Loop ?

Melbourne was a noisy place.

Cities were often like that. There was simply no way to contain so many people in such a tightly packed place and not have it be noisy. The miracle of bringing so many souls together in a union of culture and ideas had to come at some cost. Chief among them was the sound. It was just so loud, all the time, and it never ended.

You could hardly escape it, no matter where you went.

A lot of places were quieter, but none were quiet.

There was always so much sound pollution.

There were only a select few spots among the city that truly offered the peace of silence.

A young man was dangling his feet from one such place. Choosing peaceful isolation over the social hot pot below. Filled with so many dreams and voices that some may find it nauseating. His deep black hair whipped back and forth among the strong winds of a place so up. They brought a permanent chill to his body that made everything seem so simple.

James' grey eyes reflected from the large glass pane, along with his pale grey shirt. The sneaking lines of an old scar crawled up the left side of his arm and neck, stopping just short of his chin.

That wound was from long ago.

A newer one still bled fleshly on his arm. It was a morbid carving in the shape of two conjoining circles shaped to look like an ouroboros. The precision would make one mistake it for a tattoo instead of the grim reality.

The looper's eyes drifted to the view below. The Eureka Tower had once been the tallest building in Melbourne. Being the second tallest now didn’t make it any less of a hassle to scale. Much more so when you wanted to be left alone up so high. Unfortunately, practice made perfect. Getting this high didn’t pose a challenge to James anymore. Nothing did.

The looper's eyes drifted back to his reflection. His own eyes in particular.

James hadn’t aged a day. Once upon a time, he’d been curious if somehow time shared an effect on his body. In his infant days as a looper. He almost wanted to chuckle at his naivete. This hell would never grant him such a mercy as the gift of age. What was a Loop without a looper. They were one and the same. Two sides of the same coin.

His face was untouched by wrinkles. Hair without a touch of grey. Nearly every part of his entire visage was a lie.

A cruel joke.

Except his eyes, grey as granite. Those two eyes had witnessed the passing of time in a way no member of his species was ever meant to. They alone betrayed the facade of James’ youthful appearance if one were to look close enough.

“I’m old,” James said simply, letting the wind take his words.

More than he knew. The looper had stopped trying to guess his age after he was well past three hundred. That had been… James didn’t know. It felt like an eternity ago, but he hadn’t a clue anymore. Time didn’t exist for him. It was a construct this world had thrown to the wayside.

All of it just blurred together to him.

I'm tired. So tired.

His mind carried too much. Much more than it was intended to. Many a lifetime's worth of days piled into one. The sense of achievement the looper felt over his many centuries, perhaps even a millennium spent learning had faded a long time ago.

“There's so much I can do.” He muttered.

The looper guessed he was probably the single most capable being on the planet at this point. There wasn’t anything he considered beyond his expertise anymore. Besides maybe the system. Every language earth had he could speak fluently, including some dead ones. In any test of martial might James’ was confident he’d win, regardless of size or weight.

Even in a battle of weapons, James was more than proficient with knives, machetes, guns, and a whole litany of other tools for harm. If there were any skill out of his reach, whether it be for distance or simply lack of a teacher, the looper knew he’d be able to learn it with ease given the chance.

After learning so many things his mind had become almost mechanical in efficiency towards them.

But none of it matters. James repeated to himself, staring down at the city below. The people were so small from this high up. So beneath him. Yet that brought James no happiness. Once he would’ve felt pure contempt for the Loop and its denizens. It was easy to hate the Loop.

That was gone now.

James barely felt anything anymore. When he was sane.

Mental instability had plagued him ever since his brain had got bored and decided it needed new. Regardless of how depraved, how horrid, or how destructive it was eventually everything James could think of had become fair game. There were few concrete barriers he wouldn’t cross, and they only made the things that he could do that much more heinous.

Memory was a weird thing. Most of the time James could barely remember any of it. Like he was protecting himself. Sometimes… he remembered. Those were his episodes.

Last time I woke up with a bullet in my shoulder surrounded by bodies in the middle of the street.

He shivered, if only a little. Old as he was, the things James did could still unnerve him if they went far enough.

What’s even the point anymore?

The fight in James had been sapped from his bones. There was just no reason anymore. His hands calloused to bleeding messes by the climb up began to push against the edge. At least he might have the fun of falling for a moment before that was taken away too.

