My name is Samuel Heart. I'm a bit of an odd-job man. I suppose you could say a private eye.

Or, well... I was. I'm not much of anything now. Nothing is.

...

I looked down at the body laid out before me. Its markings were for the most part nothing special. Parts of it were disjointed, like it had been taken apart and reassembled. This was not a surprise at this point, of course. If anything, it would be a surprise to see something different. It glistened in the city's neon hellscape, just another one among many.

One thing did differentiate this one, however. It had clearly been cut by a vibro-saber. On the front of it was a cut in the shape of the letter J. Disjointed, of course. At this point, it was hard to recognize the letter. But it was there, all the same.

Reaching down, I dusted off the neck port and plugged myself in to the body's memories. If they had seen James personally, they may have a hint to where he is. It was a long shot, but it's not like I had much in the way of better leads to go on. I reasoned that if none of the living people I had talked to could be of use, perhaps I needed to bring back the dead. And so for the last several days, I plugged myself into whichever marked ones I could find, one after the other.

This part I disliked. Plugging into someone's mind was like losing yourself in a sense. When your mind links with another set of memories, you can become confused as to which self is yours for a moment. They say that if you do it too often you can even end up with this problem permanently, ending up confusing your memories with those of other people, or even having your sense of self lost entirely. It is even more dangerous if they are already dead, since there is no separate psyche to parse the sets of memories from each other. It is like staring into an unlit hall. One that goes on endlessly.

To make it worse, as of the last few weeks, the problem began to manifest in a wholly new way. The minds I tried to obtain information from recently all tended to be scrambled. The information from them was scattered and incoherent. And it didn't seem like someone had erased their memories either. In fact, it seemed nothing like any prior issue I knew of. It was more like their memories had never existed in the first place. Linking to them was even more painful than normal. For a moment, it would feel like you cease to exist entirely. With no coherent memories to go on, you can lose sight of even being human. Returning from this state of voidness was difficult with nothing to bounce yourself off of. Every time felt like death. And waking up was like a return from a thousand-year journey.

I took a deep breath. There was a flash of light as I connected. And then... nothingness.

I woke up some time later. It was still night, so it was difficult to tell how much time had passed. Once again, I got nothing useful from the process. And once again I lost myself.

I... who was I? What was I doing? Who am I looking for?

My legs gave out, and I slumped to the ground in a haze. Looking around me, the area feels familiar, but I find myself unable to place anything. I feel anxious, like I don't have time for confusion, but there's nothing I can do. So I rest on the ground, looking up at the stars above me. They look different from normal. There is something in the sky. Or maybe... something that isn't there that is supposed to be.

Gradually I become more lucid.

Eventually I regained my footing, steadying myself slowly. I looked over at the body again. Jacking into its memories isn't helpful. Every time I do this, it takes me longer to come back. And I get no closer to solving the mystery than when I started. Even if I found anything, it's not clear if I could do anything with the information. Not by myself. Its not like I can inform the authorities. There are no authorities.

The governance of the city was none too spectacular on a good day. But whatever one wanted to say about it, your time for doing so had passed. All of that was gone now. Everything was gone now.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

----------------------------------------

I jolted into awareness. Or, well... semi-awareness. It was a cold, rainy day at my office. Well, it was also generous to call it an office. It was a room at least. Or most of one. People would meet me here for jobs. In actuality, my own living space was just a small room at the back. I hoped that people didn't notice. They probably did.

Calling it detective work might be generous. Much of it was more like bounty hunting. Law enforcement couldn't be relied on, especially not in this part of the city. People had to band together to form their own communities, and watch over their own goings on. Naturally, this didn't work well. And naturally, it led to situations law enforcement wasn't overly interested in. It was within this space that I operated.

I'm not one for criminal undertakings. I try to make sure I only help with things that actually deserve to be done. Having scruples doesn't help your wallet, but it can help your conscience if you are lucky. But it's not like I had much in the way of things to spend money on anymore anyways.

