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Knowing was always… present. A lot of things had been learned, seen, heard… felt. Over and over and over, almost endless now. They stopped counting the loops a long time ago.
They’d been everywhere they could go. Figured out everything there was to figure out. They’d spent… a really long time translating. Not just the Nomai texts, but the Stranger’s texts as well. They knew it now. Could read it scrawled on old wood. Carved into the rocks of that dark, dark ship.
They’d went to each of the Ventures Member’s more times than they could count. They sat with Chert as the Universe died. Held their hand, hummed the tune, hugged them tight, over and over and over again.
They’d stayed with Esker on the Attlerock more than once. Just sitting there in the dust and rocks, listening to them whistle that song. Listened to them talk. Just giving them the company they’d been wanting again, not leaving until they were forced to wake up once more.
They’d settled down on Brittle Hollow with Riebeck, convincing them loop after loop to watch their probe. Trust that the black hole was safe. Trust in the technology that they’d been set up with. They could fire that probe into the black hole as many times as they want. Fall in as many times as it took. They’d always end up back here. They’d have time to visit that city. To see it for themselves. To know the fear they held couldn’t stop them from their dreams.
They’d went through the hell that was Dark Bramble over and over again just to sit and talk with Feldspar. Tell them how home was doing. How the others still hoped they were out here. How some had always held out hope that they were alive, and just how right all of them turned out to be. More than once did the hatchling tell the others back home that they were out there, and alive, and there were okay, and maybe one day… they would come home.
And then there was Gabbro. The only one besides themselves that could remember. They were aware. Every loop. Every meditation. Every restart. Every guilty action, consequence, trouble, painful moment, story, and happy memory. All of it was shared with them. So… it was easy for them to tell that something was changing with the youngest.
They were… different. Off.
A sideways glance. A look that was left just a little to long. Silence that stretched more than it should. Ears that hung just a bit lower than before. Maybe a tremble that started becoming a bit too noticeable. They’d asked the child about it once, but it wasn’t answered until several cycles later.
“I know what I have to do…”
It was… vague… to say the least. The Hatchling was never vague with them, but… they didn’t need to be specific this time. It was easy to understand what they’d met. They didn’t press the topic. They didn’t need to. They didn’t know how long the Hatchling had known how to stop all this, but again, they didn’t need to. It’d been noticeable for a while.
By the looks of things… by the sounds of things… it wasn’t something anyone but the kid would ever get to see. Maybe that was okay though. Maybe this time… that would be fine.
It took several more cycles before the Hatchling showed up again, and they’d changed again. They weren’t just scared… they were terrified. Something was wrong, but… they didn’t say anything about it. They seemed to be in a hurry, and now… well… it was easy to tell just how big this moment was.
They didn’t need to say this would be the last time. The last loop. Gabbro just… knew.
The hug lasted a lot longer than normal. The separation was forced, like they had to get moving. Of course, they were on a time limit.
“Whatever happens…” Gabbro started, watching them halt, back facing them as they’d made to walk away. ”… everything… I think… everything, in the end, is gonna be fine. You’ll figure it out. Remember us, yeah?”
They watched the Hatchling nod, their shoulders shaking. Helmet looking up to the cloaked sky. The child took a deep breath, and then took off running. They watched the ship leave the cloud cover before settling back down, lounging into their hammock with a heavy sigh.
No matter what happened to them… the Hatchling was doing what needed to be done. It went without saying that they would die. All of them. There was no denying that. No stopping that. Whatever they needed to do after… would be something new. It would be okay…
This was different. This wasn’t something they’d done before. Of course, they’d held the core once. They knew what it was. They’d placed it back before anything had happened, but now… that wasn’t an option. It started the moment the core left the socket. The moment the metal and tech was touched, held. Every groove was felt with extreme precision. The weight settling in their arms and mind with overwhelming dread, and fear-laced adrenaline.
They’re hands in the suit felt cold and clammy. Their heart in their throat as they took the only thing keeping the entire Universe from ending, and sat it on the floor of their ship, leaving it out of fear of touching it wrong, or dropping it and breaking the thing.
The controls they’d used so much, so often, that they’d practically becoming one with, caused them to fumble. They needed to go faster. They needed to slow down. They almost crashed into one of the large roots of Dark Bramble.
Their head was pounding.
They’d flown this path before. Over and over. Practicing. Knowing they would have to make this path at some point with the most important thing in the universe sitting on the floor at the back of the ship. As they drifted past the Anglerfish, the dread that’d settled ‘just so’ in their stomach was starting to make them sick.
How long had it been? Did they have enough time? Would the creatures startle? Would it even work at all? What would happen when they put in the location? Would the ship move? Would it teleport? Would it explode?
It was almost to soon that the ship had come into view. It also took much longer than they would have liked, and now… it was all or nothing.
They stood, almost tripping over themselves as they scrambled for the core, lifting it and cradling it like an infant. They dropped, floating as fast and as safe as they could, spinning, flying into the ship upside down and correcting themselves right before placing in the new core.
For the first time in… a long time, they were surprised. Taken off guard as the gravity kicked in. Lights flashing on, they almost tripped over the groves in the floor. At least it was easier to put in the coordinates now.