If I close my eyes, it’ll feel like I’m flying.

In that moment as his hands pushed against the edge, James gave in.

For the last time. His feet would carry him no further. The looper accepted that he would be trapped, till the end of the end.

But the feeling of falling never came. The weightlessness was replaced by a firm grip pinching the back of his jacket, keeping him on the building.

“You know, I understand how hard it looks right now. Hope is like that. It’s a steep climb that bleeds you with dread and rarely rewards you with a show of progress. The climb is pain. I won’t lie to you. That climb to hope is never going to stop being pain.” The voice was familiar and distant at the same time.

I know it’s pain. That's why I want to fall. I don’t want to feel this anymore.

James wanted to whip around to see the owner but his body… didn’t budge. The Loop was still. The Loop was still. The looper could hardly believe what he was feeling, but centuries here had made it easy to tell.

The whole word- no, the whole Loop was frozen.

“Giving up is worse. So much worse. You can get out of this James. Trust me, I would know.” The voice sounded like a man, middling between rustic and clear. Deep. So familiar. “But First you need to find you again. The Loop has pushed you so far away from who you were and it’s made you stronger than you ever needed to be. There’s just nothing behind that strength. You need to believe in something again. Hope, justice, vengeance, fury, friendship or family.”

No. That's the same lie I told myself, for so long. It hurts. I won’t lie to myself again. My strength doesn’t mean anything. Belief is far beyond saving me. There is no end, better to be content with the misery.

The voice paused, and when it returned the sound had dwindled. It was less a speaker behind him and more a whisper in his ear. Passing.

“It doesn’t matter what you pick, but you need to find something. Because James Matthew Groves believed. He had faith in things. The Loop took that from you. Take it back.”

James Matthew Groves died the moment the Loop began. I’m just a shell. An echo of him. I can’t take back something I never was.

Again it paused, and when it returned, his ears could barely pick up the words.

“Before the Loop, you believed that despite all the self-hate, you could be saved. You prayed for it. But I’m sorry to tell you, James, that this time. There's no one coming. The only person who can save you is yourself.”

I know no one is saving me. But I’m not strong enough to leave. There is no way to leave. Believing in myself won’t suddenly make me the person I need to be to leave. Believing in others… but they won’t understand. They’re not real. Everyone here is just a puppet put on display to torture me.

Then the world moved again.

James whipped around, hands at the read and knees bent. Ready for a fight. Thoughts of who flickered through his head fast, but that didn’t matter. The core of his being rejected their optimism and advice so rawly that he felt- no he needed to put them down. Otherwise, they would just plague him again with words of hope.

But there was no one there. James blinked a few times but the emptiness didn’t suddenly change. All that was ahead of him was his reflection. The looper hadn’t realised he was smiling, and after touching his mouth he was sure he wasn’t.

But James in the mirror was.

What the fuck? Nothing like this had ever happened to James before. Am I hallucinating? He had before, but they’d never felt this real. Had he finally lost it completely? Gone so far off the rails that even the reality of the Loop had started to blur apart.

“Alright.” James said. “Nope. No. Not messing with any of what you’ve got going on mirror man.”

He turned back towards the edge, then added. “I’m going jump off this building if that’s okay with you. Not that I care. Don’t need to deal with any of the headaches that hallucinating myself is going to induce.”

James didn’t even look down below the building before he jumped. This time no one stopped him and the familiar weightless feeling surrounded him as gravity pulled him towards a much-needed reset.

I’m gonna need gin on the rocks after this. Maybe I should take an “MHL” for old time's sake. Like a going out party for my sanit-

James felt a violent splat as he crashed into the pavement.

Then the world went dark.

*******************

Loop ?

“Soooooo… what’s dying like then?” asked Ben, the auspicious and lanky bartender who considered conspiracy theories a personality trait.

James almost face palmed but just reserved himself to just giving Ben a strange look across the bar. What did he think dying was like? Considering how crazed about aliens and mythical monsters the middle-aged man was, James found it oddly hard to picture him religious.

The looper took a sip of his jin before replying. “Are you asking what happens or what it feels like?”

Ben gave him an assorted look of embarrassment and curiosity as he sorted through glasses, then shrugged once he was done and moved on to serve the mother of all midlife crisis Miranda a margarita. James was the more interesting out of the two customers Ben had mid-afternoon and it pissed Miranda off to no end.