Still in a daze, I looked around the room. My eyes came to rest on the picture on my desk. The picture was of Ai and her daughter Chie. For a time, they had been my central reason to live. They had been in a bad position, having been left on their own after an accidental death. My own life was none too positive in the past either, although I suppose it could certainly have been worse. We had found each other by chance when I was on vacation at a facility away from the city. I had never spent much time dating for long before then. Barely even had much of anyone you could call a close friend except for my old partner, James. Not for any particular reason, I just never tended to go out of my way to find people.

At the time, their presence in my life was like a breath of fresh air. Even in nature, you can't escape the problems of modern civilization, but you can at least downplay them for awhile. Ai told me that with me she was happy for the first time after the accident. And Chie quickly became happy to want me in their life as her surrogate guardian. Though it was something I had little experience with, I was happy to try to take a more intimate role for a time. Before the trip was even over, we already all considered each other a permanent staple in each other's life. And in this period, I began to totally reimagine what it meant to have the life I was living.

Unfortunately, both of us were caught up in current business, and this affected our ability to be together. Though we lived far enough apart that it limited how often we could see each other, I had still seen them several more times after this, all which were times associated with positive feelings. Though in a sense, it was also bittersweet, due to being so sparse in comparison to the initial trip. But time moved on, and we only grew closer over the next year. And my entire life had now shifted to looking forward to when we could be together permanently.

But... all good things must come to an end. Suddenly, and without warning, her and her daughter both died in an electrical fire. Funny irony that they died in a way so similar to their lost family. I looked into it to see if there was any foul play at work, but there didn't seem to be. Things like this just tend to happen. Fairly often nowadays, because a lot of the infrastructure is worn down. And lord knows that people like us were not the priority in terms of who was having it updated for them.

So I became once again alone.

There is a funny thing about returning to a state one had left behind. Before, being alone was normal to me; not something I was cognizant of. But after you find true companionship, it is not the same. You aren't drinking the same coffee. You aren't walking in the same halls. You aren't stepping over the same river. Are you even the same person?

They say that identity is a social experience. Who you are is, in a large way, defined by others. By difference. This is never felt stronger than when you lose someone. It can be felt like losing yourself. This is, to a degree, literal. When someone was so much of your life, who are you now?

Time passed. A year. Two. Three.

I shared my feelings with James, but he was of little comfort. He was never good at consolation, since as far back as when I met him at Ouroboros. I can't blame him. I doubt I would be either. He had little positive experience with that type of situation, and so could only offer hazy platitudes. I knew what he was thinking was likely even more cynical than he came off. But I suppose I should appreciate that he kept that part to himself.

Eventually, James had been forced to move for a situation in another part of the city. We kept in touch at first, but his business increased, and so this was becoming rarer. And so in my office, I was even further alone. I wouldn't say I was depressed. My occupational works kept me busy. And from them, I had gathered a bit of a positive reputation in the area.

But nothing I could take home. When I closed my doors behind me, I was once again nobody. A body with no identity. A mask with no face beneath. Like an automaton in construction that stands there lifelessly – its body built, but no identity yet inscribed to it.

Lost in my thoughts though I was, I was snapped suddenly out of my reverie to the sound of some kind of outside commotion. Getting up to glance out the window, I could see a crowd of people beginning to form, gathering around some unseen object of interest. Though from my suboptimal vantage point, I was unable to see what it was they were observing. So I quickly threw on my coat and went outside to learn more.

Once among the crowd, I began to push my way through to the center. When arriving, I found the gruesome image of a dead body laid out on the pavement, but in a distorted shape that was hard to make sense of. After spending a moment to take in the scene, I looked around to observe the responses of the surrounding people. I could see that no one else was about to take charge of any kind of inspection, so I opted to take the role on myself, noting no overt complaints from the crowd. Some of said crowd had already even begun to disperse as quickly as they came, no doubt hoping to stay under the radar if there was a killer still in the area.

I crouched down and began to examine the body. It was a cyborg body, so there was little blood. But the brain of the person inside was no doubt dead. The pieces of it had been sliced and laid out in a way that was reminiscent of someone trying to reconstruct something poorly. Like a child's block man they took little care to balance the proportions of. It had a wavy feel, like it conveyed something eroding under the power of the waves, and into the endless ocean. And in the center, there was a distinct curved slash.

