I like this. I can’t explain it well right now (just having woken up) but I like the whole one-sided-conversation-with-a-godlike being-and-turning-down-their-"gift’ thing you have going on here.
This reminds me just a bit of Iain Bank’s Culture series (if only because Excession was the most recent sci fi book I’ve read and they have a process of turning Sublimed there and how a species can become divided between staying and letting go)
J. Rein B.