Which had initially been hilarious.

It still kinda is. James realised, taking a sip.

“Both,” Ben replied once he was done.

How honest do I want to be with this? James had found Ben towards the later parts of his Looping life and had quickly become quite the mainstay in the looper's life. He was just gullible enough to truly give some credit to James’ stories of the Loop, but enough of a critical thinker to never make James feel like he was talking about something completely insane.

He was completely insane, but that was beside the point.

“Well, I don’t know much about the former, because when I reset through face to pavement, I’m sort of skinny-dipping death. Just in for a moment then out again. As for the latter?” James' face cringed at the thought of bloody pavement. “Not fun. Would not recommend the dying experience.”

“Okay. I get you reset on death but do you think there's something after?”

“Like do I believe in heaven or hell?”

Ben nodded and it seemed Miranda had finally had enough of being ignored in a conversation she wasn’t a part of. She shot James a nasty look before smiling at Ben and asking in a soft voice that couldn’t hide years of smoking. “Don’t tell me you’re not a believer? Not my Ben. Look all around you. There are so many reasons to be faithful. How could you not have faith?”

James felt dark emotions at the mention of belief and faith but downed it with his gin in one gulp. Now was not the time for an episode. The gin tasted cool on his lips but warmed as it passed into his stomach. When he was outside the Loop, James had hated gin. To be fair, until you had a palette for it, the drink was reasonably flavorless.

Ben held his hands up in surrender after Miranda’s comment. “I’m open to being persuaded.”

“Gods are real,” James said with surety, tapping his glass onto the bar.

Ben got quick to filling it with more of the looper’s favorite gin. The youth gave James a surprised look. As if he were surprised by James’ belief in god. When the glass was minted with new ice and fine gin Ben questioned his answer.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Why?”

Maybe he valued the looper’s idea of the world more than he led on. Maybe Ben just didn’t picture James to be religious.

And he’d be right.

No god or heavenly thing with a speck of divine deserved even a fimble of James’ respect. Not after abandoning him in the Loop.

“Process of elimination,” James said simply. “I live in a world where the day repeats. Everyday. Something is doing this and that something either commands our reality or time itself. It might not call itself a god, but from most’s perspective, it would be one.”

James chose to leave out the system and how it was responsible for whatever was going on. Which meant whatever was responsible for the system was the real culprit. Or maybe the system’s a sentient thing. He had no way of knowing and he no longer cared. At one point he’d tried to beg the system for help or at the very least question it.

But those golden words were always the same.

“Have you ever tried to leave the Loop?” Ben asked, breaking James concentration. He heard Miranda grumble as she sipped her margarita.

Cougars are weird. Then again, James knew how age could make one lonely. I suppose I can’t judge her. She’s middle-aged while I’m ancient. Huh… I wonder if I’m anywhere near two thousand yet?

That would be cool James decided. Being older than a calendar was definitely a cool thing.

“Of course, I’ve tried to leave,” James said through sips. “It doesn’t work. There isn’t just some door and I’ve tried everything I can think of. I’ve tried everything you could think of Ben, and no. Before you ask the time loop isn’t a localised distortion of time akin to how some black holes slow time. At least, not that I can find out.”

“How did you know- oh right.” Ben slapped his forehead. “Duhh, time looper. We’ve had this conversation before. But wait, did you try every direction?”

“Ben. I spent six months learning to fly a plane, then spent at least a year figuring out how to steal the biggest one I could find, and still came up short. I flew to Spain. Oh, and don’t even get me started on space.”

“Now I really want to know about space.”

James took in Ben’s giddy expression as he nearly dropped a bottle of tequila on himself. Maybe he’d rambled a bit too much to the bartender. The kid was getting excited and he hadn’t even finished his third drink.

Come to think of it, I’m normally not this… easygoing. He felt like he should be at arms after what the happened in the last Loop. Weirdly, he was the opposite. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders letting out all his pent-up feeling. Even if the voice was in his own head.

The looper stood and downed his drink, then pointed to the cheapest forty percent bottle of vodka Kinderman’s had. The bar was classy but in simple ways. It still had cheap liquor when James needed it.