I considered whether the law would even take interest in such a case. Even in this area of the city, murder could sometimes get attention. Though whether the authorities would remember it a week later was another matter entirely. At any rate, this fell under my own concerns and was on my own doorstep no less.

After examining the outside, and beginning to go through the body's effects, I quickly discovered a note written and folded in its inner coat pocket. Before opening it, I looked through the other pockets to see if there was anything else of interest. But nothing of note could be found. Opening the note, I looked over it. But it wasn't long to read. It was just a single line.

“Nothing is real. Meet me. -J”

My heart sank from seeing this and realizing the significance of the mark on the body. James used to sign papers with just his first initial. And like the note, the body was marked with the same letter J. I can't say I could recognize his handwriting by sight. But this body was left outside my own place. My mind raced, questioning if this was really a message for me in particular. In this line of work, you always had to be ready to act with lethal force when the situation requires it. But at a glance, it was obvious that this was not killing in self-defense. Was this killing to send a message? Would James really do this?

I suspected I had a long road ahead of me. So after giving myself time to calm down, I began to question those who remained around the scene.

----------------------------------------

I had braced myself for the probability of dealing with more than one murder. But no one could have been prepared for what I was about to witness. The following weeks felt like a surreal nightmare. At the time, I had no clue how big this situation was going to become. Nor how fast it was going to escalate. This didn't stop as any mere murder or even serial murder. Assuming I was even still dealing with the same case at this point, it spiraled faster than I could even process into an apocalyptic crisis.

Even in the beginning, new bodies were being discovered multiple times daily. Always in a similar way. Always with the letter J carved onto them. At first, law enforcement paid little interest. Not when it was merely people from the slums dying. But it quickly became wide enough to draw even their attention. And so, reluctantly, I was sharing with them what I knew. But, with little evidence to go on, they dismissed the idea that I might know someone related to the events. By the end of week one, a hundred and eight people had been killed in total.

But then, it changed. The bodies started being found all over. But these ones had no letter J. They were generally found distorted and warped. Sometimes even stuck in a wall, like they straight up ignored its existence. And at this point... the deaths started increasing exponentially. Near the middle of week two, over a thousand people were found this way in a single day. By two days later, it was over fifty thousand. It only increased from there. If they paid little attention to me before, they were even less likely to now. They had long since abandoned the idea that this could be the work of a single person. In fact, it was happening so quickly that it was feared no one would have the time to discover what it was before it wiped out most of society.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Whatever was happening was far beyond the ability of any government to stop. By midway through week three, there were, for all practical purposes, no governments. Overnight, what little we had of society was now all but gone entirely. People would be found dead anywhere and everywhere, and even now, no one could say why. So many people were dead that basic aspects of society were breaking down and becoming unable to function. Because too many of the people who ran these disparate aspects had died suddenly, and people had no time and eventually even no inclination to replace them. Bodies began to litter the streets. It had been days since anyone had even bothered trying to clean them.

Those left alive had doubts how long they would remain this way. At the point over half of society had died, people gave up even pretending that it was going to stop or that they were likely to be spared. You didn't even have to be that worried about being robbed as you went about your way during the collapse, since there was now so many abandoned homes that anyone could loot whatever they wanted with little resistance. Although you may still be hassled by people with less savory interests.

And through this all, I continued on. What else did I have to do? I couldn't shake the idea that this was all tied to James somehow. Even after the deaths had increased, I eventually noticed that some still appeared with the letter J carved into them. Though at this point this was a mere drop in the bucket.

I could no longer expect help from anyone else. What was left of society had degenerated to people worried about basic survival. Many didn't go outside, thinking that cutting themselves off from everything would save them. So far, it seemed that it did not. Apocalyptic cults had become mainstream, trying to reestablish what little control they had under such circumstances. Many were suicide cults. But at this point, how much difference did it even make? They had not long to live regardless.

