Xyle stared into the embers of the dying fire, his thoughts as scattered as the ashes that drifted into the night air. Tomorrow, everything would end. Not in some vague, distant future, but in a precise, calculated moment decided by the Higher Gods—the beings of legend who were not truly gods, but humans who had ascended to an unimaginable state of power and technology. The rest of humanity, his own primitive village included, had long accepted their place as subjects, as mere remnants of a forgotten past.
The elders spoke of the Higher Gods with reverence and fear. They were the architects of reality, beings who could shape the world with a thought, who had transcended the limits of mortality. Xyle had heard the stories all his life, but they had always felt distant, unreal. Until now.
Tomorrow, at the stroke of midnight, the world would be reset. This was not a legend, but a certainty. The Higher Gods had spoken, and their will was absolute. There would be no more sunrises, no more seasons, no more time. Just… nothing.
Xyle should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. Disappointed, perhaps. It seemed unfair that everything he knew, everything his people had struggled to build, would be erased in an instant. But fear? No, there was none of that. What was the point of fearing the inevitable?
He stood, the cold night air brushing against his skin, and looked back at his home one last time. Inside, his family slept soundly, unaware that their world was about to disappear. Xyle felt no urge to wake them. What would be the point? Better they sleep through the final hours, at peace with themselves.
Without a word, he turned away and walked into the forest, the darkness swallowing him whole. The trees closed in around him, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. Yet Xyle felt a strange sense of calm as he ventured deeper into the woods, as if the forest were a cocoon, insulating him from the weight of the coming end.
Hours passed, or maybe just minutes—it was hard to tell in the blackness of the night. The forest, so familiar during the day, had become a labyrinth, each path leading him further away from the life he knew. But he didn’t mind. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.
Finally, he reached a clearing, a place he had never seen before. In the center stood a figure, an old woman draped in robes that seemed to shimmer with an otherworldly light. Her eyes, deep and knowing, locked onto his as he approached.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, her voice a whisper that carried through the stillness.
“Who are you?” Xyle asked, though part of him already knew. She was not like the others in his village. There was an air of ancient wisdom about her, something beyond the mortal world.
“I am what you will become, given time,” she replied cryptically. “But time is running out, isn’t it?”
Xyle nodded, his curiosity piqued. “The Higher Gods… they’re going to end it all tomorrow. Why?”
The woman smiled faintly, a sad, knowing smile. “Because they can."
She reached into her robes and pulled out a small object—a string, fine fibre made up of nothingness. “This is what separates them from you,” she said, holding it up. “This string grants immortality, a gift from the Higher Gods themselves. But it is a gift that comes at a cost.”
Xyle stared at the string, a thousand questions swirling in his mind. “And you?” he asked. “Are you immortal?”
“For now,” she replied. “But I have lived long enough to understand that immortality is a prison, not a blessing. It chains you to a life without purpose, without the urgency that gives existence its flavor. That is why I will not wear it any longer.”
With that, she slipped the string off her finger and placed it gently on the ground. The moment she did, her body began to wither, age catching up to her in an instant. But her eyes, still sharp and bright, remained locked on Xyle’s.
“Before I go,” she said, her voice growing fainter, “let me show you what once was, and what could have been.”
She waved her hand, and before Xyle’s eyes, the clearing transformed. He was no longer in the forest, but standing in a vast, open space filled with strange, glowing objects. They floated in the air, shimmering with a light that was both beautiful and terrifying.
“These are memories,” the woman explained. “Echoes of the past, captured in the Experienco.”
Xyle watched, entranced, as the memories played out before him. He saw the rise of humanity, the creation of art and music, the exploration of distant worlds. He saw cities made of light, towering into the sky, and machines that could heal the sick and extend life beyond imagination.
He saw the first humans set foot on Mars, their faces filled with wonder as they gazed at the alien landscape. He saw the development of technologies that could manipulate the very fabric of reality, bending space and time to their will.
But he also saw the darkness—wars fought over power, greed consuming the hearts of those who sought to dominate others. He saw the gradual erosion of humanity’s spirit, the loss of purpose as they became gods in their own right, but gods who had forgotten what it meant to be human.
And then, the final memory: the decision to reset. A council of Higher Gods, indifferent and cold, deciding that the world they had created was no longer worth preserving. A simple command, and everything would be undone.
The visions faded, leaving Xyle standing alone in the clearing. The old woman was gone, her body reduced to dust, carried away by the wind. The string lay on the ground about to be withered away with the same wind, untouched, glinting in the pale moonlight.
Xyle picked it up, turning it over in his hand. He could feel the power it held, the promise of eternal life. But now, he understood what that meant—an endless existence without meaning, without the struggle that defined what it meant to be alive.
He smiled, a quiet, contented smile, and placed the ring back on the ground. There was no need for it. He was at peace with what was to come.
As the first light of dawn began to creep over the horizon, Xyle sat down on a stone at the edge of the clearing. He watched the sky turn from black to deep blue, the stars fading one by one as the sun approached.
He thought of his family, his friends, the life he had lived. It was a simple life, full of small joys and quiet moments. And in the end, that was enough. There was no need for grand achievements, no need for immortality. Life, in all its fleeting beauty, was enough.
“This is how it ends… not with noise or even a sound, but with this overwhelming silence, just me and the darkness. Tomorrow, everything disappears. Just like that. No more sky, no more earth, no more anything. Just nothing.
It’s terrifying. This isn’t just death—it’s erasure. Everything gone as if it never existed. We’re about to be wiped out, as though we never were. There’s something so cold about it, so final. It’s not just the end of life—it’s the end of being.
And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t fight this. The gods have already decided. We’re just… shadows they’re about to extinguish. They’ll reset the world, and it will be like we were never here.
What awaits us isn’t just the end, but an abyss. An eternal void where nothing exists—no light, no sound, just endless, consuming darkness. And that darkness, that nothingness, is what terrifies me. To be swallowed by it, to be erased so completely that there’s no trace, no memory left… it’s a fear deeper than anything I’ve ever known.
The darkness is coming, and it’s going to consume us all. No more light, no more warmth—just cold, empty nothingness. I’m not just scared; I’m petrified. To think that soon, there will be no more thoughts, no more feelings, no more existence… just oblivion. That’s the real terror—the absolute certainty that this is the end, and that there’s nothing left but to be taken by it.
And as it approaches, all I can do is wait. Wait for the darkness to take us, to erase us, to leave no trace that we were ever here at all. It’s inevitable, and it’s terrifying, but there’s no escape. The end is coming, and all we can do is let it happen.”
And so, as the sun reached its zenith, Xyle closed his eyes and waited for the end. He felt no fear, no regret. Only a deep, abiding peace. The evening ended, ended into nothing like it never was, and how can something that never was come to an end ?