I was shocked when I heard his words and this extreme idea.
"You're crazy" I told Chronos to his face.
He sighed before continuing to say his words:
"You understand that I know it's extreme, even improbable. But we don't have many possibilities" he looked outside and saw how the white horizon was advancing in his direction faster and faster every moment, evoking in me a moment of terror and suspicion before he continued to speak:
"How is that improbable?! No human has ever succeeded in implanting their ego inside a machine, so how do you expect us to succeed, especially when you said we didn't?! How do you expect there isn't a better option?" I'm starting to get discouraged. I have no more words to describe the situation while his robot wanders around the place trying to mess with the spaceship's computer before he leaves the room.
"Do you have a better idea than that?" Chronos spoke to me: "If we pass now on our only way to escape from this place, are you not aware that you belong to this place? Did I not mention that this place is like a time that stopped and united to it at this point? What do you think will happen if you leave here? All the paradoxes of Time and space will simply affect you and you will know what will happen to you!" He raged before walking around the room.
I'm left just trying to think about his words while apprehensiveness and innovation are just starting to increase. 'What will happen to me if I go out like this because I am linked to a place that is going to be deleted anyway'... I was unable to think about it before Chronos turned back to me:
"In theory... yes in theory if we find you another vassal, you will be able to bypass your connection at this place and maybe you will be able to escape from here"
"Maybe?" I said to him: "How do you expect to be able to do this with the technological limitation and the time limitation we have here?!" I was furious with him, starting to fall apart from anger and fear. The same fear that kept me alive in this place.
"I just want to survive and see my wife at least once" I turned to him with rage and sadness. Chronos didn't seem to mind and I just turned to the window and continued to see that the white continues to consume the horizon and quickly advances towards us. All is lost. I have little chance of escaping from here and even more ridiculous to implant my brain in a machine in the short time we have.
The universe wants me dead.
Out of nowhere, the robot comes back into the room and brings the helmet of my suit:
"This is our key" the robot told Chronos before he continued to move towards the computer and began attaching the helmet to it. While having a meltdown here they kept trying something until the computer screen turned red and the whole room commented. Curiosity overcame the fear and rage stored inside me and I turned to him:
"What are you doing exactly when I'm here before I don't understand anything anymore" I spoke to them in tears.
"Our way of implanting your ego true this helmet" Chronos said
"What?" I already lost my will before Konos continued to speak:
"Your artificial intelligence... Rose... Rosalina is our key to doing this"
"I think you guys have long since fallen on your head"
"Not yet" Chornus looked at me with a serious look before continuing: "I told you that all time streams come together for us here. What made you think you were the only one involved?" He shows me Rosalina before the robot spoke:
"Rosalina here is also connected to this place, but because of the total analysis she did, she overburdened herself and lost control of her ability to contain more. Her inability to contain everything made her vulnerable to 'existence in space-time' until she could no longer handle Share Information That came from another place: the future. A future where humanity has advanced far beyond what you know. They had enough time to solve this problem. And here is our solution: we will use the information stored in it and need from it what we need."
Without any consultation, he already started to perform this and the glowing red screen began to change in a way that I do not understand but it seems that the robot understood everything as if he already knew this. It only raises questions for me out of anger: is it true what the robot stated? A robot can't lie.. right? They continued to attend to their talk and I just looked out the window and saw the distant hills begin to disappear into the white. I'm already really stressed. What should I do better: listen to them? Be erased from existence here? Try to steal the spaceship and escape from here, and risk the results of paradoxes? So many things to decide that could all lead to my death.
"Colin! We've got it. Prepare yourself right away" Chronos told me with a burst and advanced towards me. I'm still shocked by the whole situation and don't understand: did they succeed?!
He began to drag me to one of the closest computer stations while I was so shocked, that I had already lost consciousness from the whole situation. The robot left the room again as Chronos began to put the helmet on me.
"What are you trying to do? I don't feel like there's much choice" I couldn't say anything anymore. It was all too much for me.
"Obviously we're trying to save you. Trust me I won't feel good about myself if I leave you like this. There's a lot to ask you" He looked at me with a strange curiosity before he put the helmet on me and I saw nothing but darkness. I hear things dragging and cables being connected at a speed I can't understand. Are they really going to do this?
"Well, I don't know how it's going to go, but if it does… you won't be the same. Turn her on!"
Before I could react, I started to feel a strange headache that was only going to get worse. It slowly turned into pain and suffering that I cannot describe.
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I started to scream, but I could no longer feel anything but my thoughts.
"Is this what death feels like?" I thought to myself while I was just thinking to myself. It feels peaceful after this horrible suffering and pain that feels like I've been ripped out of my body. I think I would have died anyway. This whole journey I watched waking up on another planet far away among the stars and instead I find myself in a completely different place with no one, like the last person left behind. The way the ash covered the place where I had just been put to sleep and the broken buildings and plants that took over everything and between all the strange creatures that Rosalina described as a combination of poor creatures, but they live their lives that have probably already disappeared along with me.
I don't know how to describe this whole journey. Hell on earth? An uncontrolled savage? A journey of discovery? I don't know anymore and I'm already starting to lose myself. Only if I stop thinking, maybe I'll already know what awaits me. Maybe I'll meet my wife if she doesn't manage to escape like me. How funny it would be if that happened. I wish there was life after death.
"And who thinks I'll let you escape me?" A voice emanated from nowhere, covering all my surroundings. I look around, but I can't see anything. Everything is too dark.
