The Universe of Essences

If you were to look at the lives of the average person on the Earth of this universe, you would find little different. Some landmasses and borders would look odd, but the everyday would be about what you might expect. Searching elsewhere in space would yield much the same--little to nothing different. The same physical laws governing everything.

Or at least, what you see as everything. In this reality, you may notice something strange if you observe in certain wavelengths of light: when a person dies, there is a brief flash, as though a door opens and only for a moment lets in a hint of sunlight. Then it vanished, leaving no warmth behind where it shone. The people living in that universe found it utterly baffling once they discovered it, and many saw it as proof of the divine.

They were right, in a way. That flash truly was a kind of opening, for when a person died in this universe, their soul was pulled upwards into a higher Realm--the one directly above what you would consider the "real world".

At initial glance, that higher Realm appeared maybe a bit odd, but nothing that glared against our own. There were forests, plains, deserts, mountains, and lakes; all with the kinds of plants and animals you might expect. But as one wandered through the paths and saw increasingly strange sights, it would become abundantly clear that something was very clearly off. Monsters and creatures beyond legend walked that land. Gods ruled.

Something else that would become clear is that it was not what anyone would consider heaven. Pain and cruelty was in that place in just as much a degree as our own, and sometimes more so. And death still happened.

Upon death, one's soul would ascend to the next, stranger Realm. There they would live another life, die again, ascend again, and so on until they died in the First Realm, the uppermost. To this point, the soul had retained all the memories of its past lives in the lower Realms, but upon its final death of the cycle, those memories were erased. The soul was then recycled back into the bottommost Realm--the Fifth. Where you began this journey. And so on unto infinity.

Those gods I mentioned earlier are the core of this reality. In their vessels, they hold their essences--the namesake for this universe. Each Realm can only hold beings below a certain level of power, which is why no magic exists in the Fifth Realm. Each Realm up can hold more and more powerful beings, until the First is reached, where live the five undying gods at the top of everything. I say undying because all other gods can die, and upon death, they too ascend just like you would.

This universe may end up being like another Universe of Gen where I provide lore freely over time, since I have no grand epics planned here. There are potential short stories I am turning over, though.