A Time-Worshipper wriggles his way across vacant sandstone streets. He’s a squirm, a worn-like creature no longer than a span, clad in a monk’s brown robe. Clouds of dust and unyielding heat are his only accomplices as he moves stoically, seriously, punctually.

The entire Citadel is a skeleton. A very different story from just a decade ago — or, as they would put it, about 28 sextillion adi.

Mere feet above, grand halls of stone and countless minerals lie vacant. Shelves of libraries have been cleared. Not even a scrap of paper or a half-empty flash drive has been left behind. Wormhole tubes have all been terminated. Shadows on walls and floors are all that remain of statues and artifacts since evacuated.

Ornate stone frescoes glide by him, telling the story of this world. For millennia, the Time-Worshippers held this planet as their See, the seat of their faith. Many billions of years ago, the squirms first evolved on a planet much like this. The original has since faded with time, but the squirms and their monopoly on wormhole travel have remained. And some took their faith with them.

As he enters a beaten plaza, he crosses paths with others. Some are dressed in black robes, the attire of the elders. They move in unison through the rotting wooden poles of the market stalls.

All ilk of creature once pilgrimaged to this world. They flooded these common areas at ground level, where marketplaces turned some of the best profits in the galaxy and bishopric-cops regularly apprehended ne’er-do-wells. All that remains are rotted wooden posts and dilapidated stone floors.

As they ascend a ramp, more monks begin filing in. One of them is a human. Despite being several times larger, the human manages to keep in step with the others.

They walk past exuberant chambers where choirs, prayers, and public performances were held. Beside them stand the many rooms of the Academy, where physics, cosmology, and the ‘pataphysics of time were taught. Not even gum under the side of a desk remains.

Further up still, the oracles once sat in their isolate chambers, living out their eccentric lives of teaching and prognosticating. One such oracle, the last residing here, leaves his cell and joins the crowd. This squirm wears a white robe, a stark contrast from the clothes of his peers.

Many oracles lived like mad scientists, scrambled writings and equations surrounding them on chalkboards, flanked by piles of books and papers. Others were more austere, opting instead on lighting a stick of incense and listening to the whir of the Chronometer.

As the robed multitude finish their ascent up the stone façade, they too listen to the Chronometer. Ninety-three of them line the terrace, mostly squirms, with two humans, two goatfolk, and an amœboid also present. The white-clad squirm stands foremost, seeming to lead the others on.

The device sits just meters below. But its whirs grow fainter and fainter with each passing moment.

What looks from the outside to be a massive sphere is, in fact, the universe’s largest and most accurate clock. It counts adi - the time it takes for electrons to cloud around a newly birthed atom. About 105 quadrillion of these pass in one second.

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In its center sits a chamber whose counting mechanisms are known only to a dozen or so people. Pilgrims and tourists would come to see the other 146 rings of this celestial clock as they count out every other corresponding unit of time — ranging from atom collisions to the current age of the universe.

The monks are reminded of those swinging spheres as they see the sky beyond. They trace the slow movements of the other celestial bodies, counting the very seconds, nanoseconds, even adi to the moment.

Rigorous training make them constantly aware of the passage of time. It’s not just a causal thing, after all; it’s a religious obligation. Some train to bring order into people’s lives, including their own. Many train to better their work as astrophysicists, engineers, and technicians.

Their trainings also give them a glimpse into the future. Be it through endless calculations or ‘mystical insights,’ they strive to predict the predictable to the exact moment.

It also makes them aware, bitter-sweetly, that everything must come to an end.

The Time-Worshippers knew for quite some time the Citadel would need to move elsewhere. It happened half a dozen times before, and it will happen again.

Centuries of politics and attempted schisms eventually ended with another site being found — a young, lush planet with rain forests, rolling plains, and coarse but plentiful mountains.

Within a decade, the clergy migrated, the pilgrims followed, and a new Citadel with its own, soon-to-be-unrivaled Chronometer was constructed.

Some, of the many millions of Time-Worshipping clergy, chose to stay behind. They couldn’t let their spiritual home go out alone. The torch may have passed, but the old keepers still remain.

As the suns inch closer together, the white-robed squirm in the center begins a rhythmic chant. The rest are soon to follow.

Uncountably large adi pass.

They’re reminded of all the history this Citadel holds. The first human convert, marked proudly by a human handprint near the Citadel’s gates... several attacks from outsiders and heretics... the signing of several treaties, ensuring Pax Galacticas that lasted for centuries...

A few lesser clergy begin crying. Their superiors console them. Stoic as ever, the white-robed oracle continues keeping time and rhythm, focused one-pointedly on the Chronometer.

The stars spiral closer and closer together. The heat radiating is immense. Chunks of previously absorbed planets prepare to blast back to whence they came.

The chanting, too, increases in intensity. The oracle, as do many of the monks, seems to enter an otherworldly trance. They all feel a connection to those that came before. Not an emotional one, but a physical one.

It’s not at all possible, and yet, they can see and feel every other that has done the same as them. The ‘Chant of the End,’ as it is known, evokes images to all those present. They see those reciting it by the deathbeds of beloved relatives. They hear it in the anguished cries of those dying in foxholes and in the prayers of those on death row. They feel it in the ritual dances of wakes and weddings.

The whirring slows down further and further...

Seemingly, the world expands around them, warping to reveal the forms of all the others that have chanted in this manner. They see their forefathers chant it as Citadels of the past vanished to wars, solar engulfment, and nuclear winter, among others — a scene stretching all the way back to the legendary death of their Founder, Eulhard.

A wave of plasma bursts forth from the colliding stars.

The chanting finally comes to an end. The ninety-seven monks stand in meditative silence, awaiting their fates.

The Chronometer counts its last freshly minted adi.