Tales From Asgard

In the beginning, before there were mountainous ranges thrusting their spines into the clouds, before seas of sand breathed and shifted beneath endless desert storms, before the oceans learned the language of thunder and collapse, before fields of grass bent in quiet obedience to the wind, there was no Earth and no Heaven above. There was no firmament, no stars to count time, no sun to divide day from night.
Existence had not yet learned how to hold shape. There was only fire and ice. Múspellsheimr burned without restraint, a realm of living flame where heat was not warmth but appetite, where sparks carried the memory of destruction yet to come. Opposite it lay Niflheimr, vast and lightless, a kingdom of frost, mist, and creeping silence where cold was not absence but pressure, a suffocating stillness that erased motion and thought alike.
Between these two absolutes yawned Ginnungagap, the great void, a wound in nothingness stretching wider than measure, deeper than language. Ginnungagap was not empty. It was pregnant with unformed possibility. The heat from Múspellsheimr crept outward, the cold breath of Niflheimr pushed inward, and where fire met ice, the void began to sweat. Drops formed, heavy with contradiction, and from that slow, terrible convergence, motion emerged for the first time.
Not life as it would later be known, but something older, more brutal, born without intention or mercy. There were no gods watching this moment. No hands guided the collision. Creation did not begin with design or kindness but with pressure, imbalance, and inevitability. The universe did not open its eyes gently. It convulsed, shuddered, and screamed itself into being. From that scream, everything followed.