I thought on this.

But I quickly shook back to attention, thinking I had best not waste any more time. Looking up, I could see that even the buildings were dissolving now. As if their purpose for being was ending as the karmic destiny of humanity came to a close. The one in front of me had a broken neon sign; its text glitching and fluctuating unintelligibly as the structure it was connected to faded away. One of many buildings that were trailing off, being absorbed without protest into the boundless sky.

To be sure, I had obvious doubts that one person could do this. But if James wasn't behind it, what was his relation to it? Was he trying to send a message? Was it for me in particular?

I considered that I had been approaching the issue from the wrong angle. I had been trying to find out how this could be caused, and where I should go to stop it. But there was little reason to do what I had been doing thus far. I wasn't called to follow so that I could wander abandoned government bases, seeing what ill-gotten equipment could have been purposed negatively in some unforeseen way. There was too many of them, and it had so far proven to be a waste.

I closed my eyes to reflect. I thought back to the time we first met. I couldn't say why, but I suspected this line of thought was followed by him as well. He had sent the message to me in particular. This means he knew that I would be able to find him. This means that I would know where to go.

And there was only one place this could be.

----------------------------------------

I arrived at the abandoned industrial district, outside the Ouroboros facility. It was here that I first met James. And I had a feeling it was soon to become the last place I met him as well. Looking around, I could tell that the place didn't have long for the world. I supposed at this point that I didn't either.

There was a long ledge leading in. From here, you could look over a large chunk of the city. Although the city was quickly turning into ruins, one had to admit it was still rather beautiful. I pondered on the fact that I hadn't thought about this in awhile. It felt like forever. The buildings that were dissolving were trailing listlessly up into the sky. And among them, you could still see the cityscape, merging together like waves in a neon ocean.

I waited for a moment, to soak in the scene before me, but I didn't have long to dawdle. So, turning away from the sacred light, I descended into the darkness below.

The floor rang loud beneath my boots. The facility wasn't quite outside, but wasn't quite inside. It had been abandoned long ago, as industrialism had moved on. Places like this were common for urban exploration and salvaging. Although the things of the most substantial use would have been taken, they were still full of old scrap that could sustain people mining it for a long time.

Taking in the scene of the ruins, clearly this place wasn't actually tied to any kind of global apocalypse. It didn't look active at all. I wondered what it was I was even searching for.

But, come what may, I knew what I would find. He was here. I knew this much for certain.

I looked up.

I saw James ahead of me.

He was alone. No machinery. No weapons of mass destruction. It was just him - sitting on the floor in a meditative pose. And one vibro-saber laying against the wall next to him.

He spoke quietly, without even looking up from the reverie he was resting in.

“Hello, Samuel.”

I spoke back, unsure how to begin the conversation.

“Hello... yourself.”

I paused, thinking. And spoke again.

“It's been awhile.”

James looked up for a bit, as if lost in thought.

“No, that's not quite right.”

Looking at him, my face betrayed my confusion. He spoke again.

“This may come as a surprise to you, Samuel. But this is actually the first time we have met.”

This made little sense to me, of course. But it's not like much had made sense in the last few weeks anyways. So once again, I waited for him to continue on. He smiled, noting my patience.

“For all my life, short though it has been, I have been haunted by a single dream. In this dream, I am right here... right now...

“Fate has brought us together, you and I. And I'm glad. I don't think I would be able to handle this alone. But... we can face the void together.”

He looked at me, changing his tone.

“Do you remember the day we first met?”

I nodded, slowly this time. He continued on.

“What if I told you... that wasn't a memory... but a premonition. You have been looking forward your entire life to this moment. It had been carved onto you from the very instant of your existence.”

His claim didn't sound very believable. But at this point, it was hard to call anything unbelievable. But it was more than that. I wouldn't know what to call it. Something like an intuition.

I took a few moments to consider this.

“Go on.”

He stood up and gestured with his hands.

“Tell me, Samuel. Do you know what a Boltzmann brain is?”

“I can't say that I do.”

