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You are not meant to be here.
This is a truth that reinforces itself with every passing minute. You are not meant to be here. You are not meant to be alive. You were supposed to die eons ago.
And yet, you’re still here, curled up in the cockpit of your ship, waiting for the sun to pull you ever closer just so this loop can end swiftly, with a weight over your shoulders heavier than any star in this damned universe.
It was a useless loop. Again. You hit a tree on your panicked rush to leave Timber Hearth, and repairing it as autopilot barrelled towards the Hourglass Twins cost you precious time you couldn’t afford. The cave at the north of Ember Twin had already been flooded with sand and ash by the time you landed.
And now here you sit, with nothing but the low hum of your ship to accompany you, nobody but your thoughts to occupy the silence.
And so you think.
And truly, in a situation like yours, it is the worst thing to do.
You are not meant to be here. You were not meant to pair with the mask. It was a cruel and twisted work of fate that you hadn’t spent another 30 seconds talking to Hornfels on that day.
On the first day. Not really the first day, but what you like to think of as the “first loop,” because if you think about the 9,318,054 loops that came before, a part of you shatters and you lose yourself for a time you cannot afford to lose.
What if it had been Feldspar? What if it had been Chert, or Slate, or Hal? Would they have known what to do? Would they have figured it out by now? Would they have found a way to save everyone?
The sun pulses red. You watch it grow larger, feel yourself get closer.
Gravity isn’t fast enough. The sun collapses. Your ship grows cold, and the force of the explosion rattles it even from here.
You know there’s no point in running. Death will always find you.
-
You are not meant to be here.
You can’t remember the last time you slept. There is no time, never enough time, and yet so much time has passed that you feel yourself slipping.
You watch Slate with empty eyes every time you wake.
You think you remember a loop where you had been all but catatonic. You think that was the loop after you discovered the coordinates.
(Discovered that this is not the first, that you have been alive for far too long, that you have been dying and dying and dying with no recollection of it for dozens of Hearthian lifetimes.)
Slate had tried to comfort you, tried to ask what was wrong. You couldn’t bring yourself to words, to move from your position beside the fire. Hal and Hornfels had come to simply sit beside you.
You don’t remember that loop. It might’ve been hundreds of loops ago. The only part that you really remember is the end.
The sky had gone dark for a moment, and Hornfels had started to panic. Then the boom sounded, and the trees flattened, and the village started to scream. The atmosphere burst into flames. Hornfels had grabbed Slate’s arm and they had sunk to the floor, screaming.
You hadn’t moved.
Hal had grabbed your shoulders, hysterical and sobbing. You had looked at them with eyes that were already dead.
You remember watching the skin vaporize from their skull, watching them freeze in an unearthly scream as the nova instantly blew away their bones and skin, felt the heat wrap around you almost like an embrace—
You remember waking up and looking to where Slate grinned lopsidedly. They had asked their question, prodding the fire again.
You don’t remember the loops that came after. You don’t remember how you recovered. Maybe you never really did. You don’t remember anything anymore.
You think it’s been thousands of loops since the “first.” But you can’t figure it out. You are utterly alone in this universe.
Gabbro had stopped talking, after a point. They spend all of their time meditating, letting the loops fly by. They’re just a shell, now. You think you are too.
You aren’t meant to be here.
You aren’t built to endure this long. You aren’t meant to live millions of short lives with no end to the pain. You aren’t meant to be the one the mask paired with.
Sometimes you visit the Nomai Grave and punch the skeletons around until your knuckles ache just to feel anything. Just to have somebody to blame, except it wasn’t their fault, and everything that has happened to you since the real first loop centuries ago was just a cruel joke from the universe.
You die. You wake up. You sit in your ship and think about a way to make it stop. You die. You wake up. You sit in your ship and scream until your throat bleeds. You die. You wake up. You sit in your ship and do nothing and wait for the brief relief of death. You die.
You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die. You die.
-
You aren’t meant to be here.
You’ve killed yourself hundreds of times over. Nothing ever makes it end. The stars keep shining, keep dying, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over an
You just want a way out. You want a way to die. You want a way to have this purgatory end.
The universe won’t let you die.
You haven’t spoken to another person for hundreds of loops now. Who is there to talk to? Gabbro is a hollow shell of a person, nobody on Timber Hearth believes you (and oh, how you’ve tried—dozens of times by now). There’s nobody.