“I’ll take that,” James said, then dropped a wad of yellow notes as thick as his finger on the counter. “But no more questions for today Ben.”

Ben looked hesitant but eventually gave in and swapped the money for the bottle. That made James smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he had. It was just funny to see the young man so torn between a couple hundred dollar tip and conspiracy.

It’s a pity he’s a Spark. If James could change that fact he could but he was certain there wasn’t a way. It was probably what the young man would want anyway. To see the golden words and be chosen. Little did Ben know he was being condemned.

For just a second, James felt like he needed to tell Ben. To warn him. Then his eyes drifted to his bandaged arm and what lay beneath it. The infinity he carved into his left forearm was one of James’ brighter moments. The act of carving it was a habit that helped fade away the episodes in which he didn’t. But it also served as a reminder. An ouroboros. An infinity. A never-ending loop that was his life.

A single light in the abyss of his mind. His Waypoint.

What's the point of a warning that will just be wiped away? James mood dimmed at that thought, and he shortly exited the bar, grabbing a dry rag along with his bottle of cheap spirit. The day was turning to dusk outside the little bar, and everyone around him buzzing with energy over their doom.

Not often did James’ feet carry much purpose anymore.

But tonight was different.

He had a date. For old time's sake.

******************

The looper waded his way through the rows of people sitting inside the park, all trying to find just the right spot to view the spectacle that was going to take place. Tents and camping chairs littered the place in a rather disorderly fashion. Families strewn about all over the place along with dates and friends groups.

If one watched very carefully among the crowd, however, they would spot a few oddities. People who didn’t have that stood rigid while everyone else shared a playful atmosphere. Almost all of them were away from the larger crowds and close enough to an exit, but not too close. They all stared at the sky, and just waited, unlike everyone else.

One could have taken them for studious sky watchers, if they didn’t know the darker undertone. James had figured out long ago that they were Sparks. He’d interrogated enough of them around the city to realise that they didn’t know much more than he did.

They’d just received the golden words notice earlier in the day. Along with a notification informing them about the Invitiations up for grabs, like the one James had earned.

It’s all a little too convenient if you ask me. The fact that there were no police officers cordoned off a lot of the city, but left places like this open smelled like foul play to him.

Nonetheless, it didn’t concern him anymore. When was the last time I even thought about these kind of things? Decades at least. The looper caught there thoughts at the neck and extinguished them, instead focusing on his own idea or rest and recovery.

Now where is-

A hand waved at him from among the sea of folding chairs and blankets on grass, belonging to a familiar head with blonde hair.

Ah, right. Of course, they’re here.

The placid smirk James had permanently plastered onto his face slipped a little. The eyes turned a little, feeling a ebb of nostalgia that pulled tightly. The looper's hands unconsciously grabbed at his chest, as if to catch the feeling.

Then it was gone.

And the sudden emptiness became as clear as James had ever felt it.

He had thought his heart well and truly buried, but the longing to wave back was strong. So strong James couldn’t resist, in spite of himself.

Just for a little. It couldn’t hurt to socialise, just a little.

James trudged through the crowd and found Jake, Amy and Jess together on the grass. His eyes flickered to Amy’s wrist for a moment before moving back to the group in general. Of course, she didn’t have the bracelet. Jake didn’t have the money for it without him.

“Yo, Jazz.” Jake greeted him with a grin. “Did you forget to charge your phone again?

He must mean because I ignored his messages. It was almost routine at this point. The whole “date” thing had become just another bad memory for James. Jake was lounging on a blanket with Amy who was wearing a fake smile while Jess was off to the side of them, shifting with nerves.

She was a Spark after all. One that had received the mysterious golden words earlier in the day.

James' face lifted to his usual placid smile.

“Michael broke my phone. What are you guys doing here?” James asked, scanning the crowd around them.

They chatted for a bit and Jake went ahead and introduced Jess and Amy to him again while James pretended to not know anything about that. Slipping into the old version of himself felt simple on paper, but the side glances he got from Jake made it clear it was not.

The problem with Jake was simply that he knew the old James far too well to not notice that almost apathetic boredom behind his passive tone. Try as hard as he might, the looper had never managed to truly hide. Maybe subconsciously he didn’t want to. Like some weird cry for help from deep within.

“You’ve been at a bar this whole time?” Jake asked.

