“DADDY!”
I grimaced, not out of annoyance, but out of the bone-deep weariness that only a parent could understand. The scream was Elena’s, my six - six and three quarters, as she would correct - year old daughter’s and it was not the soft, plaintive whimper of a child who was likely to go back to sleep. It was the full-throated, desperate bellow that only a child could produce at 3:00 a.m. I started moving to get up before my brain had fully kicked in. I paused, taking a moment to wait to see if a second call would come, or if she would settle herself back to sleep.
I counted in my head—three, ten, sixty seconds. Silence. I whispered a thank you to whatever gods of parental depravation were listening. My body melted back into the mattress, muscles unclenching one by one. Just as sleep's gentle fingers brushed my consciousness, the air shattered again with a crystal-clear "DADDY!" bouncing off the hallway walls, somehow even more alert than before.
My eyes slowly opened, heavy with sleep. I blinked once, twice, three times before the dark shapes of our bedroom furniture came into focus. The mattress creaked as I pushed myself upright. My hand drifted to Cara's side of the bed, finding only cool sheets and the lingering scent of her shampoo. A fuzzy memory surfaced—the sound of her sighing, the rustle of blankets, and the soft pad of her footsteps when Elena's first cry had pierced the night an hour earlier.
I stretched, wincing as my spine crackled like bubble wrap being twisted. As I slowly began to move towards the door to our room I stopped in front of my dresser to thrown on a t-shirt. The dresser mirror didn't spare me any mercy in the dim light. My reflection stared back. My hair was shooting upward as if I'd stuck my finger in an electrical socket, it dark brown shifting to more salt than pepper these days. The hollows beneath my eyes reminding me that sleep was a thing reserved for people who did not have children, small businesses, or the wild notion of returning to grad school part-time. My beard, trimmed just yesterday, somehow resembled a small woodland creature that had weathered a storm. I sucked in my stomach instinctively, then let it out with a sigh. The climbing harness hanging out of my gym bag on the dresser seemed to mock me, though the tightness of my t-shirt across my shoulders reminded me I wasn't completely losing the battle against time. Elena was often food of describing me as “squishy but strong” - not an entirely inaccurate description.
I shuffled toward the bedroom door, toe-testing each step before committing my weight. I stepped over our dog, Ryut - she had recently decided that the ideal sleeping spot was directly across the doorway to our room. I reached down and scratched her head gently, not disturbing her in the slightest. I wasn’t the only one showing their age. At the ripe old age of 14 she was finally starting to slow down. Last week she'd slept through the Canada Post delivery guy pounding on our door, but yet still managed to sprint after tennis balls until I was the one begging to stop.
As I neared Elena’s room, I heard a soft sniffling. Not full-on sobbing, but the kind of suppressed whimpering that could escalate at any moment into another window-rattling shriek.
I knocked gently and nudged the door open.
Elena was a tiny volcano of a person, all sweetness and compassion until something triggered he sense of right and wrong, at which point she could erupt with a force that would cow the bravest of adults. Right now, she was curled up in a tangle of unicorn sheets and mismatched stuffed animals, only her wild halo of strawberry-blonde hair visible above the fortress of pillows. The room, a catastrophe of books, art projects, and inexplicable bits of string, was lit only by light spilling in from the nearby kitchen.
I tried to keep my voice gentle, knowing that volume and tone mattered more to her than whatever words I could chose. “Hey, love. What’s going on?”
Elena peeked out from under the blankets, her face a constellation of freckles and confusion. She had my piercing steel blue eyes, though they always seemed a little too sharp for her own good - something she got from her mother. “I had a bad dream,” she whispered, as if saying it again might bring it back.
“Another one?”
She nodded, and her bottom lip began to quiver, the way it always did right before she would either burst into tears or demand an in-depth theoretical breakdown of the metaphysics of nightmares.
“Wasn’t Mom in here with you?” I asked, the hopefulness in my tone a little too obvious.
“She was but then she was just gone!” Elena’s voice rose in volume, the panic returning with the memory. “I woke up and she wasn’t here and it was dark and then the bad thing from my dream was here and then you weren’t here—”
I reached out, stroking her hair, feeling her tense muscles gradually soften with each pass of my hand. “It’s okay, love,” I said. “I’m sure Mom just went to the bathroom. She’s not gone. No one’s gone. And I’m here now.”
