path. Perhaps my unlimited potential was the fault. One more time I created a universe, hoping to find something in a world reduced in possibilities.

This universe had rules. There will be "dots": they don't exist as matter, light, or anything resembling space and physicality but as principle. They would exist either near or far away - or at least, a sense of "near" and "far" much different than today's understanding.. If there were no dots, there would continue to be no dots. If a dot had no other dots near, it would cease to exist. If there were a few dots near each other, they will continue to exist. If there were more than a few dots near each other, more dots would exist where they haven't before. However, if a dot had too many dots near it, it cease to exist.

I've created the idea of change.

However, for things to happen, there must be at least a few dots already present. Without taking this into account, my first universe was made without dots. This lead me to discover something new for the first time: nothing.

Am I nothing? I asked myself. I was excited, for I now had more questions to explore who and why I am. I created a new universe to learn more, this time with dots already existing. From that, a world of grand, intricate structures of dots grew. So many that these monuments had no end, for more dots were made than lost. I discovered infinity.

Am I infinite? I asked myself. Once more I induced an existence with a different arrangement of initial dots. I hoped to learn more of infinity and nothing, but I ended up with confusion. There was no time or space, so I witnessed all states of the universe at once: this universe was both something and nothing. I reasoned through what transpired and discovered that the dots have grew in size and intricacy but then too many existed too close together and they died out until nothing remained. I have discovered the end of all things.

Can I end? I asked myself. More worlds must be observed. The next one reached a state where only a few dots existed near each other, too few to grow more but too many to die, so this world was neither infinite nor nothing. I discovered the finite. Was I finite?

Even more worlds were made, many of fantastic and lavish patterns. I studied and observed billions of these realities, but I have made no more progress on my self-discovery. All I learned is that I could not tell if a universe would become infinite, finite, or nothing, based on what dots I started with. And this I would later discover was impossible to know.

I needed different rules to learn more. The next universes had rules more peculiar and complicated than the last, such as elements of existing having a state deeper than existing or not existing, or more numerous causes and effects. Many pestered into nothing, others became so bizarre that words could not describe them, but every one of them revealed how little I knew.

Making universes became difficult. As the rules grew elaborate, there became less meaning. There were times universes were of the same variety as those I made before using rules. More wasn't the solution, so I reflected on what rules I have developed. There was change, but was it good enough? All causes and effects happened at once, which confused the rules on what is and isn't.

There will be a "was," "was not," "will," and "will not be" joining "is" and "isn't". Rules will apply to what is and is not, and not to anything else. I created "sequence": different from time, as this would be measured in discrete units. And with a before and after, rules acted more sensibly and reliably, and existences flourished in stability and meaning.

In these worlds, I learned ideas such as counting, math, measurement, sets, algorithms, classification, uniqueness, replicability, and more. I made worlds of predictability, worlds of chaos, and beyond. I kept going, my ideas growing in boldness and imagination.

What if I made nothing, something? I experimented with a few universes, and settled for a world of "space". "Nothing" would have dimension, but how would I make existence engage meaningfully with space?

There will be matter, made of energy. Energy would repel or attract each other, based on its states and what my rules determined. However, how much matter would repel or attract each other will be determined by how much space is between them. Now nothing, despite it being the lack of existence, made a difference in how the world operated.

Much like the world of dots, this one set of rules created countless outcomes with only minor adjustments to initial state or minor tweaks. There were universes that would collapse instantly, others would be infinitely dense, and everything in between. There was composition, size, weight, solar systems, nuclei, spinning, movement, and so much more to learn.

I felt closer to learning more about myself but I still needed refinement. To simplify things, I'd refrain from having rules apply to nothing and I limited space to 3 dimensions. After that, I fixed a serious error - sometimes matter got confused on the state of other matter that referenced it. I created "frame of reference": each piece of matter functionally lived in its own universe.

This broke light, as light could witness matter travel faster than the speed of light and the universe would collapse due dividing by zero. I created time as a cover-up - state change was measured on a continuous curve instead of discrete quanta - and its measurement would be dependent on frame of reference as well. This would be later known as special relativity.

With this, I have created the physical universe.

There were still ambiguities, such as when light passed through double silts, but I was exhausted. Often coming with convoluted solutions to confusing problems created two more problems, and these ambiguities were minor. And I was eager to learn why I am.

