Twenty-Four Sweeps.

I don't know how much longer I can write this. Whether or not it's right or wrong. if it's cruel to the ones who've passed. if I'll even have the strength. I've been doing surprisingly well. But I really don't know if I can keep that up. My hands are shaking whenever I try to write and I don't know if it's my old age or the grief anymore.

Tavros died, anyway. That sounded nonchalant, but I tried so many other ways to express how I felt about that, how we felt about that. The pain, sorrow, everything rolled up into a dense ball of hollow agony that filled all of us.

Anyone reading this who knows a thing about us knows that Gamzee almost couldn't take it. Tavros had been doing so well right up to 23 sweeps, comparatively. In that last sweep though, everything went downhill. Like the cruel joke that it was.

Tavros lost the strength to even wheel himself around. Gamzee did his best to make him feel better about it. He really tried. But his fear always showed, and Tavros stayed afraid of the end. But his death... his death was different as well. We all knew it was awful but he'd had such a love for all things living that it kind of pervaded that sadness.

From beyond the grave or something, I guess, Tavros helped with our burdens. Almost like recompense for taking care of him after his FLARP accident. Had I seen him I would have told him it didn't matter, he didn't need to. Tavros never owed anyone anything. The poor sweet troll known as Tavros was one of the happiest trolls we knew right up until his dying day and it more than paid off anything he might have owed.

But I guess it was too late to tell him that. So far we'd seen nothing, no clue, no shred of evidence that there was life after the death we all faced. This was really the end. We all knew it now. Three of us passed on, and time was still hungry. It was going to devour us all in the end.

Gamzee... lost himself after that. he didn't get angry, or happy, or even sad, if sad is what you'd call it. He'd sit in Tavros' wheelchair, day after day, with the same blank frown on his face. The only way any of us could tell he was alive were the tears that streamed down his face every so often.

After that, nobody cared anymore. Eridan and Sollux stopped caring. Those two and Feferi became inseparable. Equius and Nepeta, of course, were the entire world for each other. But you could tell Equius was on the breaking point Gamzee had been. With every day that passed, Nepeta was a little less bright and bouncy, her kitty-charm that pervaded this existential gloom for so long was fading and we all knew it.

Everyone knew what was to happen next. Sollux. The hacker, and inscrutable half-asshole to us all was on his way out. It wasn't recent as far as we could tell, he still had over ten sweeps left in him at least. Feferi must've been unconsciously using her extended touch on him or something. would've helped if she'd known that earlier.

Not that I'm bitter, of course. I don't feel much of anything anymore. I tried to explore the planet but I just couldn't, somehow. The notion of even trying seemed vast and unrewarding, and my joints were starting to lock together like they hadn't before. Vriska had come full circle, somehow. She was the mother that Kanaya couldn't be. The three of us against time itself.

Funny how now that so much of us have died we've finally separated. it's no longer us any more. I'd say it was Equius and Nepeta in a huddle. Then Feferi, Sollux and Eridan all huddled up. Gamzee was just sitting by himself on the wheelchair owned by one of the few people he'd cared about in his life. And me, Kanaya and Vriska.

Funny how life worked out like that. We all thought that we'd be inseparable forever. I read Karkats page again and saw what he'd thought- friends till the end, forged in fire. Well the fire had long ago died in each of us. There was just nothing left to burn.