“Don’t worry. I just wanted to get my mind off things.” James answered, scratching the back of his neck.

“How’d you know we were here?” Jess asked, staring at him strangely.

He tried to place the feeling before almost face-palming. She’s suspicious. Of course, she was. When freaky golden words told you to kill another person or else, paranoia was par for the course.

“I’m actually here on a date,” James answered with a wry smile.

Jake’s eyes widened.

“For real?”

“Swear on my heart,” James replied with a nod.

And he’s not even going to see it coming. Idly his hands moved to the packed gravel in his jacket pocket. That jackass was in for a hell of a night. He could see a reply stewing on Jess’s lips but it fell short as her eyes shifted to the sky above.

The looper turned to gaze at the familiar sight with the group, face scrunching in disgust parallel to their awe. The brilliant hues of azure painted across the sky streaking past and leaving cracks in the sky. James could almost feel the heat emanating from those mighty meteors burning up his planet's atmosphere.

Like a crescendo of horror, the streaks started growing faster and faster to the surprise of all around him. The nervous energy in the park grew, then quickly expanded into panic when the fires stayed and started spreading in the sky. Masses of screaming resounded and the park blurred into frantic bodies moving, stumbling, running and even crawling.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” James whispered, drifting away from his shocked best friend and towards another.

Like most others, he didn’t notice James. Not because of the panic, but because his gaze was drawn to the crack slowly forming in the sky. It was fixed there. A bull spotting red.

James didn’t bother to sneak up behind him. He just strolled up to the armored man covered in black as a giant abyss opened in the sky above.

The looper waved.

Hey Vog, been a while since I’ve had a look at you.

The eye in the sky was as terrifying as ever.

A flurry of golden words appeared in front of his eyes.

[Congratulations, you have been witnessed and your Spark has been deemed worthy of the System’s touch.]

[Congratulations, you’ve defeated an Invited Spark and earned the rights associated]

[Congratulations, you’ve completed the first invitation {Defeat a Spark}]

[Quest reward for {Defeat a Spark} have been logged. The System has melded the branches of your potential and founded your Source]

James poked at the golden words idly standing behind the armored man, tapping the “Defeat a Spark” part like it was a button he could expand on. Nothing happened.

Eh. Always worth a try. Now, for the main attraction.

“Been a while, Nicholas,” James announced, tapping the armored man on the shoulder.

His response was an immediate twist and punch throw at James face which he deftly avoided by leaning back. The wind brushed against his nose and it almost tickled. Nicholas, his armored attacker, moved to grab James and the looper awkwardly sidestepped him with his right foot. Then tripped him with his left.

Nicholas didn’t crash to the ground like a normal person would, instead steadying himself with an outstretched hand and swiftly rising to his feet a few meters from James. Grass stained his knees as the armored attacker shifted his body slowly, with a guarded posture.

“You know me?” Nicholas asked, his voice muffled through the mask. His English was rough.

James regarded him with his plastered placid smile.

“Better than you’d think.” The looper replied in Greek. “You're one of the few I don’t feel bad about.”

Nicholas held his stare for a long moment then his hand moved to the side and unsheathed a familiar machete. It gleamed with a sharpness James knew personally. In all full black combat gear with a tall muscled build like a body builder, Nicholas presented quite the imposing image. Standing in complete contrast to his surroundings, he held no fear. Only complete assurance in himself.

It must’ve been like a nightmare for Jess when this coward came after her. She would’ve been so confused in those moments. James remembered vividly just looking at the brute.

“You seem sure of yourself,” Nicholas stated in his rough voice. There was some kind of twisted respect mixed in the words James didn’t enjoy. “But you’re not of the brotherhood.”

“This brotherhood must be really important to you for you to mention it so often Nic,” James noted.

He’d roughly put together what Nicholas was talking about. It was one of those online doomsday prepper groups, except far more cult-like than normal. The Brotherhood of Fall sounded far more intimidating than it actually was in James' humble opinion, but they clearly knew something of what was coming with the meteors.

Long before they actually arrived.

James had once cared about that little mystery.

“Are you predator or prey, boy?” Nicholas asked, switching to much cleaner Greek and completely ignoring his comment.

James shrugged with his placid smile.

“You’re welcome to find out.”