“Well then, allow me to enlighten you.

“There is an important concept in physical cosmology which says that our universe as we understand it is... how should I put it... rather... statistically implausible. In a sense, it shouldn't really exist. There are many parameters that would have to have particularly precise values in order for it to take coherent structure. For it to have a true past in the way we have observed.

“But... this universe was not the only possibility. Within the staggering scope of infinity, there are many structures that could have taken shape. Many things that are more plausible than reality as we witness it. But what if... these things are not merely hypothetical? What if, instead of our universe, this is what actually occurred? In our past?”

“I don't follow,” I responded. Although this was beginning to become less true.

“A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesis for something that is considered to be much more likely than our universe. A Boltzmann brain is an unstable structure that emerges from pure chaos. This structure, from the chaos of empty space, forms at random into a shape capable of processing tangible thought. Within it sparks the genesis of mind. And within this mind... memories. Memories of order. Of reality. Of being. Memories that connect to each other to try to make sense of the chaos they find themselves in. But it is not there for long. Only the blink of an eye.”

My stomach fell. I was starting to suspect what was coming next.

“This is our world, Samuel. We have no past. No history. No future. From our internal perspective, this world only came into being three weeks ago. Though I suppose in the universe outside, it has not even been a second. That is... if such a thing as a second, or even time itself truly exists there.

“But this world cannot last for long. The push that structured it into an ordered simulacra is breaking down. You can see it around you. In the end, nothing will remain. As if we had never been. Beneath it all... there is only the void.”

His tone softened.

“Causality has no meaning for us anymore. This is why I brought you here. Because I have been haunted by this memory. We grew up together, you and I. But of course... in order to be able to do that, we would have first had to exist. We only have right now. This moment.”

I had been staring up at the stars for some time while listening to his explanation. I thought back over my mistaken assurance that he must be related to the world's end somehow. But of course, now that all felt very silly.

At this point, I had no reason to doubt his words. It's not that I believed him per se. But that I felt it. That with my inner eye, I could now grasp it for myself. I reflected on what it meant for my life to be an illusion. A self-imposed ordering structure designed to make reality have a linear flow. It was hard for me to accept. But then again, it wouldn't be easy for anyone.

I thought back further over my own life. In the few weeks I had existed, it hadn't occurred to me whether the world I lived in really made sense in the way I remembered it. The events that composed my life's memories seemed to follow logically one after the other. But were they really connected? Was I just trying to force a logical chain through the chaos of randomness? What would it mean for this chain to truly link one moment to the next?

But despite all these thoughts going through my head, I came down from this high, realizing that there was still one loose end. One rather more mundane than what we had just gone over. I turned towards him, speaking.

“You're right. But... there seems to be one thing you are not addressing. In the last few weeks, you killed several people. So tell me, where exactly does that fit into this whole... thing?”

He waved his arm, dismissively.

“It was a harbinger for what was to come. I alone was granted awareness of this reality. But even plagued as I have been by this gnosis, what can one do in so short a time? Make no mistake... I am no sociopath. I wouldn't go around killing people who had long to live. But that is the point. None of us have long to live. This is the end.”

I looked at him for a bit. Then looked away, thinking.

“Is that right?”

I reflected on his words. But I did not find them very convincing. And he seemed to readily sense my hesitancy. The tone of the conversation had begun to change. The change was reflected in our movement as well. We had begun walking in opposite sides of a circle pattern, trailing each other's steps.

I couldn't deny he had a point. Or rather, I questioned whether a point even mattered now. In a way, I was envious. I had been wracked with doubt these last few weeks. Whereas he had made a decision early on. Is this all life was? Making decisions? I had to make one now. I reflected on the nature of decisions themselves. There is no way to escape them. Even the choice to do nothing is a decision on its own.

I thought about this.

But not for long. Because something else was stirring inside of me. I realized something then, despite everything. I had expected to feel bad at this point. But I began to realize that I didn't. I had felt cold these last few weeks, but now I could feel my blood rushing back to me. And I began feeling not just better... in fact, a sense of joie de vivre, for perhaps the first time. Being perhaps the last as well.

