mollowosh

[mollowosh]

The Absolute You (Story)

(CanaryAnne_) Posted on 5/7/2023 

Hi all! I was wondering if I could have some other people look at this thing I stumbled upon, maybe figure it out. I truly, truly feel like I’m going crazy. So I went to Dresher University, and a while ago I was scrolling through their old social media posts out of boredom, and just a few years before my first semester there I found an obituary for a girl named Elodie Carter. I’ll go ahead and attach a part of that here.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that, on 10/7/2015, Dresher University student Elodie Carter lost her life shortly after a car accident at the age of 20.  Elodie was a bright student and charismatic speaker according to all those fortunate enough to connect with her. The aspiring physicist’s contributions to Dresher’s PRISM society pushed forward the organization’s capacity and ambitions to great heights, and even at such a tragically short span her life will have a positive impact on many to come. Even in her last few hours at the hospital, she was thinking about the wellbeing of others, comforting friends and organizing where her belongings would be allocated. Elodie was a bright light on campus, and we will never forget her. In the wake of her tra...

Ok, so really sad, but pretty normal all things considered. But as I was looking at it I got this really weird, like, reverse-deja vu moment where I felt like I was forgetting something that I should know about, but couldn’t tell what. So I looked into it a little bit, and I found this news article that references someone of the same name, at Dresher, dying on the same day. But instead of a car crash report, it’s a totally different story about some kind of mugging, which I have absolutely no memory of. And I… can’t think of any explanation for this? Both of these documents are public, and I just can’t see this being a coincidence. I’ll attach a bit of the article below, but can you guys help me look into this?

Student shot and killed during mugging at Dresher University (Published 12/7/2015) This Wednesday, Dresher University junior Elodie Carter was fatally shot while walking home from a party. Campus police were called to the scene after two gunshots were heard outside the Erwin Residence Hall, where they found Carter’s deceased body with two deadly gunshot wounds and purse missing.  Security camera footage reveals that the incident occurred just as Carter entered a blind spot, however, a blue truck not known to belong to any Dresher student can be seen quickly exiting the area moments before authorities could arrive.  Peers who attended the party she was leaving testify that nothing seemed unusual about her behavior, only that one friend warned her to be careful while walking home alone. The local police department is continuing to search for any signs of a perpetrator, and is discouraging students from being out alone in any context.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

God fuckin damn casually dropping you got into Dresher. Jealousy aside, you’re right, this is really weird. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing off about either of these sources other than the fact that they contradict each other. I think it is technically possible that there were just two Elodie Carter’s at Dresher who died on the same day, but that just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe this is just my conspiratorial side, but I feel like maybe this is some sort of cover-up and the media mixed up their stories.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

I guess that’s possible? It just seems so coincidental, like, besides the fact I can’t find anything they’d have to cover up (which I guess is kinda the point), wouldn’t anyone with the power to do that at least ensure that their super basic stories are… y’know, at least compatible?

Also my student loans are still KILLING me so don’t feel too jealous about not getting in.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Alright this is officially fucked I found another account of her death, I looked through the account that posted her obituary and it still shows she is still following it (I guess they don’t delete accounts of ppl who’ve passed) and i chose a random person following her, scrolled down to around the time it happened, and there was nothing. But there was a post one year later commemorating her and-

AmberFoster (10/7/2016): It’s been a year since we lost Elodie. Walked to the park where we were on the night when she first said she was feeling strange, then she had a stroke, and just a day later she was gone. I don’t really know why I went back, it just made me feel awful. I guess on some level I feel like I owe it to her, I know a lot of people aren’t going to remember so I have to be there for her. Elly, if in some universe, in some way, you can read this, know that I’m only okay because of you.

This is crazy. And before anyone asks, no I’m not going to message them further that would be so weird.

(xpp0q) Replied on 6/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Alright, I started looking into it more, it doesn’t get any less impossible. I was looking at Dresher’s website and found one of their physics professors that’s been there a long time, figured if Elodie was a physics major then they would have crossed paths. I shot him an email asking if he ever taught her and if he knew of her passing, without mentioning the discrepancy we have here. He got back right away, this is the email and obv I censored both of our names.