They measured each other for a moment. There was no silence with the background of screaming and shouts. Only a few meters separated them. One with a blade. One without. Nicholas seemed to like his odds. He charged in quick steps that went against his size, bursting towards James with a wide swing towards center mass.

Smart.

The brute took the fastest and most assured route he could to dispatch someone he considered to be possibly dangerous. James felt it deserved at least a little commendation. Not mercy.

Before the brute was upon him James drew a pistol from his coat in a fluid and practiced motion. He could see Nicholas’s eyes widen at the gun in his hand. Then the looper aimed and fired. Numbing recoil burst in his hand and ringing exploded in his ears as James shot Nicholas in the knees.

He crumpled just short of James with a groan of pain. Nicholas' face smashed into the grass as he skidded. The brute still tried to swing at James so he tactfully kicked the blade out of his grasping hands.

Then he squatted in front of the man, smiling.

“Belief is a strange thing, you know,” James mumbled, more to himself than the man beneath him. “I believed I was above things like this once. I like to think that means I believed in my morality.”

Nicholas groaned in protest as James tugged his mask off. The looper kindly reminded him who was in charge by tapping his iron against the man’s skull.

“But now I realise how silly that was. Morality isn’t nearly as rigid as the younger me thought. Certainly not something worthy of faith. It’s just too frail a ground to stand on, don’t you think?”

“Just… get it… over with,” Nicholas said, slurring even his Greek mother tongue.

James ignored him. Slowly he withdrew his bottle of cheap spirit from his coat, along with the rag he’d stolen from Kindermans. He popped the bottle open and scrunched his nose at the acrid smell, then started packing gravel from his pocket into it. He made sure Nic could see it before he continued.

“I’m going to be frank with you, Nic. You’re a bad person. Most people’s morality might shift between different shades of grey, but you?” James tapped on his mask. “You’re pitch black.”

His hands worked in an efficient motion, forcing clumps of gravel into the bottle of spirit and down to the very bottom of the bottle. Once he was done, James capped the bottle with the rag he’d stolen.

“I can’t tell you for certain whether I believe all good people deserve good things. But I can tell you for certain that bad people, people that hurt me…” James' placid smile dropped into a flat, dead expression. Without any hint of joy or sorrow. His eyes with as much care for Nic’s suffering as the gravel in his bottle. “...They deserve all the worst things my wicked mind can conjure. I believe that you, wholeheartedly, have this coming to you Nicholas. I know the pleasure it brings me to watch you squirm is so far from what a good person should feel, but I don’t care.”

Then he pulled out the final piece to his checkmate. A lighter.

“You deserve to burn Nicholas, and I’ll enjoy every second of it.”

***************

Loop ?

James watched Nicholas burn for longer than he’d ever admit to another. His eyes stayed fixed on the flailing first. Then the slow clawing. Then the eventually motionless mass Nicholas had become, bar the flames licking away his body.

They stayed fixed on the body even as the entire world fell away, collapsing only to be reset again.

The Loop might be a good thing. James pondered. His thoughts floated between one and another much more clearly here. In the abyss, he felt nothing at all. It was a true elapse of everything, including emotion.

Maybe it’s better if I never leave.

The world outside didn’t need someone like James. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find peace after this. If he was let out and introduced into the real world again, what would that mean for everyone around him? What would happen if his actions started having consequences again? James was in equal parts a learned scholar and capable warrior as he was a deranged lunatic and a psychopathic killer.

In the void, he had no delusions about himself. The nature of the place wouldn’t allow them. Emotion fell away in place of cruel, calculating logic. James enjoyed helping people as much as he enjoyed making them suffer. To him, cruelty and kindness were just flavors of the same thing. Excitement. Entertainment. Ecstasy. Entropy.

All of it painted a clear picture to him.

I’m a ticking time bomb. A walking disaster waiting to happen the moment his mind slipped. The moment he tricked himself into thinking his actions had no consequence again. Being trapped in his own personal hell might’ve turned him into a person who deserved it.

There was a time when I didn’t deserve this. But maybe that time had passed.

There was a time when I might’ve had a way out. But maybe his actions had sealed that exit shut.

There was a time when…

But all those times had passed.

Now it was all gone.

James felt, for the thousandth time, the sorrow of losing oneself. The pain of your own identity crumbling to dust.

Then the world went dark.