You feel like you have all the pieces to the puzzle, and yet nothing clicks. You’ve given up. Maybe there really isn’t a way to make this end.
The thought makes you afraid. It makes you terrified beyond anything else the universe can thrust at you. You can’t keep going. You can’t keep living like this for another nine million loops. You are tearing apart at the seams and the thought of never dying terrifies you so deeply you—
The sun explodes. You wake up. You’ve stopped noticing when the sun goes red.
Slate grins. You stare at them and wonder when you stopped thinking of them as real.
-
There is another.
(Not really. You are clinging to scraps, clinging to useless strings that you pray to the dying stars will pull you somewhere.)
They are twice your height. After the fifth or so loop of visiting them, you stop being afraid, because you know they will blink twice and look down to where you stand and tilt their head and lower their lantern, but they will not hurt you.
There is another. They know eternity. They know what forever feels like.
You wish you could speak their language. Some loops, they try to talk to you, a warbled and lilting language you know is not meant for your vocal chords. The vision torch is your only way of communication, and even that is limited.
You remember the first time you had found them, alone in the dark, buried beneath a world that didn’t really exist, their body withered and decayed, only kept in the same position by the impossibly cramped sarcophagus they had been buried alive in. And their consciousness (or… soul, or however the inhabitants of this hidden ring world had kept their minds alive in this simulation even after death) was truly something to behold.
Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years, alone in the dark, unable to die.
There is another.
You visit them every loop now. They never remember you—how could they?—but every loop you pick up the vision torch and summon the same thoughts to mind.
You’ve been here before. Many times. This universe is dying. Their actions had meant something, in the end.
(You hope, you hope, you hope. You have to be the one to finish this story, if only you can figure out how. You don’t want to carry the weight of having another being’s eternity on your shoulders—if those actions didn’t mean anything, and the prisoner had spent entire millennia existing without end…)
The second loop, you had gotten carried away, you think. You’d let the reins on your grief and hopelessness slip, and they had ripped their body away from the vision torch and stared at you with alien eyes.
You’d been shaking. You remember that–it felt as if you couldn’t grab a hold of those reins again, as if now that the door had been opened a crack, there was a flood that was impossible to hold back.
Then, they’d put one of their hands over your small shoulders. It had grounded you.
You were already dead in the real world at that moment. There was no need to fear a painful end in this dream—you had already met it. Their clawed hand on your back reminded you that none of this was real, none of this would mean anything in ten minutes—and despite the twistedness of it, that gave you solace. You were allowed to be weak in this moment. It wouldn’t matter in the ones to come.
You had cried, cried until your entire body ached, and it was a release of everything you had harbored within yourself for innumerable lifetimes.
That’s the loop with them you remember best. You’d started to feel more like a person after that. You have cried before, for loops upon loops on end, but not like that—not with somebody there, not with somebody who knew what it felt like to have no reprieve from the crushing cycle of time.
You aren’t meant to be here. But neither are they. You are twin souls in that regard—you have been alive for far, far too long, never able to die, never able to truly live.
And yet, a part of you knows you are still alone.
Every loop, every time, they throw their head back and scream. It sends shivers down your spine, the sheer emotion behind it—hundreds of millions of lifetimes spent as nothing, forgotten, not knowing if it even meant anything.
Every time, they bow to you, a “thank you.”
And they ride the lift, and they die.
Every loop, they choose reprieve. Every single time you visit them, you show them a way free of the endless purgatory, and every time they choose it.
You find yourself a bit envious of them. You find yourself hoping that somebody will free you of your prison.
-
You sit in the dark with them. It’s probably been hundreds of loops since you found them for the first time. Every single time, you hold the vision torch and show them your story and push out a question, praying they understand.
How?
How had they done it? How had they lived for hundreds of thousands of years, unable to die? How had they been able to take the overwhelming terror that came with a future that never ends?
They always grab the vision torch with shaking hands. You’re familiar with their actions now. It’s amusing, almost, not really, the way they always act the same in every loop.
Every time, it’s the same story.
They don’t remember. There is no world beyond this room. There never was. If they peer at their memories too closely, catch glimpses of their people, of their story, they break and do not come out of the anguish in their mind for what could be centuries. There is no world. The world is this room. The world has only ever been this room.
They don’t remember. They can’t. Can’t remember their people, their own story. All they hold is a sense of purpose for what had resulted in this prison, a sense of defiance so strong it had surpassed even the erosion of time. They can’t remember the start, the end; there is only this moment, and the next.
