Time had come, she thought, even though time no longer existed.

The last distant glimmer of light extinguished under her gaze, leaving only hollow and tenuous darkness beside her—no stars remained. The only thing still existing in the universe was her own half-real, half-illusory body, stretching to the edge of vision, drifting aimlessly. Someone once proclaimed that she would be the end of the cycle, and at this moment, she indeed was the end of the cycle. All things had perished; only she remained.

So, what next?

She gazed at her own body. The blood kin with whom she once journeyed, like the billions of beings her clan had erased under her leadership, had all become nutrients within her. The countless once-clamorous visions had fallen into eternal silence. The price of all this was exchanged for the life she now possessed, yet at this moment, she unexpectedly didn't know what to do with this life.

In the past, a mission had driven her to devour billions of beings and the countless stars and moons they inhabited, transforming all life forms that had been or could have been in the universe, ultimately bringing her to the other side of extinction—but that once-irresistible mission was becoming increasingly blurred, soon to vanish completely. All expectations placed upon her had ceased at the moment all things perished; perhaps even the ones who originally bestowed that mission upon her had never conceived of the future thereafter.

She felt lost and uneasy. But she had nowhere to seek answers; outside her, there was only emptiness, and within her, only inert nutrients remained. So she could only delve her thoughts deep into her own body, stirring those unresponsive nutrients, trying to find a hint from them.

Under the intervention of her thoughts, those nutrients began to collide and reconstruct, continuously generating unfamiliar fragments of information, but these fragments all vanished in an instant. She kept trying like this in the timeless eternity until her mind finally keenly caught a familiar fragment—it was a piece of her own voice, composed of the vibrations of metal strings and biological membranes... that's right, it was singing.

Once, a lonely technician also sang like this. No matter which sea the technician swam across, she was alone, dragging myriad fiber-optic cables in solitude. The technician deftly plucked those cables, singing to the unresponsive schools of scales amid flowing halos.

Once, a lonely wandering singer also sang like this. No matter which land the singer walked upon, she was alone, carrying a heart full of memories in solitude. The wandering singer wove those memories into melodies, singing to the unresponsive souls in dilapidated taverns.

At this moment, she was also alone, dragging all the things she had devoured in solitude, drifting to the end of time in a dying universe. So now, should she also sing to the unresponsive nutrients within her body?

If it were Skadi, she would certainly sing. Before she could sort out those complex problems, her song would emerge first—because singing was her language, her imagination, her creation.

So Skadi began to sing. In her song, Skadi began to bloom, more intensely than any life that ever existed. Vaguely, Skadi realized what she was about to do. Beginning with this song, those unresponsive nutrients within her body would give birth to new existences, new life, a new universe.

Her body expanded dramatically, her consciousness rapidly dissipated, and she imagined with hope that new universe she would never witness.

Edit

Pub: 09 Oct 2024 02:41 UTC

Views: 250