Elena’s breathing slowed, but her eyes flicked to the corner of the room where the shadows seemed deepest. “Can you check over there?” she whispered.
I walked to the corner, turning on the tiny LED nightlight on her desk. The shadows receded, revealing only a basket of unfolded laundry and the head of a stuffed owl peeking out. I put on a performance of bravely poking the laundry based with my toe, eyeing it with weary suspicion.
“No monsters,” I declared. “Just dirty socks and a very judgmental owl.”
Elena giggled, but the sound was almost instantly followed by a huge yawn, as if her body had just realized she was safe and decided to power down immediately. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her pajamas and made a show of tucking her stuffy Baby under the covers, then patted the comforter beside her.
“Can you snuggle me for ten minutes?” she asked in her practiced, pleading tone.
I knew this game. Ten minutes would become twenty, then an hour, and I’d wake up at four a.m. with my shoulder completely numb. I also knew there was no universe in which I would say no.
I lay down on my side, tucking my arm beneath her pillow as she’d requested. Elena immediately flopped her head onto my bicep, let out a contented sigh. She closed her eyes, and I lay there , letting my mind wander, just a little, to the long list of things I’d have to handle in the morning: paperwork, a client in crisis, the mounting pile of laundry, homework, the never-ending struggle to balance being a good dad with being a functioning adult.
I listened to the rhythm of her breathing, slow and deep and regular, the sound so hypnotic that I barely noticed my own thoughts getting fuzzing at the edges. The world shrank: the ticking of the ancient wall clock in the living room, the slow exhalation of the furnace, the distant, contented snoring of Ryut—all faded under the rhythmic sound of her breathing.
Just ten minutes, I promised myself. Long enough to make sure she was truly asleep, then I'd execute the delicate extraction maneuver all parents master—that slow-motion escape where every muscle movement is calculated to avoid disturbing the mattress. Then back to my own bed. My eyelids grew heavy as I planned this perfect retreat, and then... nothing. Consciousness slipped away before I could even attempt my escape.
———
My eyelids fluttered open to golden rays streaming across Elena's bedroom floor—rays that shouldn't exist. The blackout curtains I'd installed last summer, the ones that had cost nearly two hundred dollars and required a Saturday's worth of cursing and ladder-balancing, were somehow letting in a sunrise that painted the room amber.
Sleep evaporated as reality dissolved. Cobalt flames erupted around me, crackling with obsidian lightning that forked and twisted like living calligraphy. My consciousness fractured, each shard witnessing a different universe—desert planets with three moons, oceans teeming with bioluminescent leviathans, cities built from crystal and thought. Through it all, I could still feel Elena's sheets beneath me, the weight of her small body against my arm. I drifted upward, beyond the atmosphere, watching Earth from an impossible distance. Our blue marble cracked like an egg, its continents peeling away as that sapphire inferno consumed everything—stars winking out, galaxies collapsing, the fabric of existence unraveling at the seams.
From the periphery of my vision, beings of impossible geometry emerged, their forms folding through dimensions I couldn't comprehend. They moved like origami unfolding in reverse, their silhouettes bleeding prismatic light. Before them, the cosmic wildfire parted like curtains. My mind began to shut down, unable to process the scale of what I was witnessing. The last thing I perceived was a tsunami of pure white radiance washing over me, scrubbing away thought, memory, and self.
—
My consciousness snapped back like a rubber band. That dream... what the hell was that? I tried to blink away the fog, but my eyelids refused to cooperate. Instead of darkness, I found myself suspended in a sea of light—not the harsh fluorescent glare of hospital corridors, but something gentler, like morning sunlight filtering through curtains on the first day of fall. Then, hovering in this luminous nothing, words began to materialize.
System Initializing…
Welcome Cain Alighieri. On behalf of the system, we would like to welcome you to the 125th multiversal integration. We understand that this may be disorienting for you, but please stand by as we begin your integration.