Dear ████, Good evening to you too. Yes, I can confirm I taught Elodie in my Advanced Experimental Physics class around 2014. As it was a while back, I don’t remember a lot of the specifics, but I definitely recognize the name. I do have some emails coming from her that I won’t show you out of respect, but from what I can tell she was very involved with some of the deeper research happening on campus, and her suicide was very unexpected. Best of luck with whatever you’re looking for.  ████, PhD

I have no clue what to do with this. I asked him if he could show me proof or any email/document that it happened, and he said he had none but heard it by word of mouth.

I did some additional digging, and found the studies that the prof said she was working on. Well, sorta, I looked for them in the database and got results, but all of them were blacked out. I think they got intentionally expunged somehow. This sort of leans into the “government coverup” theory I guess, but still doesn’t really make sense. What research could she possibly have been doing that was secretive, yet known to a random professor, sensitive, yet released to the public at some point, made her dangerous enough to get killed, but not dangerous enough for her story to be written with any consistency, created all these messed up narratives, but not enough for anyone to notice until years later - it’s nonsense, I don’t know what to make of this. And that’s assuming it is a coverup at all, and we don’t know that. 

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Hey, what the hell is going on here? This isn’t funny.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

Fuck off troll

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

This account has been around for FIVE YEARS, dude. I read this forum. You can find posts of mine talking about Dresher and engineering advice really recently. What are you guys trying to do here?

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

You… Aren’t dead?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

What do you think? I don’t know where all of these reports are coming from but they sure as hell aren’t about me. I had that professor, am still dating Amber, and have a job and everything now.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

I’m really sorry you had to see us talk about you like this, but I mean… look at all of the different accounts we found, isn’t it reasonable that we thought that you were dead? None of us have found any evidence that these are fake, do you have any idea what this is?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

I mean, no, I don’t know what they are. I’ve never seen these before. Sorry for my initial reaction, y'all aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re right, it is weird. I can tell you that my “involvement in research” was long enough ago that I can admit that I wasn’t actually super involved in it. My mom was the one actually in it, I just got a freebie internship that let me do accounting stuff for the researchers. I really wanted to be involved, but I just never got let in. There was only once I got any kind of action, there was someone missing that apparently was supposed to be there and I subbed in.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

What did you do when you got to work?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (xpp0q)

I can’t remember most of it, but it was boring. I just had to stand in a specific place and press a button. I couldn’t even fully see the machine, but it was huge and underground. There actually was some kind of malfunction that day, a bunch of red lights and sirens told us that we had to leave like halfway through, and that was that.

By the way, I asked Amber to look through her posts for the one you guys found, and it is there but she doesn’t remember ever posting, nor would she have any reason to. I’m just as confused as all of you.

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

Oh my god it worked, I actually have a connection. Ok, please listen to me. I’m not here to make jokes or anything like that. I might be able to explain but I don’t have any time. For you all it’s 2023 but right now it’s 2015. And it's two days until every other Elodie dies.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

What are you talking about? What the fuck do you mean it’s 2015?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Who are you??

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

I’m sorry, you’ll just have to trust me. I’m Elodie Carter. A different one. Your Elly didn’t get to be a larger part of the research program but I did. And I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m just going to have to be blunt: I’m not from your universe. The research we were doing was about investigating if parallel realities existed - or at least that’s what I was told. That was a lie, they were already certain of it. This whole time, they’ve actually been working making an “absolute timeline,” which would destroy all the others.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

That’s… so we’re saying multiverse theory is correct?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (CanaryAnne_)

Doesn’t it make sense to what you’ve been seeing? A bunch of versions of the same person impossibly experiencing different things?

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Hold on, if all this is true, why is your universe wanting to destroy all of the others?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

We don’t want to, we just discovered that we can, like you guys did. We realized that it's theoretically possible for a timeline to be made "absolute," as in turned into the one, true timeline which cancels out all the rest. And because we found out that it's possible, that meant anyone else could do it at any time. And the only way to prevent us from taking the blow is by being the first to do it.

