The pale vapour had been gathering for some time.

Uranus followed its movement with his eyes. Some folds rose swiftly; others sank and curled beneath them. Whenever he thought he had found a shape, it changed.

“Look at that one.”

Eros stretched upward beside him.

Gaia remained near a small formation of matter. She had noticed a strange feeling around it, something like a pull that had nowhere to go.

Erebus grew still.

Then light branched through the vapour.

For an instant, the four could see almost nothing else.

The sound came afterward, rolling through the space around them.

Erebus folded inward, his indigo layers drawing close. Uranus dropped back. Gaia covered her ears. Eros reached toward the nearest hand.

For a while, none of them spoke.

Then Uranus looked up.

“Did you see how far it reached?”

“I saw too much,” Erebus murmured.

Eros crouched beside him.

“It was beautiful, though.”

Erebus drew his layers closer.

Gaia was watching the formation beside her. A narrow crack now divided its surface.

“Something broke.”

Uranus thought the light had escaped from the moving vapour. Eros wondered whether distant things had tried to reach one another.

Erebus spoke without unfolding.

“Something was becoming too much.”

“What something?” Uranus asked.

“I don’t know.”

They waited, listening to the movement around them.

At last Gaia looked away from the crack.

“What was happening before the light came?”

They tried to remember. They had been watching different things.

And so, when the vapour began gathering again, they watched more carefully.

Uranus followed the rising folds. Gaia stayed near the denser matter. Eros looked between places that seemed far apart.

Erebus watched from a greater distance.

“There,” Uranus said, pointing upward. “It is getting brighter.”

“It began before that,” Erebus answered.

“What did?”

Erebus searched for words.

“The feeling that things were pulling differently.”

They could not all sense it as he did. But they remembered what he said.

The next flash travelled within the vapour. It never touched Gaia’s little formation.

Afterward, she noticed that the pull around one nearby place had weakened.

“Something let go.”

The movement continued. Soon another flash followed.

“Then it isn’t finished,” Eros said.

Perhaps, they thought, they had seen only one small part of what was happening.

Many gatherings of vapour passed.

Sometimes the light crossed between folds. Sometimes it reached denser matter. Sometimes the vapour churned and darkened, yet no flash came at all.

They began calling the branching light lightning, and the rolling sound thunder. Naming them made it easier to speak about what they noticed. It did not yet explain them.

Uranus began counting the movements between flashes.

After several observations, he raised a finger.

“Now.”

They waited.

The vapour moved. A pale fold loosened and drifted away.

Nothing happened.

Uranus lowered his hand.

“Perhaps I counted too quickly.”

Later, while they were looking elsewhere, lightning flashed again.

All four startled.

Eros let out a small, surprised laugh. Uranus stared at the place where the light had vanished.

“It didn’t wait for my answer.”

Erebus slowly uncovered his face.

“Perhaps we have been counting the waiting,” he said, “when we need to watch what changes.”

They thought about this for a long time.

Eventually, Uranus asked the others to show him what they had been following.

This was harder than counting. Gaia could describe a change he could not feel. Erebus noticed a tension before Uranus saw anything unusual. Eros followed the brief paths between places, but often lost them in the brightness.

They chose a place farther from the churning vapour. From there, their small divine forms could watch without following the lightning’s path.

This time, they told one another what they noticed as it happened.

“The movement is changing,” Uranus said.

“The pull is stronger here,” Gaia answered.

Erebus drew inward.

Eros began reaching for him, then paused.

“Would you like me beside you?”

Erebus nodded.

Eros sat down. He left enough room for Erebus to unfold when he wished.

When the flash came, they both flinched.

Afterward, Erebus was the first to speak.

“That part feels different now.”

They continued watching.

Gradually, a pattern became clearer. Movement gathered things and carried them apart. Differences grew between places. Then, suddenly, a path opened through which energy could pass.

The lightning changed the arrangement. The surrounding movement continued, beginning new changes in turn.

The intervals varied. Some gatherings ended quietly. Others held several flashes. They could recognize more of the process without knowing exactly when the light would arrive.

One day, a strike split another dense formation.

Gaia turned toward it, distressed.

“It has happened again.”

The others stayed with her. Their growing understanding could not put the broken pieces back.

Later, she examined a fragment from the struck surface. When moisture reached it, its edges loosened in a way they had not before.

She called Eros over.

He watched the altered matter mingle with the moisture.

“I thought it only pulled things apart.”

Gaia turned the fragment gently.

“It changed what they could become together.”

They did not know what might someday arise from that change. They left the fragment where they could return to it.

Across many observations, the four began to glimpse a rhythm within their young universe. Its balance needed movement: gathering, separation, passage, and new arrangements.

Lightning belonged to that rhythm. Where electrical differences had grown strong enough, it could open a sudden passage, redistributing energy and transforming matter along its way.

The frightening flash was a brief, visible moment in a much longer process.

Yet Gaia still watched the damaged places. Uranus still found details their explanation did not account for. Erebus still disliked the brightness. Eros still wished the discoveries could arrive more gently.

They had more to learn.

When the vapour gathered again, Erebus sensed the changing tension.

His layers drew inward.

“It is gathering again,” he said.

The others listened.

Uranus returned to their observation place. Gaia set down the fragment she had been examining. Eros waited while Erebus chose where to sit.

They could not predict the exact moment.

When lightning came, Erebus flinched.

Eros flinched too.

After the thunder faded, Erebus looked toward the shifting vapour.

“I still don’t like how it arrives.”

“I know,” Eros said.

Erebus watched a little longer.

“But I want to see what happens next.”

They had begun by watching a flash. Now they were watching a world change before it, and continue after it.