What. The. Frack. My thoughts froze, then raced. Years of devouring litRPG novels between Elena's bedtime and my own collapse into exhaustion suddenly paid off in the worst way possible. Some tiny, buried part of me—the part that still remembered character sheets and saving throws—recognized this scenario immediately and was practically vibrating with excitement. Meanwhile, the rational adult who paid mortgages and attended parent-teacher conferences was desperately trying to process that I might be having a complete psychological breakdown.
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We assure you that your sanity and mind remain intact. No we are not reading your thoughts. 98.62% of all sentient beings undergoing integration question their sanity within the first 30 seconds. You’re also not dreaming either. Welcome to the new world, we look forward to seeing what you make of it.
Was this actually possible? For some odd reason I felt increasingly calm about this. I should be panicking shouldn’t I? I knew what sensations should be flooding my body right now but found them faint or absent. My mind quickly adapting to a state of acceptance to my current circumstances. There was no way that was normal right? Shouldn’t I be more bothered by this?
You currently exist as a being of pure thought, largely removed and better able to distance yourself from your base emotional responses. We assure you that your normal state of being will be restored once your physical form is integrated.
"Huh." The word formed without my mouth, existing only as pure thought. I reached for sensations that weren't there—the tightness in my throat, the hammering heart, the cold sweat that should accompany this level of disorientation. Instead, I found only the memory of these reactions, like phantom limbs after amputation. My consciousness recognized what my body should be doing, but there was no body to do it. The panic existed only as concept, not experience. Then a realization cut through this detached state: if the system claimed not to read my thoughts, how had it responded to a question I'd never spoken aloud?
You thought it out loud.
….
Analyzing system records.
Physiology assessed.
Species determined.
Starting stats determined.
Skills analyzed and assigned. Overlapping skills combined.
Traits and abilities quantified and adjusted for G Grade Human.
[Progenitor’s Boon] detected. Adjusting accordingly.
…
[Parental Bond] available.
You are the nearest blood relation to a child below ascension age. Forming this bond will bring Elena into the tutorial alongside you and unlock additional advantages. Warning: This does not ensure either of your survival.
Should you decline, [Elena Alighieri] will enter stasis. Upon your universe's integration, she will emerge at random with approximately 45.678% of Earth's population. Her wellbeing will depend entirely on world conditions and her emergence location.
Do you chose to form [Parental Bond] with [Elena Alighieri]? Y/N
The prompts blurred as I read them again and again. Even with my emotions dialed down to a whisper, thoughts ricocheted through my consciousness like pinballs. I tried the old mindfulness trick—acknowledge, release—and watched them float away with surprising ease. Whatever this reality was, I'd play along. If this was a psychotic break, I'd at least enjoy the ride until the hospital staff found the right medication cocktail.
Integration could mean anything—blood in the streets, a lawless free-for-all that no six-year-old should witness. Keeping her in stasis might shield her while I carved out some security in whatever brave new world awaited.
But the randomness of her eventual emergence haunted me. I pictured her tiny form materializing in a wasteland, or worse, surrounded by predators of the human variety. The math was simple: uncertain danger with me versus certain danger without me. My finger hovered over the "Y" for only a heartbeat before the prompt dissolved, replaced by new text.
Bond formation accepted. [Elena Alighieri]’s consent obtained.
Elena was here too? I pictured her tiny face illuminated by text she could barely sound out, her first-grade reading skills completely inadequate for whatever cosmic contract she'd just agreed to. What kind of system required consent from a six-year-old? The image of her floating alone in that white void made my non-existent heart race—my daughter, confused and frightened, with no one to explain the big words or hold her hand.
Something like a mental exhale rippled through my consciousness. A calmer part of me surfaced: We'll be together soon. The system promised that. Freaking out would solve nothing. Just get through this part, then find her. Focus on what you can control - my reaction I told myself.
Due to [Progenitor’s Boon] you may select up to four aspects of your bond. Each aspect will help shape what benefits both you and your bonded acquire. Please select from the following:
Adaptive
All-Consuming
Anchoring
Ascendant
Attuned
Binding
Boundless
Catalytic
Chained
Compassionate
Corrupting
Devoted
Dominating…
On and on the list went. There had to be at least 50 options to choose from. I tried to ask for descriptions of each item, but the system did not seem inclined to provide one. I continued to scroll through the list looking for anything that spoke to me.