They always go quiet. The image comes into focus, as if they steady themselves.
How had they done it? How had they lived for hundreds of thousands of years, unable to die?
The truth was, they had died. Had lost a bit of themselves with every lost memory and fading dream. They don’t know if they’re the same person. They don’t remember the person they were.
They don’t remember how to be a person anymore.
-
Time passes as it always does. You pore over your ship log, dig your nails into your scalp, and still any solution that might be out there escapes you.
You wish you could talk with Solanum, but you can’t write her language, only read it. You can’t ask questions, but you can read answers. What a cruel existence you find yourself in.
And so, caught in a stalemate, time passes.
You’ve scoured every planet. There is simply nothing left. Every moon, space station, planet, and comet in this starsforsaken system. Any information you could ever need about the Nomai, about the inhabitants of the stranger, it’s all there, and you still can’t figure out what to do with it.
It’s been an immesurable amount of time since the “first” loop. You don’t remember the start.
Some loops, you don’t get up from beside the fire. Some loops you jump into the fire. Some loops you cry. Some loops you aren’t real, you aren’t there, you’re just taking up space but your mind does not exist.
You think you’re forgetting how to be a person, too.
Gabbro meditates endlessly. You do too, for loops at a time, let them slip into each other unbrokenly. Sometimes you think it’s been dozens of loops before you fully return to your senses. You visit Gabbro as often as you can, but they remain just a shell, another victim of time. You don’t blame them for not wanting to wake up anymore.
And so, time passes. The stars spin on. You die. Time passes. The stars spin on.
You die.
-
You think about ending it.
There’s a way, there always has been, and yet as you curl your fingers around the warp core and feel the twin voids beneath your fingers pulse you hesitate.
Why?
It’s been so long. You’re so tired. Hadn’t you wished for this? A way out? Hadn’t you envied The Prisoner?
The warp core is almost familiar in your hands. The whirring lights around you flicker. The masks above you waver. One of the inactive ones falls to the ground.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
This isn’t right.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You’re supposed to finish the story, not tear out the last page. The Nomai didn’t die for this. The Prisoner did not live for this.
And then, the truth hits you like a morningstar, the weight of a million dying suns on your shoulders.
The warp core is familiar. You’ve seen one before.
How has it taken you this long?
A hysterical laugh bubbles out of your chest. The universe is cruel. The universe—
The universe is, and we are.
You know, in that moment. This is the way it’s supposed to end. This is what makes it all worth it.
You put the warp core back.
You have a few people to say goodbye to.
-
One by one, you say your goodbyes. You say goodbye to Slate and Gossan and Hornfels (who share a teary-eyed moment at the news of Feldspar’s survival). You say goodbye to Hal and tell them about an incredible dream about a time loop and a hidden ring world and the extraordinary things your translator will discover when you launch for the “first” time. You watch them smile and you laugh and you remember, a little, what it’s like to love somebody.
You say the goodbyes that matter. You tie off your loose ends. You spend a loop with everyone, talking to them, and you know it won’t matter the last time, but you need these memories. You want to carry a piece of all of them to the end.
You tell Riebeck about the Nomai and watch their body language grow so much more excited. You roast a marshmallow with them and thank the stars you were able to see them so happy about something they love.
You sit with Chert and try not to let your heavy heart show as they slowly see more and more supernovae. You wrap an arm around their shaking shoulders when the truth finally hits, and though it gives them little comfort in such a catatonic state, you tell them about the loop, about the Eye, about a truth that is so much bigger than these last few minutes. They sniffle and go limp and sigh sadly, and you sit together and watch the stars die.
You touch down at Feldspar’s camp and give them a good few stories about dodging anglerfish. They make some kind of comment about being here a lot longer than they thought, and it’s so incredulous you throw back your head and laugh. You thank them for everything they’ve ever done for you, because they were as close to a parent as you ever had. They pat your head and grin lopsidedly and show you how to play their harmonica. You fall asleep in their lap and don’t wake up.
You visit Esker and tell them stories about the village. You promise to make Hornfels and Porphy go on a date and spare them from hearing their bad flirting from the moon. You whistle in harmony with them and they thank you for making it a little less lonely. You hug them, which takes them by surprise, but you know with the way they melt into it it was worth it.
You visit Solanum and marvel, like always, the way she watches you approach as if she knows you will. You can’t talk, but you put the Me and You stones together and read her words over and over and over and tuck them away somewhere close to your heart. You point to yourself, then to the swirling vortex above you, and you think she understands.
