a complete death

 #Hi_from_reality

Art&concept by Ol Albireo

Feel free to write your stories and give names to the artworks. Also, you're not limited to just writing stories; you can draw your own art, compose music, make toys, saw with a jigsaw, scratch with a nail, and translate into other languages for practice (and never simplify the text when translating!). And show us what you've created :)

For weeks, nothing happened. The creature simply stood, while the multicolored streams lay lifelessly beside it. It seemed oblivious to its own complete demise. But perhaps that was just the case. How would you notice you're dead if you are dead? Awareness is the privilege of the living.

  "Let's observe the future, fast-forward it, lest it stands there for millions of years," Lambron suggested.

  "You can see into the future?" I asked, as casually as possible.

  "M-n," Derek mumbled incoherently, approaching the control panel, "at the level where our subject is — yes. It stands up to the bifurcation point, so we can follow the string and see what happens next. Well, only up to the branching point. But we don't care what happens after the bifurcation point... if it even occurs. It might indeed be a complete death."

The panel displayed a moment of changed signal. It wouldn't have shown anything if there had been no signal. The streams changed color, dimmed; they still lay lifelessly around the creature, their colors shifting.

  "I suppose the creature has been 'feeding' off what's in these electromagnetic streams all this time," Derek glanced at the readings, "for 1,357,898 years."

  "A million years of solitude," I shook my head.

  "Yes, but perhaps the creature doesn't even understand that. It perceives electromagnetic signals. That's exactly how we perceive another being nearby."

I peered into the screen.

  "So, it's looking at memories now? Sifting through everything it saw, lived through, right?"

  "I suppose so."

What a repugnant personal hell. Though, maybe it's just me who finds it disgusting and sad, while others might enjoy reliving and examining their past alone.

  "Let's fast-forward to the moment the signals fade," I said.

Now, I wanted to see what the creature would do when the impulse ran out. I was no longer afraid to witness a complete death.

Adventures of Amiy Lutherna, AlbireoMKG