…Love
Nurturing
Overbearing
Parasitic
Protection
Relentless
Resonant
Rooted
Sacred
Sacrifice
Sacrosanct
Safety
Sheltering
Shifting
Smothering
Symbiotic…
Some of these options made my skin crawl. Parasitic? Corrupting? Smothering? What kind of parent would choose those words to define their relationship with their child? The System seemed determined to offer every possibility, no matter how twisted.
I stared at the floating list, overwhelmed. What did I want for Elena and me? Not just now, but for years to come? I ran my finger down the options, pausing when something resonated. Four words kept drawing me back: love, growth, protection, sacrifice. They felt right—they felt like us.
Aspects obtained. Awaiting [Elena Alighieri]’s choices…
Choices obtained. [Elena Alighieri] has chosen the aspects of compassion and safety.
Of course she did I though. Elena was a very emotionally intelligent child and I wasn’t surprised at all she’d focus on those above other choices.
Bond Formation initialized…
Bond Formation complete!
[Parental Bond] trait acquired.
—
Parental Bond (uncommon)
Both you and your daughter have voluntarily consented to the formation of a parental bond. This type of bond permits the sharing of experience (up to 20%) from the parent to the child. All soulbound items will be transferred to any surviving participant should one of you die. In addition, a percentage of your stats, traits, abilities and all system credits will be transferred to [Elena Alighieri] upon your death.
Due to the aspects you have chosen you will receive the following benefits as well:
-
You gain the ability to share a higher degree of your experience with your daughter. Up to 80% of your experience may now be allocated to be distributed to her.
-
Sharing of experience beyond the level cap of 25 for pre-ascension individuals will result in them gaining additional skills, traits or abilities
-
Your bond and any abilities or traits obtained from it will continue to grow and evolve based on the experiences you share with her, both positive and negative
-
The more experience you allocate to your child, the higher chance you have of increased rewards
-
You gain the ability [Eternal Sacrifice] which allows you to sacrifice your life for hers, regardless of the cause of death. This death will be final and resurrection will not be possible by any means.
-
You gain the ability [Father’s Protection] which allows you to cover your child in a protective shield that negates and redirects damage to you in equal measure. Should you sustain a fatal amount of damage as a result of this [Eternal Sacrifice] will be triggered automatically with the addition that your child will be invulnerable to all damage for 24 hours
-
You gain the ability [Blood to Blood] which allows you to heal your child by directly transferring your own health to replace theirs. This transfer occurs at a 2:1 ratio
-
You gain the trait [Compassionate Aura] which significantly increases feelings of safety, security and love your child feels when in your presence. Grants a minor bonus to your child’s Resilience and Wisdom stats based upon your own when they are with you
-
You gain the trait [Empathic Bond] which grants a two way awareness of each other's emotional states regardless of distance. Please be advised that either member may choose to hide their emotions at any point.
-
You gain the trait [Father’s Guidance] which grants a bonus to experience and skill improvement rate when your child is taught by you
This bond will dissolve when [Elena Alighieri] reaches the age of ascension as determined by the system.
—
Thank you for your patience. Your System Guide will be with your shortly.
Welcome to your new reality. We look forward to seeing what you make of it.
Suddenly everything went dark.
—————
Do you know what’s even worse than waking up to find yourself completely devoid of all sensation? Waking up to have all of those senses turned back on again all at once. Imagine the worst hangover of your life combined with the most intense high you’ve ever felt. Then multiply it by a thousand. That's what it felt like when my senses crashed back online. My nerves sparked to life like the Northern Lights dancing across a clear winter sky, my brain chemistry doing somersaults that would make an Olympic gymnast jealous. The sensation wasn't exactly painful—more like being simultaneously electrocuted and baptized, my entire being rewritten in cosmic fire. In hindsight, I was probably high as a kite.
I squeezed my eyes shut, riding the wave until it ebbed. When I finally dared to look, the world stopped spinning. There she was—that unmistakable coppery flame-red hair framing the face I'd memorized from her first breath. Elena's eyes, blue as gunmetal, locked with mine, and her smile could have powered a small city. Relief hit me like a physical force, nearly buckling my knees.