“Your existence is unusual. My clan had found life-forms on Timber Hearth that I knew of, but that would mean I have spent possibly hundreds of thousands of years here for you to evolve so far! Perhaps time is strange here. It is a strong possibility. Nevertheless, if so much time has passed, and if you mean to say that you intend on visiting the Eye, then the Ash Twin Project must have been a success. And… My clan…”
You put a hand on her shoulder. She rests a hand on yours.
“I am truly sorry if the statues paired with you. You were not the one meant to bear the fate of our universe.”
You laugh at that.
“But I have faith in you, friend. May the stars accompany you.”
You hug her. You don’t even know if hugs are a thing in Nomai culture, but she seems to get the idea and sets her staff down to clumsily embrace you in return.
And then, as much as you don’t want to, you have to say goodbye to the only people that it might mean something to.
-
“Gabbro?”
They don’t move. You don’t even know if they’re conscious under the helmet. Their flute lays forgotten in the sand, wet and soiled.
“Hey. Time Buddy?”
They move their head infinitesimally.
“Hi,” you say gently, because you know how hard it is to wake up, to willingly return to this hell. “I need to talk to you.”
Gabbro moves their head back to stare at the sky.
“I found a way out, Gabbro. It’s over.”
They roll over in their hammock to face you.
“I’m not pulling a prank. I’m not that mean. It’s really a way out, but it means… dying. Us and everyone back home.”
They blow out a dryly amused breath.
“I know, I know. But permanently this time. A way to end the loop.”
They take off their helmet. Their physical appearance can’t actually decline since it resets every 22 minutes, and it betrays nothing of the exhaustion in their every movement.
“Kiddo… I’ve been ready for the end for a long time.”
You feel the bitter sting of tears in your nose. “I know, but… now that it’s real… and nobody back home will expect it. They don’t know it’ll be the last one.”
“They haven’t known that since millennia ago, kiddo,” they say gently, sitting on the sand next to you. The heavy gravity pulls you both deep into the sand. “This won’t hurt them any more than it already is. They deserve rest as much as us, yeah?”
“Mhm,” you mumble, wiping away your tears. “Still… now that it’s really come to this—“
“Don’t talk like that,” Gabbro asks, laughing, but you hear the strained note just barely hidden in the sound. “I don’t wanna be reminded of how much you’ve matured since this all started.”
You laugh. “I’m still just a hatchling, Gabbs.”
“So don’t use such big words. Have mercy on my poor heart.”
The two of you sit in the sand and laugh. You tell Gabbro about The Prisoner, about the Nomai, about your plan. You talk about the irony of existence. Gabbro plays their flute, and you hum along. It amuses you how the thought of death brings Gabbro out of their shell so quickly.
Then again, maybe you’re ready, too. This end feels right. It feels like it might be worth it, as uncertain as it is.
But it’s still an end.
“Gabbs?”
“Yeah, Hatchling?”
“It's kinda funny. I’ve been wishing for a way out for so long… been so careless with my life because I know there’s not really a way out… And now that there is, it… it’s strange.”
Gabbro is silent, watching red lighting illuminate the dark skies.
“Gabbs, I… Now that I know there’s an end…”
Your voice breaks.
“I don’t really want to die, Gabbro.”
Gabbro turns to you, and you see yourself reflected in them, in the way their face pinches.
“Oh, Hatchling,” they murmur, pulling you to their chest. You cry, loud and ugly, as if your screams can make the stars hear your anguish. Like maybe, if the universe could look at you now, you’d make it have a different ending, have a different start, have a different chapter for you to write. You wail into Gabbro’s chest until the stars no longer shine and your sobs diminish into weak little hiccups.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabbro whispers, voice trembling and thick. “I’m so sorry, kid. You’re just a kid. You never even got to grow up. You never got to sit around a fire and drink sap wine with us.”
You sob, broken and quiet. The sky is dark and dead.
“I’m so sorry it had to be you. I’m sorry I left for so long.”
You hug Gabbro with every ounce of strength you still have. A low buzzing permeates the air, and you know what comes next.
“I’m gonna make it all worth it,” you promise. “This won’t be for nothing. I swear.”
You hear the resounding boom. You shudder and press your face as deep as you can into Gabbro’s shoulder.
You don’t really want to die.
