William’s fists tightened their grip around “Al’s” neck. He ignored the Elo’ran’s flippant fatalism as the seconds to detonation ticked down. He didn’t spend the last month having his life upended in a mad dash through the solar colonies just to give up hope and quit here. He didn’t help angry old ladies settle blood feuds, learned to play the violin just in time to give a concert before thousands in his underwear, confessed his love to what turned out to be a feeling-sucking mimic, or performed stand-up comedy just to give up at Alaxel’s ‘godly’ discomfort.
His pique gave rise to anger and William felt his powers flare. The now familiar sense of vertigo struck him, as his imagination failed to parse through into real empathy in the face of the other’s…alienness? No…
“I told you Billy—” the figure purporting to be Alaxel began.
“—Shut the fuck up”, replied William in wonder. He felt…tired. He was tired of the parables and mysteries. Tired of filtering his understanding through a lens larger and more powerful yet no less darkly than anyone else’s. He felt so so so tired.
A weariness that spanned…eons.
Gotcha, William thought with shock and genuine fear as the light around “Alaxel” dimmed. The familiar sense of vertigo shifted into a more visceral and raw version of the word itself. The idea of William’s stomach lurched and left him altogether as pinpricks of light that he (however impossibly) knew were entire galaxies blossomed at the edge of his vision. A suffocating sense of wonder enveloped William as his perception shifted scales and the backdrop of reality fell down around them.
A peeking eye that William first mistook for the sun winked in the distance before him. Despite his scale shift, William could still feel his insignificance before the vastness of being before him. Any illusions that he hadn’t stepped into the “darkness soup” that was supposed to be the exclusive ‘true void’ where the Outer Ones resided left him as five more ‘suns’ blinked themselves open as the Elo’Ran’s true shape came into focus. No, not just a true shape, but a new shape.
“—that you should beware what you imagine,” finished Thresher, his voice the cold and empty space between galaxies, planets, atoms, live—
Liar, Billy thought with a smile as he imagined a new dawn upon the ancient face of another universe’s Death. Funny thing about the abyss; it could also gaze too long back into you.