"DAD!" The sound of her voice sent me staggering backward as she launched herself at me. I caught her, clutching her small body against my chest, feeling her heart beat against mine. Only when her tears dampened my shirt did I realize I was crying too, my muscles finally unclenching from a tension I hadn't known I was carrying.
"You're okay," I whispered into her hair. "You're really okay."
"What happened? Where's Mom? Where are Ryut and Nora?" The questions tumbled out of her. "I was asleep and then everything was on fire. Then this voice started talking about integration and bonds and—Dad, what's happening?" Her voice cracked, panic flashing across her face.
"I'm still figuring it out, sweetheart," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I don't know where Mom or the others are. Did you hear actual voices? I just saw floating text, like a video game interface."
“Actually you weren’t seeing or hearing anything” a gravelly smooth voices said behind us. I put Elena down and put my body between her and the source of the voice. Before me stood a tall male with rich, deep brown skin. His hair was short, dark with hints of grey showing and he sported a well-groomed beard. He had a chiseled jawline with high cheekbones and wrinkles giving me the impression he was in his early 60s. He had dark and captivating eyes, that appeared to contain swirling stars within them. His face had a warm and genuine smile on it, and his body language gave off a sense of authority and confidence. He was wearing a white dress shirt with a dark grey vest and matching dress pants. His sleeves were cuffed and rolled up to just below his elbows. Overall he gave off "kindly professor grandfather" vibes.
“The system streams data straight into your brain, tweaking its presentation so it’s instantly understandable and relatable to you. Over time, as you integrate more deeply, that presentation will evolve,” he said, apparently unfazed by our stunned silence.
We both just stared. The quiet stretched on until Elena peeked out from behind me and snapped, “Who are you? Did you kidnap us? What is happening here?!” Her glare could have cut steel. I fought back a grin—her tenacity was impressive. Good girl, I thought.
He remained calm. “I am the Architect. The system is responsible for bringing you here, not me. I serve as its guide, helping you and the others from your universe enter into it.”
With a casual flick of his wrist, our galaxy materialized in the air between us—a spiraling disc of light and dust. Before I could process what I was seeing, the view pulled back, revealing thousands upon thousands of galaxies scattered like luminous seeds across the void. My mind reeled, unable to grasp the sheer scale of what I was witnessing—distances so vast that light itself would grow old traversing them.
“The universe you inhabit was chosen for integration long ago,” he began. “It was in a state of irreversible decline. All projections pointed to the extinction of life—and ultimately the death of your universe itself—within a few million years. For hundreds of thousands of years, the system quietly prepared your realm and its inhabitants for this transition. But that process was disrupted, forcing us to accelerate integration.”
He waved his hand again, and the image of the storm of fire and lightning I’d seen before sprang to life again. Elena gasped in recognition.
“Under normal circumstances, integration would have been gradual,” he explained. “But your world was struck by the Great Storm, a phenomenon that shatters the membrane separating a universe from the void, unleashing chaos. Because of that, we had to speed up the timetable. Right now, your universe is in the final integration phase, with far less preparation than usual. Every human—and indeed every living creature—is being assimilated or held in stasis for release at the optimal moment.”
I frowned. “So the Great Storm didn’t trigger our integration?”
“No. It simply compressed the schedule. The Great Storm is a natural force that drifts across the void, wreaking havoc in its path. Its movements are unpredictable—it can vanish for millennia, then reappear without warning.”
I swallowed hard. “That means this all began long before human civilization…”
He nodded. “Exactly. Contrary to most of your planet’s myths, humanity was not a decisive factor in your universe’s fate. You would have been little more than a footnote before its collapse. I know realizing your insignificance on a cosmic scale can be devastating.” His expression was gentle, like a parent admitting that Santa Claus isn’t real.
He pressed on. “But this is reality. Without guidance, few species—or individuals—can shape the universe on such a scale. That’s the system’s purpose: to empower you to reach your highest potential, to give you genuine influence over the cosmos in ways you never imagined. It exists to help you achieve excellence.”
Elena’s voice trembled as she whispered, “What about our home… my school… my friends?”
“Your world will be expanded and merged with remnants of other universes,” he replied softly. “What you knew is gone, replaced by something entirely new—something that offers you a path forward and the chance to attain what would otherwise have been impossible.”
Before he could say more, Elena broke down into sobs.