You watch Giant’s Deep’s atmosphere grow red as the nova approaches.
“Thanks for everything, Time Buddy,” Gabbro whispers.
You die.
-
You wake up.
You watch the Orbital Probe Cannon explode in the distant sky, watch the pieces fall into orbit around Giant’s Deep, take a shuddering breath.
You wonder if Gabbro is looking at you, too, across space.
You wonder if they smile at the distant planet, too.
-
They blink twice, looking down to where you stand. They tilt their head and lower their lantern, then sit back on their legs and simply stare.
You have no idea how many times they’ve had their existence shattered by your appearance. You know that it’s worth it every time.
You pick up the vision torch. You show them. They show you. They wrap their arms around themself and wail, scream into the sky that isn’t real, and despite having lived this moment hundreds of times over you still get chills down your spine.
You sit together in the quiet. You wish you knew their language. This loop, they warble at you, chattering and lilting in a beautiful way. In an alien way. That language is not meant for your tongue.
You think about how to say goodbye to them. You find it a beautiful kind of ironic that the sole survivor of a series whose entire civilization and technology was built around light could now only communicate through visions.
You pick up the vision torch. They look up into its beams and close their eyes.
You show them the befores, every lifetime you’ve spent with them, every time you’ve found comfort in another like you. You show them your sun, its end; you show them every other sun and their ends. You show them the Nomai. You put as much pride and gratefulness as you can into these visions, because without them, this universe would have withered away to nothing, and the Nomai would never have been able to create something so tragically beautiful as your current reality.
You show them you. You show them your plan.
And, finally,
You show them the Eye.
You hope they understand. That you can’t save them, that you can’t release them from their purgatory on the last day of the universe. You hope they understand. You hope they forgive you.
They keep their eyes closed for a long time after you pull the vision torch away. You feel bad, for more reasons than one—this should’ve been any other day for them. Not a damning confirmation that they would continue to do nothing but exist, maybe even after the universe dies.
When they finally open their eyes, they stare at you. Your face pinches. You don’t want to leave them like this. You don’t want the only being in this universe who knows eternity to continue living it.
What a cruel, cruel joke the universe has played at the end.
They sweep you into a hug, gentle and warm. Their feathers tickle your nose as you sob into their chest. They’re on their knees, neck folded over your shoulder, head rested on your back. They’re so much bigger than you—it feels like being completely enveloped.
You wish you could say a proper goodbye.
They make a high, gentle, keening sound, and after a few moments you realize they’re singing what almost sounds like a lullaby. It’s haunting, and you know with the way a pit settles in your stomach that you will carry this melody to your grave.
You cry for the person who will never be hugged like this again. You cry for what they will lose and what they cannot keep. You cry, because you have watched them die and find their end over and over and over and you will not be able to give it to them the one time it matters.
Their song fills the small space easily. The sound of it thrums in their chest, in your bones. Gentle, swooping, haunting and full of eons of loneliness. You memorize it, then start humming along once your erratic weeping has slowed. You can’t quite tell what expression they wear on their alien face, but as they pull away you almost think they’re smiling at you.
You almost laugh. You’ve cried more the last two loops than the last two centuries.
They pat your head. You smile back at them, wiping your tears with a giggle.
They curtsy to you and give you one last lingering look as they board the lift.
They ride the lift. You know what happens then.
You follow their hoofprints up and into the water.
You follow them into death.
-
You are meant to be here.
This is something that reinforces yourself with every passing minute. You are meant to be here. You are meant to die.
In the end, you were right. It was worth it.
You have been alive for far too long. But every loop meant something. You pour every forgotten self into this place. You pour every lost memory and facet of your being you had let time take away here, let this place strip you down to your core, let it pry open your mind and see there—
You show it curiosity. You show it fear. You show it anger and sadness, show it hopelessness, show it shame, show it love. You show it every goodbye, show it everything that has made this life worth living in the end.
You sit in the quiet shade. It shows you home. It shows you them. You sit around a campfire, and Gabbro winks.
“Should’ve brought some sap wine for the end of the world, Time Buddy.”
You listen to The Prisoner sing along with their strings, listen to Riebeck’s banjo, listen to Chert’s drums, listen to Gabbro’s flute, listen to Esker whistle, listen to Feldspar’s harmonica, listen to Solanum’s gentle keys.
You are ready. You know this is the chapter you were meant to write.
And so, it ends as it had began:
With a dark sky,
A resounding boom—
And then you die.