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

What does this have to do with us? Like, specifically you and me?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

You guys were the first. Not to make your universe absolute, since obviously I’m here right now, but the first to make a person absolute. Something becoming absolute means that there only can exist one across all universes. Whatever accident happened in your lab on the 9th, it turned you into an absolute being, and as a result every other Elodie can't exist after that.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

So why and how are you here to tell us this right now?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

I’ve gone under the radar using the other researchers’ equipment to try and warn all the others, I guess our timelines are slightly staggered meaning my now is your before. But more importantly, we need this business to stop. If we can coordinate everyone, maybe we can agree that NOBODY has to pursue an absolute timeline. If any of the universes does it, they’ll ensure their own survival, but cause the deaths of literal infinite others. Most universes are similar enough to have some form of the internet, so I’ve been trying to bridge them. And I think it’s working, since you guys are seeing posts from other timelines. Unfortunately, that’s also how I learned that I think it’s over for me soon.

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Okay, that… Thank you. I mean really, thank you so much. I will try to continue what you have going here. I’m so, so sorry that it happened this way.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Yes, thank you. I don’t know how anyone is gonna believe us, but… We’ll try.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Yeah, me too. It’s definitely crazy, but I think if your internet shit works even a little bit then we’ll start to amass more evidence.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Same here. Is there anything else you want from us?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

Just- Elodie, can you take care of Amber? I know it’s a different one and you’re doing it already, but I feel so awful having to leave her all alone. Just help her out. I don’t know what mine is going to do, but you can help yours. Will you do that?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Of course. I promise I’ll take care of her, and I promise that yours will turn out alright. We can take it from here, your work is done. Go spend time with her. If you’re the same as me, then that’s probably all that’s on your mind right now.

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 9/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

Ok. Thank you. Goodbye.

[mollowosh]

ANTERO CORPORATION RETURNING EMPLOYEE GUIDE (Story)

Item 1: Introduction

Hello! Welcome back to the Antero Corporation family. We’re proud to have you once again as a part of one of our Solvent Operations & Response Teams (SORTs). You are here because a location of interest has been identified, and your particular SORT has been selected by lottery. Please carefully review all procedures to ensure that you and nearby civilians remain safe. 

This particular manual is designed for returning Antero Corporation employees. You have been on the field before, this is not a mistake. These contents may jog your memory, but if not, simply re-learning material is acceptable.

Item 2: Calibration

You will shortly be introduced to your team of 2 to 4 other coworkers. Because you are a returning employee, you can be certain that this selection of people has worked well with you in the past. You may develop a rapport if you wish, but as a reminder, any knowledge you have of your team will not be preserved once your task is completed.

Soon after re-meeting your SORT, you will be transported to The Baseline Inclusion Zone to take part in multiple non-invasive normality fitness tests. 

CHRONOLOGY TEST

You will be provided with a series of events from your life and must place them in chronological order. You may not remember, but this information was willingly provided to us in your initial stage of recruitment.

APHANTASIA TEST

You will be asked to imagine a red apple, and rate the vividness of its image from 1 to 5 (a more thorough scale will be provided by the operator). 

PINK ELEPHANT TEST

A full description of this test will hinder results. When it begins, simply follow all instructions as quickly and accurately as possible.

Item 3: Entry

If you pass every test, you will be transported by your Team Research Overseer (TRO) to the location of interest with your team directly after. You will also be given your special operations suit, which should cover you completely and provide numerous tools to aid your journey. Assign one SORT member to perform an equipment check in correspondence with your TRO.

Civilians nearby should be cleared by a separate team by the time you arrive. If there are still people nearby, demand all to exit under guise of an applicable public threat, such as a gas leak, terrorist attack, or extreme weather event. You may use force if civilians are not compliant. Once the area is cleared, issue a request on behalf of the Bystander Clearance Team for a re-evaluation of memory and mental state.

Item 4: Action

Your goal is to document any abnormal properties of the location. You will do this by physically exploring the location while recording anything that happens, consistently communicating with your SORT to take note of any incongruencies. You do not need to take particular effort to record, as the equipment on your suit does so automatically. Your TRO cannot communicate during the expedition, but will remotely receive all incoming data from a separate location.

General notes:

Periodically split up and reconvene in order to trigger potential spatial or temporal desynchronization.

Disregard any and all information of prophetic nature.  All predicted events have been found to occur with or without intervention.

Periodically take note of the stopwatch visible in the bottom right of your goggles, and ensure it matches with other members.

Never cease communication with the rest of your SORT. In the event a member goes dark, do not spend more than an hour searching for them.

Do not attempt to fix any anomalies, even if you are certain you have found the source.