"And what if you manage to open your eyes instead?" This voice kept telling me. His voice is familiar but at the same time the echo that is heard in the place I can't recognize. Not like I have a choice.
I tried my best to 'open my eyes' and then everything became so clear. I went into shock for a few moments before I found myself seeing in front of many inexplicable shadows. I tried to distinguish between them, but one of them just moved forward quickly, managed to hide the blinding beak, and disappeared from my field of vision, then I saw what was happening: a group of people in suits with Kornus standing next to him, talking, but I could not understand anything.
I tried to concentrate and try to see who was ahead of me, and I was among them. I see her hugging me.
"Is that you, Colin? A gentle, familiar voice is heard from the side while I manage to get excited about things, but there is no feeling at all. I try to turn to the source of the voice and I realize one thing.
"It's really you Colin?" she cried as if a river had opened in her as the others and Chronos continued to talk.
did they succeed? I turn my field of vision to her and out of emotion I manage to understand who it is, but there are no tears and I cannot express my feelings. But I manage to move something and touch it and say a single word
"Yes" a voice that didn't feel like it was me managed to say and she just cried to me while Chronos advanced towards me and said:
"I told you we'd make it with this" he said before moving forward together with the group of people outside the room, leaving me alone:
"Rosalina," I said intermittently: "I'm back"
I'm not me anymore. I understood while hugging her without feeling anything. I really love this place, the T.H.E. I'm not me anymore. I am already someone else. But it doesn't let me try to express my feelings or say who I am.
I am no longer me, I am already dead, but also alive at the same time. My current self managed to survive everything and I managed to meet my wife who is just crying over my body not me but me at the same time. All I could do right now was tell her one thing:
"I have so many things to tell you"
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Between the wasteland and the sands, a group of them is walking, and a group of shadows is shuffling for them, doing nothing but walking between what looks like sands and dunes drifting among themselves. They kept walking until something caught their eye - something emerging from the sand. Out of idleness and boredom they advanced towards it and the shadows began to try to uncover what was buried there.
"What exactly do you think you're doing" asked the biggest shadow of them all, revealing his closed wings to everyone as one shadow that resembled a resurrected liquid began moving the sands to reveal what was hidden. Right after him someone also joined with his tail sticking out behind him and started to help him.
"Me? Do you know how boring it is to be here? I wanted to rule with everyone before all of my kind disappeared because of him" The liquid shadow just turned to him as he continued to dig while the rest just agreed with his words. It didn't take long for them to uncover some of what was sticking out of the sand: a hand outstretched and looking fresh. Without any hesitation, they continued to dig and even more shadows began to join in to help out.
"I hope it's food" one of the shadows showing its pointed bony wings said before another said in the negative: "Do you think we can get food here? We haven't eaten or left this place in 203994023 years, so do you think it's food to your taste?" The shadow with greasy fur on it turned to him
"I still can't believe that you keep counting" The one with his tail sticking out turned to him.
Right after that they did not speak and continued to try to uncover what was buried and slowly it began to reveal its head.
"I think I recognize a human being here" said a shadow with spikes all over its body: "I haven't seen one in a long time"
"You see one every day and at any time" the shadow that pointed out moved forward to a desert that was sticking out of the sand and began to examine it.
"I know him" he said as he began to reveal his head and with him a whole body buried in the sands showing him still in a suit.
"Of course, you know him, humans know other humans" the shadow with the closed wings said before the others looked at the body as if they were doing nothing else.
"She looked just like the day I did the impossible" he continued talking until the liquid shadow began to crawl over him: "So it's food, right?"
"Yes, it wouldn't hurt to use it to maybe create duplicates of it if you want" said the shadow with its bony wings
"Are you sure you have something to tell him, Chronos?" The shadow with the greasy fur began to move towards him and with its metallic hand touched him.
"Sure Nigel, I didn't expect to find him here." Chronos told Nigel who was showing his otter face in front of him before continuing, "After I was able to do this one, I just threw the body away for fear of a paradox happening around him if we took her out."
"Doesn't that remind you of something, Daniel?" The liquid shadow moved towards Daniel, whose tail resembled a cat's
"Of course and course. Any matter of paradoxes of time and dimensions is my domain after all" Daniel said before one of the shadows erupted:
"I'm pretty sure that's how humans treat each other. I don't know how units feel for each other. I only know my own, hive mind" The shadow with its closed wings turned to Chronos
"I'm not going to start telling you Shilavyn about all of this" Chronos turned to her before he began to mumble, "I already regret signing this contract, and now I'm stuck here, like him" he looked at the corpse before looking at the red sky without explanation.
"But this is the safest place to escape from the end of the universe, isn't it?" Laughed a shadow with an eagle's beak and impressive wings behind it
"Who knew" Nigel turned to everyone while the others talked in front of the corpse that was once Colleen, who was still trapped inside T.H.E with them, where time has no meaning in this place.
"Should we keep going? I don't want to see another human being" said the shadow with the thorns all over his body, everyone agreed and decided to leave the body in place. As they continued walking, Chronos stayed behind and looked at the corpse that still looked fresh and began to speak to him:
"I guess you had a good life after we managed to get you off the Earth that was destroyed because of me and the same force that ended up destroying our universe. The same one that gave us the undead and threw us, me and these aliens to the same place you woke up to in the first place, the same place I made it exist in the first place. I shouldn't have signed it and this stinking irony page is giving me trouble. I hope you at least enjoy being a machine with an ego instead of living forever like me."
And without another word, he caught up with this group of shadows that continued to move within the T.H.E.