It was by heart, those symbols. Like the back of their hand, and for a moment, their blood chilled as their mind drew a blank. They moved the orb anyway, guided by nothing but adrenaline. A gasp of relief echoed around the room as the symbols came back to mind as they were made.
The marks were drawn. The orb was moved. The cords locked. And reality warped.
When they came too… it was dark. The lights had dimmed, and the greenish fog outside the glass had gone. Instead, it’d been replaced by the void of empty, almost dead, space. It’s… not as quiet as they thought it would be. Pushing themselves up, they raced to the viewing window, almost falling over themselves before their hands fell on glass with a hollow thud. They gazed out, their sun, their star, right there. Still there. Nothing to do. No amount of power could stop this from happening, but still, they held their breath.
It was going to happen. They knew it would, but there was this small part of them, some tiny, childish sliver that hoped it wouldn’t despite nothing changing to stop it.
They waited. And waited. Watching. hoping. Knowing but wanting it to not be true.
It didn’t take much longer before it was over…
They watched. The star, gone. Hauntingly, it was beautiful. Painful. They knelt, O2 slowly draining, and began to cry. It was… so… so quiet. Although… nothing had made a noise since coming here. The death of everything they’d known and come to find out was gone… and it was done in silence. That theme, once bright and beautiful, gone. Never to be heard again. No more whistling. No more light taps. No more campfires, or marshmallows, or laughter. It was all gone, and now… everything happening had never happened before. Completely unknown.
They hadn’t gone through this. They had Gabbro before, at least, but now…
Why? Why them? Why did it have to be them? Why did that statue have to activate? Why did the Universe decide that now was the time for it to all happen? For everything to collapse? They were just one Hearthian. One Hatchling, hardly ready for their legs when that star exploded for the first time.
If not them… then someone else. That was obvious, but… that wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Why did the simple want to live have to be so unfair?
“Remember your breathing.”
They gasped in, the haze over their mind clearing just long enough to take in that precious air they needed. Hand over their heart, they sat there, gasping, crying, terrified out of their mind as Gabbro’s old words came back to them.
But… now what?
By the time they could bear to pull themselves up, most of every star in the endless void was gone. A small cluster of them still far above. And below, well… it was hard to ignore the large, swirling, deathly, purple storm.
The quantum moon was here too. Something… that they were grateful for, actually. Something familiar was here, at least. That meant that Solanum was here too… even if they couldn’t see it for themselves.
The signal blocker was also visible, at least that’s what they assumed it was. It looked really similar to the drawings and memory depictions.
They had to move. They had to go. The dwindling Oxygen was… well… really not good. There weren’t any trees here that they could see, and the only way out was to fiddle with the controls, so… they sniffed, sucking in a breath and pushing themselves to move the orb. Maybe behind the panel this time.
The warping of the blackhole wasn’t a surprise, but the completely unknown of where this thing would place them was far worse than the idea of staying here. Yet… they had to move. They had to see this through. Everyone was… gone. The Ash Twin Project was completely destroyed. They had to keep going. There were no more choices. No more tries. No more mistakes. No more attempts. This was how it all ended, and this was how it was going to go. They had to make sure, beyond anything else, that this wasn’t for nothing.
So they stepped in, ended up on what they could only possibly assume was the outer layers of the Eye, and pressed on. Lightning flashed, clouds twirled, wind from nowhere and static from above buffeted them as they walked closer and closer to the pole. It wasn’t long before the sky opened up into a swirling, never-ending vortex of… something…
Was that… where they needed to go? It went up… but… there was nothing else to do. Quantum trees flickering in and out had solved the Oxygen problem, but they weren’t some kind of god. They would starve out here if they didn’t keep going, and there was nothing to flee back to. It was this… or nothing. Just to be safe, they fired their probe into the swirling mass, and almost laughed in disbelief as it was just… gone. No recall. For the first time. Possibly the most important moment in all of creation… and they were doing this completely blind…
There was no use waiting around anymore. They… could do this. They would figure it out. They would fix this. They would make this all worth it. Deep breaths.
In… Out… In… Out… Down.
They walked off the edge, falling up, up, up into the cyclone of clouds. Falling through thick, swirling masses of fog, pressure building, building, building, the size of quantum space opening up before them, expanding farther, farther, farther. Hands gripped the sides of their helmet, their head full but getting ever fuller. Becoming witness to the scale of infinity, they forced their eyes down. A thick layer of purple fog covered below. Closer. Closer. Was this it? Would they actually die here? After everything? It was so loud! Closer. Even closer now. Closer to that layer with eyes shut tight and ears ringing and—
Quiet…
Feet… planted on hardwood floor. Quiet. So… so quiet. They stood there, breathing, just… trying to calm themselves. Eye’s closed, they fell to their knees and waited. Waited for their heart to stop echoing in their ears, for the ringing in their head to go away. Slowly, once it’d died down, they opened their eyes and…
It’s the Observatory? Why was it… here? It COULDN’T be here. That was impossible…
Was their mind… messing with them? Was the eye… only able to show them what they could understand? What they could see? Or… have seen?
