From the gods.

Before the beginning, the universe ended, everything from before was gone removed from time and space forever.  All that remained were the gods.
Before the beginning, countless gods floated through a timeless spaceless void debating the inevitable course of action.
Before the beginning an infinite number of gods gave up their lives, becoming the purest magic. The last gods took this power and began.
In the beginning, the universe was crafted by the gods and from the gods.  The magic of creation was all but expended in this singularly momentous occasion. There was, however, a tiny spark of magic remained, the last remnant of the last god.  This spark was given to the first life, it gave that first life the needed edge to thrive.  When that life died it passed to a new life form, gaining power from the life that first creature had lived.  The spark moved from life to life, growing and guiding the lives it passed through.
Some Billions of years after the beginning, the spark found itself in the first intelligent life that the universe knew.  It moved among this intelligent species, from life to life growing in power.  By this time it was clear that the entity bearing the spark had great power, the force of the world bent to the spark-bearer's will.  This species continued to grow, guided and driven by the spark-bearer, who was always seen as a harbringer of progress and hope.  This species one day took to the stars and built a great empire, all under the banner of the spark-bearer.  The spark-bearer prevented countless cosmic events that could destroy life, and guided the expansion of civilization into the furthest corners of the universe.
2 Trillion years after the beginning the spark had grown to an alarming level of power, and had acquired consciousness of its own.  Scientists realized that if the current spark-bearer died, his life subsumed into the spark would cause it to reach critical mass.  The spark would annihilate the universe and craft from itself a new, 'better' reality.  There was a schism in the empire, many wished to devote the power of science to preventing the spark-bearer's death.  Others however, worshiping this spark of god-stuff  believed that this annihilation of reality was the ultimate progress, the last step into a promised utopia.

From here anything could happen.
I have made the world, a tiny seed.
But it could grow, into
A Fistful of Stories, and a Few Stories More.