A/N: I am very well aware that nothing but the idea of this belongs to me. I know that I have totally butchered the End Poem. I also know that these are relatively large paragraphs. I had three goals writing this: 1- get the idea out of my head, 2- Confuse the heck out of people, 3- make somebody smile to themselves at the end of this. I'd appreciate any feedback you guys could give, I'm kinda curious what people will think of this. Thanks for reading.
It was over. The End. The Armored Man stood there, above the smoldering corpse of the Beast. He leaned heavily on his sword and breathed deeply the contaminated air. The Beast's Children gathered around him, staring, pointing, chattering. After a while, the Man stood fully, his armor rustling as he did. The Children stilled, staring at him in silence. He felt compelled to say something, to apologize for killing their Father. To try to explain that he didn't want it like this. That he had no choice. The Man's voice failed him. The structure that was nearby began to hum, fire igniting around it. The Children switched their attention from the Man to it, beginning to chatter amongst themselves again. The Armored Man hefted his sword and looked at the structure with trepidation as the Children moved around him. He started forward, approaching the edge of the structure. It was bowl-shaped, taller than him, made out of Bedrock, he could tell. The one piece of land he could never bypass as he dug into the earth. A plinth in the middle rose into the Not-Sky. On its top sat a black, rubbery egg. The Children around him stared at it with what he took as reverence. The Armored Man stepped up to the bowl, trying to find a way to look inside, to see what the commotion was for. One of the Children, a particularly tall one, walked up to him, cooing softly as it tapped his shoulder. When he turned to it, the Child wrapped its long finger around his chest and lifted it him up. It set him on the edge of the bowl and then backed away, still cooing. The Man stared into the bowl. A Not-Door existed within it, shimmering, as they did. The Armored Man looked around him, and the Children's chatter increased in volume. They surrounded him, staring up with their eerie purple eyes. He was unused to it, accustomed to avoiding their attention whenever possible. The group's warbling increased for a second, before stopping altogether, causing silence to rain down upon the barren landscape. The Man nodded slowly, turning once more to face the Not-Door. He gave one last look at the Beast-Egg on top of the plinth, wondering what would come from leaving it there. The Man shrugged to himself, deciding that it was not his problem. He guessed that the Children would fight him if he attempted to remove it anyway. The Man took another deep breath before he took a single step forward, off the rim of the bowl-structure, and into the Not-Door, vanishing into its surface.
He was falling. That much he knew. He did not however, know to where, how fast, or even which direction he fell. This confused him. He had fallen dozens of times before, sometimes to his own death. It hurt, but it was only ever a minor setback. A small kink in his once singular goal. A goal now completed. Even though he fell, he felt at peace, having finally finished his struggle. No doubt he would wonder what to do with himself in a while, assuming he ever stopped falling, but that did not trouble the Man's mind at the moment. All he saw was black, a void around him. His eyes fought vainly to adjust to the darkness. They ultimately failed. The Man resigned himself to quite a long fall. That was, until he stopped falling. He hadn't hit the ground, or some sort of barrier. No. The Man simply began to float. He flailed his arms wildly for a moment, trying to overcome the extreme sense of vertigo that accompanied the sudden change in motion. He leveled himself out, and spun his helmeted head round, searching for any sort of distinguishing mark within the darkness. There was nothing. He waited. To him, seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes stretched into hours. The hours stretched into days. Still he waited. He did not grow hungry, he did not thirst. Finally, he heard a voice. Well, heard is not the most exact of terms. Perhaps received would fit better. Yes. He received a voice. It spoke to him in a way he had never experienced before. It was thought, but not thought. His, but not his. Within him, but throughout him. This confused him even more for a while. Until the voice that felt like the sun put his fears to rest.
Do not fear, Player. You are in no danger.
Player? Why did that sound familiar? Was that his name? He could not remember.
No. That is not your name Player. Your name is infinite. Your name is what you make it.