Eyes shifting, resting on the nearest photo and reading it without thought. It was a kick in the gut when it became obvious that it read different. That it was now… acknowledging what had happened.
Shakily, they stood, gazing around and slowly working up the courage to read the other exhibits.
Everything was different, but… not in a bad way. The photo alone just… they wanted to keep it with them, but… they couldn’t possibly take it.
It didn’t take long before they went up the stairs, boots heavy against the floorboards and face suddenly lit white from the tiny galaxy in the middle of the room.
It was… so easy to get lost in it, and for a moment they let themselves do just that. Everything around them fading into nothing as the stars before them… died. Dusted to nothing. Had… had that been… their Galaxy?
They almost startled when they felt the zero gravity take over, awed at the sudden specks of white light throughout this… forest. Timber Heath’s forests…
None of this… was real. None of it. It… it had to be some kind of trick. Not like magic, but… something for them to process. Something for them to understand. Seeing it in a way that only they could, and in a way that only they could understand.
By the time the ground lay under their boots, the wonderful white specks had started fading into a bright blue, before fizzling out completely.
The forests seemed much more… hostile now. The sound of breathing didn’t make it any… wait…
Breathing?
They walked forwards, boots kicking up dust and dirt from the ground below their feet. Seeing themselves advance from the darkness before them though? That was… well… that was a shock, to put it lightly. For just a moment their pulse ramped up to eleven, halting in their throat before everything blinked out, and quantum objects began taking their place.
By the time that Esker appeared in the rocking chair though… they didn’t care if it was or wasn’t real. They spoke… like themselves, but not. They were them, but… different. Not actually here. They knew, in the back of their mind, that these were just… memories. Memories of those they loved being placed here.
It was hard to care about that though when they found Gabbro. They were right there and before they could really process what they were doing, they were hugging the older Hearthian. Their hands rubbing the Hatchling’s back as they practically burrowed themselves into their chest, clinging onto the fabric of their suit and trying desperately to just ignore everything that’d happened.
It took a bit before they could actually bring themselves to let go. To make themselves leave the fire to get those that weren’t present quite yet. But now… everyone was here.
Solanum stood with them too. Even the Prisoner. The bird had seen everything the Hatchling had gone through. All the trials. The Mistakes. The Accomplishments. The highs and the lows of it all. They were there and experienced it all. They knew what happened to the universe, and cared about it just as much as all of them, and had every right to be here. To watch it all end. To see what happens next. To be a part of what comes after.
So that’s when it started.
Softly, at first. The quiet strings plucking that tune thought to be gone forever. Echoing out past the crackle of the fire. Joined in by harmonica, the tone lifting the singular pluck of strings. The base joined in, low, calming notes, just like what they’d themselves were taught, adding a sense of calm to the area. The clicks and shakes, excited taps starting in, slowly getting louder as the music began to swell. By the time the whistling started, it sounded like hope. All of it coming together now, for one last time. Then Solanum joined. The somber notes of their instrument echoing around the space, vibrating through the air. The added string from the Prisoner then filled the air. It was… almost haunting, but… it brought tears to their eyes. So many different tones. So many different people, brought together from their memories to enjoy this one, last moment.
Not to be feared… just as the Prisoner said… maybe they were right. Rather… cherished. Enjoyed. Experienced, and never forgotten.
Slowly, the music faded out. The smoke of the campfire had built, catching in the air and forming a ball of… something. It flashed, a low thworping noise grading against the quiet of the clearing.
They didn’t need to say anything. No lengthy goodbyes this time. This is how they wanted to remember the others. Sitting here, playing music one last time, enjoying who they’d been, and what would come of this new Universe they’d just made. Viewing it… would make it be. It would… be real. It would start it all over again. A kickstart. Something… unknown… but no doubt beautiful…
They looked around them one last time, giving each of them a once over before steeping forward. It was time. They jumped in.
Flashes of white were all they saw for but a moment, before they were taken back, moved away from everyone, and their vision morphed, everything warping away from them as everything went completely dark.
They were alone again…
They’d been alone this whole time but… now… now it really felt like it. No white specks. No sound save for their breathing. No music.
…
Then, their entire body was rocked. An explosion of pure, unfiltered white light and energy shattered the silence in but a moment, burning past the Hatchling's closed eyes and nearly shattering the glass of their helmet, the visor cracking with an audible snap. The implosion of pure, universal energy before them became… more. Larger. Larger. Larger still.
Closer… Warmer…
This… This was it? Was it over now? Was this how the new universe came to be made? … The edge of light and noise was getting closer. … Yeah… Yeah. They did it. This… this was it. No more loops. No more time limits. No more expectations. It was time to pass the torch… They deserved some rest.
Closing their eyes was easy. Maybe… maybe they’d see them all again after this. Figure out their own instrument. Maybe they’d get to play with them next time…
That would be… really nice…
How simple it is now. They could almost laugh, knowing that the hardest decision they wouldn’t be able to make now… was what instrument they would choose.
They sighed. It’ll be fine. They’d figure it out…