The Lethe Anthology How do you wake fragments of slumbering gods?

To most, humanity is the only proven existence. The thought of intelligent life on other worlds is beautiful or terrifying depending on the individual, but a dream nonetheless. The idea of creatures other than humans or animals a thing of myth and folklore, told to frighten or intrigue or teach. Humanity is the only proven existence, earth the only proven ecosystem on macroscale. This is a truth until proven otherwise.   But what lurks beyond humanity's knowledge?   Forces of nature not yet known. Tides of the universe pulling and pushing in turn, creating and destroying. Beings so beyond the scope of the human mind that to know them would drive the viewer mad. Things akin to gods, yet more and less in the same turn. Things so powerful humanity is but a speck compared to them, yet with sentience so alien to fully understand them would be a fool's errand. Things beyond this plane, beyond this reality.   Cracks in the fragile glass of reality let them glimpse through into the world humanity inhabits, and the rare few humans peek back in turn. Most lose something in the process, but there are small number that gain something as trade.   Even rarer are the those who realize through this glimpse that they were never human at all.