Do not use chalk, ropes, or other “breadcrumb” systems to navigate. They will lie.

If you feel as though objects or walls are moving when not observed, you are most likely correct.

If a member of your SORT becomes incapacitated or deceased, attempt to retrieve the body; if not viable, retrieve available equipment.

If your SORT cannot locate the exit due to spatial anomalies, collectively decide when you have reached an emergency scenario. You may all then vote as such on the provided receivers, and the Collateral Substance program will begin to monitor everyone’s nutrition levels. Once any member reaches a critical deficiency, the program will terminate a random member to be consumed. This will continue until escape is confirmed.

If a member’s time desyncs but they are still physically observable, ask them the calibration question: “Where do the warbler’s fly?” If they do not answer “just east of the range,” then terminate them with your Antero issued pistol before they have an opportunity to react.

If your assignment is a cave, return is unlikely. The mission remains mandatory. Thank you for your service.

Item 5: Cleanup

If the entire location is documented to the best of your team’s knowledge, exit using the same method of entry. Cross-check time devices outside the area with those in your equipment, and make one final observation around the exterior of the location. If inconsistencies are present, your SORT may be lost and must repeatedly re-enter and exit the location until incongruencies are no longer present. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to interact with any people outside of your SORT for as long as these anomalies remain. If multiple entries into the location of interest are ineffective, self-termination is the best option.

Once your SORT reports completion, you will be brought back to the Baseline Inclusion Zone for debriefing, where you will repeat normality fitness tests, return equipment and recordings to be analyzed by researchers, and have your memory partially erased to mitigate informational hazards. When you return home, any missed deadlines or other issues related to your absence will have been dealt with by management on your behalf. You will remember that you went on another expedition, but no other details.

Item 6: Conclusion

Thank you for joining Antero Corporation for another mission. Your work is important, and your sacrifice is recognized. Payment will be distributed by mail. If you wish to terminate your employment contract, you are free to do so at any time and for any reason after your mission is complete (including debriefing). Doing so during or shortly before your shift is strictly prohibited, and attempts to do so will not be tolerated.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~TRANSMISSION_ERROR~~~~~~~~~~~~]

(All SORT members are currently in different rooms of an underground train station.)

Bravo: Echo, are you there?

(Bravo scans across the main floor of the train station with a flashlight in silence.)

Bravo: …Okay. They’ve gone dark.

Sierra: I’ve been looking too, I don’t know where they could have gone. 

Delta: I think I saw them walking near the tunnel, I can try to follow. Bravo, can you check their vitals?

Bravo: I got it. Um, let’s see… 

(Bravo is silent for a moment.)

Delta: Everything alright?

Bravo: I… It’s not here. It lists me, Sierra, and Delta. That’s it. They aren’t here. They were here before when I did the equipment check.

Sierra: This fucking place...

Delta: Alright then, I’ll go where I saw Echo go. Keep an eye on my readings.

Bravo: Hold on, you really shouldn’t go on your own.

Delta: If it was an individualized pocket then we can’t retrieve them together.

Bravo: Yeah, but if it is a thing that traps you individually then you won't be able to get out even if you do find them. That’s too much of a gamble, I’m coming with you.

Delta: I guess you’re right. Come on.

Sierra: I’ll continue searching the second floor. Full disclosure, if you two go dark I am sitting here and waiting exactly one hour before getting the hell out of here.

Bravo: Fair enough.

Delta: You could lose your position.

Sierra: And what a tragedy that would be.

(Bravo and Delta meet at the mouth of the tunnel, and begin to walk down it.)

Bravo: Time is at 17:22:03.

Delta: Same here.

Sierra: Me too.

(Small bits of gravel are kicked up by each of the SORT members’ boots as they walk, skittering across the dark alley and train tracks.)

Sierra: Every electronic clock I can find has been unplugged.

Delta: That’s… really odd… Analog ones?

Sierra: There aren’t any, not on this floor. Guess these guys aren’t fans of ‘em.

Bravo: In all fairness, I can barely read normal clocks either.

Delta: I suppose there’s a chance- hey, Bravo, stop- 

(Incoherent glitching noises and overlapping audio comes out of Delta’s radio)

Sierra: Oh shit, everything okay?

