After eighteen thousand years of sleep, Pangu awoke. Finding himself trapped in darkness, he swung his axe — an axe that had been growing from the egg all along, iron-hard, ready — and split the cosmic egg.

The light parts rose to become heaven. The heavy parts sank to become earth. And Pangu stood between them, holding them apart, for another eighteen thousand years.

Each day, he grew ten feet taller. Each day, heaven rose a little higher. Each day, the earth sank a little deeper. And each day, Pangu stood.

When at last he lay down to die, his body became the world: his breath the wind, his voice the thunder, his left eye the sun, his right eye the moon, his blood the rivers, his flesh the soil, his bones the mountains, his teeth the metals buried in the earth.

Everything that exists, exists because Pangu gave it a piece of himself.

This is the first act of creation. Everything that follows is an echo of this one: a god dying so that something else can live.