This most astonishing of tales begins when space and time were just a fleeting reverie within forgotten nothingness So what befell that divine serenity to give way to such fanciful and painfully elaborate chaos? We piece together this tale from the runes of a language still in its infancy You’d be forgiven to think this is the tale of reality itself Though hear the withering echo of the universe laughing at this archaic notion, in the primordial forces and primeval whispers that reverberate through the nethermost dominions of the universe The irony, that this is a tale nothing and no one really understands or believes Yet, by simply existing, everything and everyone affirms the absurdities it chronicles This tale Engraved on your genes Suspended in beams of light Interwoven in the very fabric of existence This is the tale of how it all came to be And how it will be This is a tale the universe has read To every young atom and every nascent galaxy To all of matter and all energy To all that is luminous and measurable and all that is dark and unknowable To all that has awoken to sentience and all that is still in slumber And to anyone and anything that has ever existed Or will exist This tale, written in ink dried painstakingly by each flap of the humble wings of the butterfly With no protagonist too insignificant, no antagonist too unformidable From infinitesimally small subatomic wonders that are uncontainable To unimaginable supermassive giants that are inescapable From the most wondrously brightest To the most disturbingly darkest And everything in between Behold if you can trust your senses, the only shared heritage of everything that has ever existed Or will exist But can you believe even the most trusted when they tell you That out of nothing comes all of space and time itself? Reality, you see, is far stranger than all fiction When out of nothing comes everything

A nascent eye opening in the realm of non-existence A time before time of low res indifference No space, no form, no dark, no light Stirrings of a flicker ready to ignite Before I can gasp at my inception in wonder The gates of reality forever cast asunder The flood of inflation is about to be unleashed And I’m the chosen rider of this untamed beast Is this reality or vivid simulation? Arrow of causation in the dark of correlation? No rhyme, no reason, an event so insane Nothing will ever be nothing again! Singularity, Planck Epoch, space-time has yet to exist 10(-43) seconds, Grand Unification, space-time, an orphan born 10(-36) seconds, Inflation, space expands by a factor of 10(+78) 10(-12) seconds, Quark Epoch, matter annihilates antimatter I grow faster than your swiftest perception There’s no escaping me in any direction My line of sight dwarfs the speed of light Singularity to hundred million miles without respite Ungodliest of records I am destined to break Trillion-trillionth of a second is all I will take A stature so colossal that none can defy All this before I’ve even opened my eye! Time is no longer a figment of abstraction Fundamental forces, hear the call to action Matter domination, gravity’s attraction Crush antimatter with punitive exaction! 10(-6) seconds, Hadron Epoch, protons and neutrons form One second, Lepton Epoch, gravity drives universe’s expansion Ten seconds, Photon Epoch, nuclear fusion creates elements Electrons dominate positrons to extinction A feat you’ll repeat with your kind with distinction One minute in, let there be light 20 minutes gone, matter brings the fight I am born, I am awake I am light, I am sight I ignite, I create I devour, annihilate On and on goes the show Restless tide ever flow Am I lost and alone before loss and isolation has yet to have meaning Or adrift in an expanse of infinite universes born of celestial dreaming The grand stage is set, my exalted foundation What wonders await, what trials, tribulations My limitless potential rousing inspiration Unbounded motivation will fuel my formation Galaxies transcending symphonic revelation Dark matter out-menacing demonic violation So when you forget that you’re just a tiny spot In a sea of countless rocks on a pale blue dot In the amaranthine ocean of infinity Remember... I am all and all is me! You will remember I am all and all is me!

Begin the reign of stars! We breached the perfect darkness We shattered the cursed noir Lit the cosmos faint blue Luminous, bizarre Ephemeral but eminent Our rule extends afar Vanguard of trailblazers That is who we are Earliest and farthest Great ancestor galaxy Quarter of an aeon renders Hubble’s and Webb’s fantasy High redshift is ascending the throne Won’t be long, you won’t remain unknown CEERS-93316! Defender of Polaris Usher above par Keeper of Great Ursa Herdsman of the Plough Lead us, noble Arcturus Brother of Izar Prince of constellations All hail the brightest star We tore the cloak of darkness We were stars before the stars Stars before the stars!

Gravitational collapse and dark matter’s acceleration Empty space and ordinary matter’s polarisation Hear the interstellar soundtrack of relic radiation Structure and form emerges on the deathwatch of recombination (In space and time) Mysterious behemoths that devour stars day and night Deep infinite chasms with no bottoms or bounds in sight Monstrous black hearts of galaxies, omens of eternal fright Illuminated by quasars, dual sabers of infinite light By the end of one aeon galaxies will start to merge Some will not escape the purge, cosmic renaissance on the verge The age of light will soon descend The black will bow and not transcend You won’t fear the dark again Until you reach the end Pillars of creation In the Eagle Nebula Essence of first element Cradle of new stars Five light-years wide What secret does it hide Only blood red eyes Can see the stars inside Stellar glow illuminates the pillars from above Feeding on the souls of newborn stars breathing their last Perhaps it's just a hologram of a champion of the past Vanquished by the might of a supernova’s blast Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Gone, erased, dead, undone A cautionary herald to the birth Of our patriarch the Sun A new age has begun

Ara! Cygnus! Monoceros! Serpens! Pegasus! Fornax! Circinus! Lupus! Orion! Corvus! Lyra! Perseus! Auriga! Draco! Musca! Pavo! Aquila! Delphinus! Lacerta! Cetus! Andromeda! Hydra! Vela! Ursa!