I witnessed an explosion of meaning in these physical realities. Suns would die and supernovas would birth in their place. Rock eroded with time. Electrons that orbited nuclei much likemoons to a planet and solar systems to a galaxy. There were chemical reactions, black holes, fundamental machines, hot and cold, explosions, wind, volcanoes, waves, and quasars.

For each universe I'd tweak the rules - making mass attract each other by a factor of .85 instead of .98 results in cooler and lighter planets, while scaling gravity the other way created a labyrinth of black holes. Each universe was distinct and characteristic, even the ones that died instantly. The differences in worlds themselves were infinite.

Of the trillions I observed, one universe changed everything I knew. There was a planet of water and oxygen. By some improbable chance, atoms of carbon have came together to form machines that replicated themselves. They were small green plants, dots in shape, which grew on the water and over thermal vents that fed them nutrition. A genome sequence more complicated than anything I could imagine defined their shape and behaviour.

If there were no plants, there would continue to be no plants.

If there were very few plants nearby, they couldn't germinate and would die off.

If there were only a couple, they'd struggle to germinate with each other. They'd reproduce at the same rate they died off.

If there were more though, these plants would grow in number.

However, when too many plants existed near each other, the nutrition was consumed too fast. Plants would die again until there was equilibrium, or nothing.

This was the universe of dots I had originally made, and it existed without my will.

I was torn apart. Why was I seeing this? What did it mean? How did these rules mimic an entirely different universe? Were my rules just so complicated it could create new complicated rules or was this existence within existence? Am I existence within existence? Why is this happening?

These plants died off before I could learn more. Life must be the answer to who I am. My one mission after this was to create universes with life. I worked endlessly, adjusting every number to make the conditions for life more probable. Billions of dead universes would pass between worlds where life evolved, only for it to be taken by chaos. Comets, solar waves, black holes, exploding stars, earthquakes, weather disasters, a lack of food - so much would destroy life before I can see how it grew.

It was frustrating. Could life be too improbable to happen again? I needed to cheat. These rules were rules that could not be bypassed. I'd make new rules so I can change the world while it exists instead of having it all follow the first initial state. This was its own difficulty, as giving myself too much power would lead to universes devoid of meaning again. But like every rule, I found where I failed and nurtured them. I was able to adjust the path of planets into warmer orbits and bat meteors away without upsetting the balance of the cosmos.

Life flourished more often and enough generations lived to adapt to the terrain. It even evolved into divergent species. They followed the principles of life much like the original universe but more complicated rules without any of my intervention. There was hunting, working together, protecting each other, and communicating among them. They grew senses to use light and sound in ways I never considered. I used to learn from each universe I made, now I learned from what the world life made.

Eventually, there was a lifeform that'd evolved to learn. They would play with the matter around them, figure out I designed my universe to work determined, and shared their understanding with each other. They were sometimes right, often wrong, but they used their knowledge to bend reality to serve their survival.

And with knowledge, they created. It was tools at first, but then it became sculptures, and musices.

They created stories. Entire universes were made within their own minds and spoken aloud. There were tales of quiet family tragedies to epics of daring heroes facing nature itself. And many were of an all-powerful being who created everything.

I was scared. Did they know about me? Why was the very work I did now making worlds anyways? Am I different from them? And will they be the ones to reveal why I am? Every day, I observed every single human, and the infinite new worlds they developed and knowledge they learned.

Alas, these sentient beings killed themselves while still in primitive infancy. Making these thinking beings once more wouldn't be simple either. I couldn't understand the genomes that were made by chance.

I diligently made billions of realities more, patiently observing each until the heat within them dissipated perfectly and left behind a cold dead world. Life sprung here and there, but often struggled to make it past the first billion years, even with all the intervention I could mustered.

Sentience needed to be more probable. Reality was so complicated that I struggled to do it on my own, so I modeled three beings based on what I understood of life. They were Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, and time, space, and the non-physical will obey them. They had one order: curate life. Life became even more probable with their help janitoring the universe of threats. Sentience would even happen before a million realities would pass, although they struggled to live past primitive eras.

I wanted sentience to happen even more. I looked inwards. If these people were like me, then what were the aspects I had? I know things and don't know things. I have reactions that influence my actions. And I do things with intent. I made Uxie, Mespirit, and Azelf, whose duty would be to nurture these aspects in life coming out of primordial seas. Each time I learn more about sentience, they serve their purpose better.