And I came to a decision of my own.

I smirked.

“Be that as it may, James. But... I'm not here to listen to your convoluted rationalizations. And I'm not here for a lecture on ontology either.

“I came here with one purpose. To stop the serial killings. And to capture the one behind it.”

I held up my vibro-saber and pointed it towards him.

“You're under arrest, James. For the murder of several hundred people.”

James looked shocked for an instant. But then, regaining his composure, he smirked back, laughing to himself.

“At the end of all, this is what you place your faith in?”

He looked down and closed his eyes.

“But of course. Because this is who you are. I suppose you could do no different.”

He swung his own sword up, pointing it back at me.

“I suppose I knew this was coming as well. We both remember this day, after all.”

I shook my head.

“Sorry James, but... if this is really when we met, then... you know I win this fight.”

He pulled his arm back, shifting to a fighting stance.

“You can't run from fate. Come at me with everything you have. Because this is the first time, the last time, the only time we will get to play together.

“Beyond this fight... lies eternal death.”

We held up our vibro-sabers. There was no light on in the empty facility. So the area around us was dark, but for the faint glow emanating from them. We stood for a seemingly endless time looking at each other. We had done many things together in the illusionary past. But this would be our final spar.

We darted towards each other. And swung.

From the blades, there was a flash of light.

And then... darkness.

----------------------------------------

I looked down the trail of blood that led up to where I was leaning. But of course, it was not my blood.

I propped up James, who was now in bad shape. He would probably survive if he were dragged to a hospital, but naturally, he turned down the offer. It's not like we would be likely to find one still operating in any meaningful sense, regardless. And it's not like it mattered either way.

I pulled him out of the facility and to the lookout that I had seen earlier. Although this was an industrial district, it did have a small patch of greenery, and a couple rocks for us to sit and rest on as we took in the neon cityscape.

After resting in quiet for a time, we began to speak on old matters. We spent a long time talking, reminiscing on the past we never had, and on the unfolding of our lives. We looked over the cliff, to see if we could recognize familiar landmarks from our high up vantage point. But of course, nothing ever looks the same when you see it all at once. It is given context from the path you take throughout it.

I hadn't felt relaxed since all of this began. But the energy was draining from me as well. And I knew that this would be the last quiet talk we would ever have. I could have been more harsh, but there was no reason for that now. And as it was, our time was already drawing to a close.

Looking at my hand, I saw that it too was beginning to unravel. So I began, our final topic.

“We are at the end now, James. So let us talk. Because we won't get another chance.

“Even if you thought you were sending a message about the coming tragedy, even knowing what was about to happen, ultimately you still killed several people. I can't say I don't see your perspective. But this wasn't a reasonable response. All things considered, they were still alive at the time. Even if there's a chance they wouldn't be by now.”

James remarked weakly, coughing as he did.

“Haven't you heard the parable of the glass? The glass was already broken. Losing a few weeks matters little in the grand scheme of things. In essence, they were already dead.”

I shook my head.

“Everybody dies, James. You say it is only a few weeks, but... a lot can happen in a few weeks.”

Sitting down again next to James, I took out my photo of Ai and Chie.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I spent with Ai and Chie? It was only three weeks, but... short though it was, it was valuable. I wish... I wish I could have prevented what happened to them, but... life catches up with all of us.

“They're gone now. But... I carried on. It was this moment that gave me the strength to carry on. So I don't think you are right. Even a short time can be valuable. And that's not something that should be taken so casually.”

James smirked weakly. Blood was coming out of his mouth now.

“But you know...” he said. “None of that ever happened. Neither of them ever even existed.”

I looked down sadly at my photo. Now the photo itself was fading. I examined it quietly for a long time, and when I was contented, I held it up and let it blow away into the wind.

“No.” I said. “But I would have been happy to know that it had.”

I thought back over my life, short though it had been. Back all the way to the initial period I sprung into existence in my office, only a few weeks ago. And finally, I felt at peace.

I looked up into the sky for the last time. The stars were fading now.