Bravo: Del- Oh. What are you-

Delta: I’m still here, I’m still fine, where did you go?

Bravo: I haven’t moved, where are you right now?

Delta: I didn’t move either. I'm still in the tunnel. You’re nowhere in sight.

Bravo: Same for you.

Sierra: The vitals say you guys are still good. Did you just get separated?

Bravo: I… Suppose so… Okay, Delta, do you see anything other than just train tracks?

(Delta looks around for recognizable landmarks.)

Delta: There’s a newspaper on the ground here, it’s turned to a crossword puzzle. 

Bravo: Exact same here too. I think we’re in the same place, we just can’t see each other somehow.

Sierra: What do your guys’ timers say?

Bravo: 17:30:28.

Delta: Fuck. Mine is 17:18:11.

Sierra: And mine is the same as Bravo’s. 

Bravo: Let’s just both leave the tunnel.

Delta: Okay, I can- What do you mean? I don’t know?

Bravo: You don’t know what?

Delta: Is that a bad thing?

Bravo: What are you talking about?

Delta: Oh what the f- 

(A loud gunshot can be heard through Delta’s radio, and their body hitting the ground.)

Bravo: Delta? DELTA!?

Sierra: Get the fuck out of there, man!

(Bravo sprints out of the tunnel. Delta sprints out of another tunnel on the other side of the track, which they never entered. They meet in the center of the track.)

Bravo: Delta, are you okay? The fuck just happened, how are you over here?

Delta: What? I should be asking the same question to you! I thought you died.

Sierra: You two, I searched the rest of the station, there isn’t anything. Sort your shit out so we can leave.

Bravo: You… You were talking nonsense and… there was a loud… how did you get over there?

Delta: That’s the tunnel we went in. I also thought you got killed.

Sierra: Um… Delta, can we get a time synchronization test?

Delta: 17:19:24.

(Sierra and Bravo are taken aback, and stand in silence for a moment.)

Sierra: …Delta, where do the warbler’s fly?

Delta: Wh- What do you mean? I don’t know?

(All three are silent for a moment.)

Delta: Is that a bad thing?

(Bravo quickly pulls their pistol and aims it at Delta’s head.)

Delta: Oh what the f- 

(A loud gunshot can be heard through Delta’s radio, and their body hitting the ground. Bravo stands frozen for a moment, still clutching their gun.)

Sierra: Bravo, I don’t mean to be pushy, but we need to get out of here. Now. 

(Bravo is audibly shaken.)

Bravo: A-Alright, meet me in the lobby. 

Sierra: I think they’ll cut us some slack for leaving early. I’m assuming still no sign of Echo?

Bravo: Who?

Sierra: Echo, like where they went?

Bravo: There isn’t- You mean like another team member?

(Sierra pauses for a moment in confusion.)

Sierra: Yeah. Echo. You were looking for them.

Bravo: Uh…

Sierra: What time do you have?

Bravo: 17:04:12. What’s going on?

(Sierra doesn’t respond.)

Bravo: …What’s on yours?

(Only footsteps can be heard through Sierra’s radio.)

Bravo: Sierra? Are you there?

(The footsteps escalate to a sprint.)

Bravo: What are you doing?

(A door is heard opening and quickly shutting. Sierra’s communication system is manually shut off.)

[mollowosh]

Pouring Out of the Universe (Story)

Hello. As I write this, I reside on an intersystem floater called the C-0D4 housing roughly 120 people, a full hundred light years away from the nearest other celestial body. We exist between what little remains, at the universe’s last breath, as entropy takes its stead. It was, I think, in my fourth year of education that I learned how different the concept of “home” used to look for us. We were confined by gravity to little marbles, confined to the orbits of stars, confined to whatever resources were present on the plant before us. Where we began, one such marble named Earth, just happened to have all of the right tools for a young humanity to pick itself up and make itself at home. But eventually we found ourselves wanting and wasting things beyond what our quaint planet made for us, so we started to reach into the stars - we set foot on every last marble in the jar, perfected light-speed travel, we killed every part of ourselves bound to the sedentary and flew through reality like kites with cut strings.