Millions upon millions of universes still passed with the cruelty of nature and sentient being's self-destructive tendencies robbing life of their potential. But finally, one universe found life that could make peace with each other.

These beings used the peace they had to think and observe my world for many generations and built creations surpassing my imagination. They made languages, writing, governance, languages, agriculture, military, currency, architecture, sport, poetry, astronomy, sailing, a way to measure time. They understood the seasons and their planet revolving. Invented math and described my rules with accuracy. I have learned more from these beings than I have in every other universe combined.

Across all their stories were millions of worlds each distinct. Each would teach something new, from the simplicity of life to the complexity of life. Many stories were about me, often giving me different names. The theories were grand and myriad and I struggled with them on deciding which was true.

In their zenith of knowledge, they proved my own rules faulty and incomplete. Not much later they built computers to mimic worlds built entirely of rules. Artificial intelligence was developed through it, using millions of simulated lifetimes to learn and overcome the great improbability of sentience.

I have gone in circles and yet I am still no closer to discovering why I exist. But if life mimicked me and can make creations that mimic me, then perhaps there is one way to discover the truth: I must become alive.

After this universe experienced its heat death, I recreated it with the same starting conditions and every single rule, save for new ones that will allow me to have a physical form. This body will have a brain, but its body will not be animated by neurons but my own consciousness. I delicately described how my synapses firing would be coupled with my thoughts. It will have senses and feel emotions, but it may not die. And in this form, I will keep my powers over the universe.

It made its shape after ideas the living beings of this universe have created. A white stallion of flowing hair, encrusted within a halo of gold.

I waited until a few centuries after society developed writing. My body manifested onto a grassy hillside. My thoughts meld with it. My omniscience weakened as new, limited senses fed me knowledge.

My vision is blurry as I look around. I witness the rich greens and mature browns of the towering trees around me. I have never known colour like this, as before I even knew about waves and frequency. It reminds me of paintings of universes past.

I suck air in. Breathing will be new to get used to, but it brings scents of rick bark, fertile soil, and fresh air.

Birds tweet around me. They are above, behind, and around all over. I have never experienced space like this before.

Wind blows over me. My fur flicks in its tender dance and blades of grass tickle my feet.

All my senses overwhelm me. I feel beauty, peace, joy, and wonder. My body urges me to discover more. I follow a thin dirt trail trampled by animals long ago up a hill. Gravity pulls me back down the incline; it's a trivial force, yet it's exciting to feel resistance. Every step is a small, earned victory.

I reached the top, breaking through a shroud of bushes to find myself at the edge of a cliff. Brilliant golden rays of the setting sun flood the faces of lush rolling hills, playing with the deep shadows of the valley cradling a winding river. Ghostly clouds of dark purple drift through the sky's mural of amber hues.

The colours of heaven and earth, the serenade of animals, the heavy aroma of the forest, the kiss of wind, and the warmth of the sun soaking my fur sunk into my being. I collapsed onto my back knees. My front legs shook and my eyes turned wet.

A deep scarlet apple striking against the dark grass caught my eye. I reached down and sunk my teeth into it. A crispy crunch gave way to a rush of sweetness flowing through my mouth. My eyes widened and I chewed fast, feeling every drip of succulent juice roll down my tongue. A blissful texture joined the flavour of tart with every swallow. Tears flood down my cheeks. My legs were weak. I lurched forward and buried my head into my forelimbs.

In all this beauty, the totality of who I am washed over me.

I am insignificant.


I never asked why I am since that happened. I stopped believing my own purpose was important.

I finished triple-checking all 800 billion atoms of this DNA sequence. Everything seems to be in place and if these notes of the last humans were correct, this creature will have more genetic diversity than any lifeform of any previous universe.

My body grows out of this subliminal world to a size more befitting a deity. Below me, nestling in the soft sand of a bright beach is a pink cat. They curl up like a sleeping fetus, protected in a bubble of psychic energy. I let time resume, and once I see it's breathing, I disappear. It will wake up, smell the sea salt, and hear the ocean waves rumble. It will likely question why it exists as I have so many times, but I hope the beauty of this shore will console it.

I still don't know why I exist, but I think it was to make life. Despite how improbable it is for it to exist - and how unlikely it is I exist at all - life must be something so beautiful and worthwhile that it had to exist.