Stars, obey your orbits All galaxies, align! Dark Master wields the chains Cosmos, yield and fall in line! Matter hides in fear As light’s slaughtered at his shrine Blackened be his presence Long may chaos bear his sign Witness his veiled footprints trigger ripples in space-time Portraits of darkness that adorn the bright sublime Enforcer of the darkest rites Extinguisher of stellar lights Usurper of cosmic rights In mayhem he delights Cross his path Incur his wrath Watch him rip out your Milky Way’s heart! Watch him tear your Milky Way apart! Lord of cosmic entropy Your agony his ecstasy Obscurity shall always be His faceless lonely destiny These echoes you keep hearing Again, again, again These whispers from the dark They’re driving you insane You seek proof to vindicate Your senses in this madness But patterns in the afterglow Are just footsteps in the rain Your quest for understanding Has become your endless bane Your search has come to nothing You looked for him in vain Is he from this universe Or invader from afar A Trojan horse that tricked the dawn When it left the door ajar Or legions of black holes Manifest an avatar Or a remnant of light itself In a twist of fate bizarre Dark whispers Luminous echoes Do you really hear them? Do you trust your senses? (Do you really hear them?)

Born in the embers of nebular suicide The ninth aeon ordains a dynasty like none Forged for fifty million years in a dying blaze of rage Arise, chosen one! Envy of hundred billion jealous stars Who witness the splendour of your coronation Domus Solaris, Ave Novus Rex So begins the age of the House of the Sun Your first four birthed in a hundred thousand years Armoured sovereigns of the inner sphere Raised in the glow of an inferno severe Host to life, evolution, hopes and fears Your dream Eternal glory Forever holding The crown of Kuiper The belt of asteroids Invincible, the mighty Sun! The last four begotten in three million years Giant overlords of the outer sphere Fostered in the cold and bleak frontier Defenders of the realm, the tip of the spear But six aeons from now your glow is fast fading Specimen of vigour now a Red Giant ageing Blinded by the avarice for self-perpetuation You swallowed your progeny in hopeless desperation In ten aeons it crumbles, the house is all but lost A feeble White Dwarf now at mercy of the frost Marauding swarms of stars snatched your begotten Another dying star, a glory long forgotten Once the envy of a hundred billion stars Who now sing the dirge at your funeration Rex Mortuus Est, Vivat Rex So ends the age of the House of the Sun Nothing lasts forever, your chapter is over With all said and done, you’re just a loner You misestimated your flame will never die But time stops for no-one, it sure as hell will always fly!

Behold my majesty, creation I am your light, your salvation I override your abrogation Conform and acquiesce Save yourself from damnation Abomination! Unfathomed wisdom of a mighty high Condemned if I fail to comply Clip my wings when I attempt to fly I blink an eye, it's time to die Why? Why? Who’s running the show of our abjection Of misery, affliction, disaffection Echoes in vacuum, a lost connection Hurtling through space and time with no direction Infection! The sands of time are trickling, the gears of space are turning The hypnotizing flames of bright harmony burning But dark chaos is close by, lurking in their shadows You don’t trust what you see but you let faith be your gallows “It's all the fault of Satan”, your self-absolving game “This cannot be the end”, you deny the dying flame You’re on a one-way ride into extinction’s cold embrace At your final destination you vanish without trace It doesn’t matter, the why and how Lights, camera, action, here and now Stagnation a comfort to disavow You must evolve or take a bow Now! Now!

Galaxies collide in a final dance Nebulas enter one last trance Time runs out for the vast expanse Sealed your fate, don’t stand a chance Darkness unleashes an angst untold Light has lost to its foe of old The cosmos fades, it grows so cold We gather and watch the end unfold Here we stand at the edge of the abyss Matter decays to reach entropic bliss A life of googol years has come to this Fate has delivered its deadly kiss Black holes grow and consume the light The end of all, the inevitable rite Who will live to tell the tale Of this endless night As the glittering vastness fades beyond the horizon of cosmic vision And the last beams of light traverse what remains of the universe Prepare to stare into an all-consuming blackness The final remnants of existence helplessly witness As reality begins to disintegrate Dark energy has played the masterstroke The universe has no way back Darkness consumes all that is here The end is nigh, extinction is near The universe sheds one last tear All it held dear must disappear We fast approach the end of time The final moments of an end sublime The ink on the scroll has finally dried The last few verses of the final rhyme Dark energy ravaged the fabric of space Time ran out, we lost the race Give your loved ones one last embrace Before all perishes and leaves no trace Here once shone stars so bright They have long since faded from sight Who will live to tell the tale Of this endless night The final act, in stone it's set The cosmos vanishes and there’s no reset Existence was a reverie you best forget The universe bows out with no regret Perpetual darkness, narrowing light The end of everything, the final sight Who will live to tell the tale Of this endless night In a long cold winter, a brief ray of light Was it all coincidence or design of delight This universe, never was or ever will be such a sight Who will Iive to tell the tale of this endless night