It was in my fifth year of education that I learned about how, in the time when humans were trapped to Earth, they feared that perhaps there was no other life out in the universe. Looking back, with our species having touched every star and finding ourselves indeed the only ones around, I wonder why they were so worried, why it mattered to them at all. Perhaps it was because they lived in an era where annihilation was a constant possibility, that if come true would forever excise the great clockwork of life from the cosmos, the only thing ever like it to ever be.

The great dark looms just outside the C-0D4, separated by a thin pane of glass, barren of light. The whole of the universe is simply a battle of absence and presence, is it not? Well, a battle that’s rigged from the start - the great empty now spreads in a way life and light never have, most planets by now swallowed by their stars, those stars collapsed into themselves, even black holes evaporated into stillness. We are in the end times, a moment where energy and light folds in on itself and settles into rubble. 

Life on the C-0D4 is minimal and dull in keeping with the void that greets us outside. However, contrary to the typical purpose of a floater, we are actually moving. If you press your ear to the cold metal at the back of the ship, you can faintly hear the hum of engines that haven't before been used in my lifetime pushing us along a new journey. The engines sound, funnily enough, like recordings of natural wind on Earth, a sound I have never experienced firsthand. Early humans would probably be unimpressed with us, visions and hopes for all-powerful technology met with… this. The lights are dim and straining, the walls are cold to the touch, the meals are small - in a past life we had that grand machinery, but all of it took energy to run, and we simply cannot waste anymore. Everything must be perfectly kept to ensure passage all the way to The Terminal. 

The Terminal is simultaneously a complicated and simple thing to explain. All the way back to some of humanity’s earliest eras, we already knew that the universe was destined to end in coldness. It is simply the way of all things - as energy affects the world around it, it spreads out, and any force made to re-condense it can only be driven by more energy, until everything is flat and still. Our end is not a twist, betrayal, accident, or even a tragedy - only the way things must be. By my era, dubbed the “Preservation Age,” almost all scientific resources were put into reversing this - perhaps we could facilitate another big bang, or discover deep within some well of physics a method to turn energy back from its sedentary state, some even looked into a way to rewind time to the beginning, to start again - none of it amounted to anything. There is no avoiding the end of this story, just slowing it down. 

But then, eventually, we made a breakthrough. Just one. From our many eons researching the end, we developed extensive technologies to track and map the movement of energy all throughout the universe, and just a few hundred years ago spotted a potential anomaly: roughly 400 light years away, energy is vanishing. A single spot of indeterminate size where energy, light, and matter enter but don’t emerge. Not spreading out or being used, but disappearing altogether - because everything is far and few between, it’s a very small and slight disappearance, but most certainly there. It’s not a black hole, it’s not hungry nor destructive, merely a place where things go away. We called it The Terminal.

It goes without saying that this is the only anomaly of its kind we’ve ever found. In an ocean of cold determinism, one spot of complete inscrutability. It looks, on diagrams, like a drain in a bathtub of light. 

That’s about where the science ends; everything else is speculation. Imagine us, so desperate and tired from being confronted by the end of everything day in and day out, suddenly faced with a possibility of escape. The celebration was quiet, as all things are in this time, but everyone on the C-0D4 regarded this as something vast. There are two primary trains of thought - first, perhaps The Terminal could be explained as some kind of path to another universe, a one-way entrance that populates the next place with whatever it collects. Second, and much less optimistically, it might be that the sink visible around The Terminal absorbs because it is a vacuum that’s equalizing with the space around it, a mere pocket of emptiness that by its nature draws in anything it comes by. If true, and we enter, that vacuum could rip apart our vessel. In essence, The Terminal is most likely a hole of sorts to another place; whether its nature is due to that place being more alive or more dead is impossible to know. 

So it’s a gamble, then. I don’t really know what I believe, but as I go about my life stuck on the C-0D4, left only to contemplate my existence as a bacteria in the gut of a dying organism, I can’t help but find this vision of somewhere new extremely compelling. There is no noise, but the noises we make. There is no light, other than what shines from us. The sky is empty, waiting for something else, and I think in a way humanity is the same. 

We’ll be arriving soon, in just a few years. And one way or another, this story on the C-0D4 will come to an end. Perhaps our drawn out existence here at the end of the universe will itself be cut short, which really wouldn’t be so bad. Or perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ll find ourselves with new winds to sail to and new marbles to overturn. Maybe there will even be others already there to greet us when we land. That would be nice.