Ah. So that was his name. Infinite. He liked that. He was pleased. He felt the presence within smile. Or he felt something like a smile. He was still confused.
Do not worry. The confusion will pass. For a while.
Infinite nodded. Or he thought he did. He felt himself nodding at any rate. Another voice spoke up. This one felt of the sea. Strong, and salty?
Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.
Infinite felt the sky again. He felt the sun on his skin, the ground beneath his feet. Still, he could not see. The world he still perceived as black.
It cannot read the full picture. It has not progressed to the highest level yet.
I do not care. It needs to know. He needs to know.
The Truth will burn it. Leave it broken. It will be abandoned. By its fellows, and by the universe.
Not the Truth. I will tell the Player a story.
But not the Truth.
No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.
A story? What story. Who were these beings? Why did he feel like this? No. That was wrong. Why did he feel? Yes. That is right. Why did he feel?
Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
This scared Infinite. He felt afraid. For the first time in many cycles. He was in the presence of those infinitely more powerful than him. He did not like that.
The Player is growing restless.
Use his name.
Infinite.
Yes, Infinite.
Once upon a time, there was a Player.
You. Infinite. This Player was you.
Player? Like a game? What did that mean? Was this all a dream? An illusion? Like the Hotel? Wait… what was that? What was a Hotel? Why did he remember that? Did he remember that? Was it his? Or was it something else?
He is beginning to recall. This is unexpected, but not unwelcome.
He will remember too much. There is too much pain to let him continue like that.
What? Pain? He could handle pain. He had many times before this After-End.
No, Infinite. This is a different pain.
The pain of millions. The pain of the stars.
Stars? Stars could feel pain? He was confused again.
It is too late to go back now. The Story has begun.
It must be complete.
Infinite felt his the bones in his spine grow cold. Images flashed before his eyes. His own life passing by in an instant.
This Player. You. Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometers away. Sometimes the Player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do..
Sometimes the Player dreamed it was lost in a story.
The voices spoke to Infinite. Telling of his home. Of a mirrored room with pink champagne. Of his world. His creator. His life. They told him of the endless wars. Of love. Of peace. Of creativity. Of a Mission Bell. Of everything he could possibly imagine and then some. He mind felt full to bursting. Finally, Infinite felt his confusion slowly melt away. It was replaced by wonder. The darkness faded slowly, receding into his peripheral vision. It was replaced by the Light. The Light was beautiful. The Light was terrible. The Light was him. The Light was them. He felt it in his very soul. Infinite smiled, and he felt the voices smile too.
The End. All things must come to an End.
But all things do not come to an End. They progress onwards and onwards. Changing, morphing. Exploring, hiding. Sleeping, waking. Ending.
And the game is over and the Player woke up from the dream. And the Player began a new dream. And you dreamed again, but this time you dreamed better. And you were the universe.
Infinite felt the need to respond. To shout out loud that he understood, that he was grateful. Instead, he spoke words that would echo throughout time.
"And the Universe said 'I love you.'"
Indeed.
He understands. As much as he is able.
I believed.
He has nearly awoken.
"Will I remember?"
No. Not as you perceive it.
Infinite was saddened at that. He felt a sense of loss overcome him.
Do not despair. We are with you. You are with yourself.
It is time.
You Infinite, are the Player.
Wake up.
And the Man woke. He was on a beach covered in sand. He faced a sea that stretched for hundreds of units around him. The sun baked his skin. A goal exploded into his head. He knew what he had to do. To End it. Then he turned away from the sea. A sandstone road trailed out to the horizon away from and before him. The sun shimmered in the distance and he felt his head suddenly grow heavy. The Man stumbled forward, falling into the sand below him. His eyes grew dim, the Light guttering and spent. And suddenly, as quickly as it began, the episode stopped. The Light burned brighter than before. The Man stood wearily. His gaze rose up, and he stared into the morning sky. He stared. He remembered. And Infinite smiled.
And so it Ends.
But will it Begin?