Chapter 1 - The Tribulations

Disclaimer: Come on, do I really need to do this? Can't you guess that I don't own anything that is recognizable after finding this on a fanfiction site? Note: The story isn't beta'd by anyone other than ChatGPT to correct the grammar. Keep in mind these Tags: Wish Fulfillment, M, Harem, perhaps it'll let me actually finish a story. 

I didn't know how long it had been since I found myself in this emptiness. I couldn't even say that the surroundings around me were dark; there was just nothing. Nothingness was quite difficult to describe, let alone process. If I had to guess, this is what sensory deprivation chambers felt like. Unlike those where you understood that there was a way out, here, I knew that there wasn't. I had died, and this was the so-called afterlife or purgatory. It could have been a minute or a millennium. All I know is that I want an out.

I waited and waited, and nothing happened. Fear, panic, and anger came and went. All I felt was empty, just like my surroundings. In that boundless void, the realization hit me – I had died, and this was the so-called afterlife or purgatory. Had others been here as well, in this nothingness, fading away to join this never-ending hell? I won't, I can't.

I tried to recall my life and felt worried. There was barely anything left. No, no, no. This can't be happening. I could remember a little. I tried desperately to recall my name, but I couldn't. I'd once read somewhere — I couldn't remember where — that a person's self-identity often revolved around their name and that it gave a sense of purpose. Was it a book or perhaps a show? I remembered quite a lot of them.

A name; I needed to give myself a name that I couldn't lose. Countless names flashed through my head, from random trivia to various media I'd read. It came to me — Atlas. I'll be Atlas, the Titan of Strength, the one that held up the weight of the sky.

I held onto the name as tightly as I could alongside all the other blurry things that I could remember. A name oriented me in a way that I hadn't expected; it made it far easier for me to hold what remained of my sanity. Just like how Atlas bore the weight of the skies, I too would survive and perhaps find a way to thrive within this nothingness.

I didn't initially understand how to move. After all, how could you move when there was nothing to move about in? It took countless attempts, likely hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Just as I was about to give up, I looked within me, feeling the identity that I gave myself, Atlas. I remember the feeling of intense resolve, of knowing that I would overcome this challenge against all odds. When I truly poured all of the effort that I had within me, not to escape altogether — I knew that would take a long time more before I could — but all of that intent, resolve, and energy to only walk a single step in this vast expanse of nothingness, I felt the nothingness shift. Ever so slightly, perhaps not even a full step, but I'd done it. If I could have cried, I would have.

After that came the utter exhaustion of having shifted the endless nothingness. It felt as if I even attempted to focus on something, I would likely lose myself completely. Not even looking within me at the name that I had given myself felt empty, though I could feel it regaining the sparks of that energy, even if it was at a slow rate.

The energy within me slowly came back with each step taken, with more and more energy expended each time. More of it came back, ever so slowly, and it increased to the point I could take multiple steps at a time.

It took a millennium or likely more of learning to move and to bend the energy within me for me to take a vaguely humanoid shape. The form still wavered every now and then, the bluish-white energy of what I've perceived to be my soul. When I had initially entered this form, I felt the sensory functions which I'd been lacking for so long finally return, and with that, I could finally see. Not for long, as the form itself was heavily draining, but what I saw made me utterly fascinated. I floated on the top of a massive ethereal tree, so far that my soul's senses couldn't see nor comprehend. Billions, trillions, an infinite number of branches sprouted more branches; the sight was enchanting.

"Soon, when I have enough energy to stay in that form for an indefinite amount of time, I'll try to enter one of the branches," I thought to myself. And as time kept moving on — energy, tiredness, more energy, more tiredness, in an endless cycle of exhausting myself again and again, time and time again — I had to resist the temptation to go down and explore just for a bit. My physical form kept getting more detailed; I almost looked like a human being again... well, that being if you really squinted, looked from far away, and ignored the fact that I was still made up of energy. I'd even gained the ability to form clothing! Er, of sorts. It was mostly thickening the energy around my 'torso' and 'legs,' forming a layer of protection.

After a long, long, long time — well, not that time held much value to me nowadays — I had done it. I felt that I could turn fully corporeal, as the energy within me increased, as did the flow at which it came back, the closer I felt to the feeling of a breakthrough approaching. I knew that it was time now to leave the nothingness, or well, it wasn't really nothingness, was it? It had been my inability to 'see' through the energy of my soul. I tried to think of a name for this realm. If my hypothesis of those branches being different universes, realities, timelines is true, then… I know, I smiled lightly. I'd call it the Intersection, the place from which all realities connected.

I closed off the soul's sight and dispersed the corporeal form, feeling the nothingness which once attempted to rob me of my identity. It tried, even now, though its attempts were in vain. I looked within and found the name that I had christened myself with. It glowed with a vast ocean full of energy, thrumming with excitement.

"I've won," was the last thought I had as I blanked out, similar to sleeping in a sense, though I was still conscious, waiting for the energy to come back for the last time. While I was still in this realm, I'd come back here, or well, attempt to. The sight of the Intersection filled me with excitement and a sense of adventure, thinking of the endless realities.