2,000,000,000 years into the future.

“WICKED WHITE”— that silly, foolish phrase norvrandt adopted in the wake of the disaster mitron wrought on their world well describes the sensation of entering the door from nowhere. how bright: how blinding; elidibus fades beneath the light of an open window, and the act of revival deafens him to the lock of the white door. no—more than that: when she opens her eyes, the door is not so shut as much as it has merely gone.

where was she before this? where had her feet taken her before she opened the clean white door? she does not remember—she cannot remember—

she does not even know if she wants to remember. perhaps not. perhaps i would be better off not to remember. she whispers it as she takes her first step forward, when the tan wood refuses to creak. the smell of rice noodles and stir-fry vegetables rides the wind that travels past the windowsill, brushes her hair behind her like a wide comb, and it tells her—

here you are at last. welcome—welcome home.

and if themis were any more alive then she may truly have believed it. and if themis were any more lost to millions of cycles of forgetting, she might never have remembered.

—— IT’S A NICE HOME. well-lived; it’s as pristine as it is inviting. the pillows are a ilm off proper position; the window is a fulm too open. there’s a tablespoon too much soy sauce mixed with the noodles left too long in the wide pan. it starts to smell like rot; it’s burning. someone has abandoned it; if there were a door nearby you might be listening to hear if it were still swinging.

but the house is empty and it is only you here. if you didn’t know any better you would say you had been here forever. but you would never stand to let pancit burn like this.

like a lightbulb’s set off in the house, as if it could get any brighter; one moment, you’re here, and the next, you are there. you’ve found yourself in the kitchen fixing the mistakes of your predecessor. like creation magic has found its way back home to you, in mere minutes, the stir fry renatures. some kind of miracle it must seem.

( it’s never that easy in a rift, but you wouldn’t know that. you’ve never been in one until today.

this—exactly this—is why those plagued by the watching disease should never roam alone. )

being an ancient, being an ascian, being a corpse long-lived past proper time—you do not need to eat. you do not need to eat, to sleep, to chance or dream; you could spend your life the way ghosts do in eorzean faerie tales, walking the world as a castoff shadow. at some point in the past centuries ( well, it had to be past moons— ) you discovered the need had returned.

being a human, now, is exhausting. the stir fry, for all your hard work and all the memories needing recalling, tastes faintly of air or cardboard, but it satisfies the aching necessity. you’re hungry; and the watchers won’t let you get any sleep.

because these days, your work as a surveyor, as a silhouette of an emissary, forces you to walk malms through and out of somyu to find those who empower your duty. ghost towns do not make for warm communities; you saw it once long before. the survivors have huddled within the depths of space-sown sea, where the air runs cold and the paranoia stokes the campfires. you walk through the upper level streets and plunge through thick, stifling, crowded heat; it pulls with the air and pulls with cloaked, eyed hands, and you only survive by chaining it away. you come back to somyu more vulnerable each passing day, hungrier and sleepier. it’s a miracle that you don’t go missing with the rest.

perhaps it’s because, here, no one cares enough for you to save your loneliness.

for the sake of the locals, you’ve made yourself care anyways, all at a cost to yourself. it’s embarrassing to think about how much you’ve begun to mock humanity. you don’t add to somyu’s haunting in these conditions. some people you recall naming you their hero: one watched member, one ponze of food, one malm of somyu crossed at a time. you’ve sacrificed yourself under the worst of circumstances to save them.

and even if it is made of dreams and memories you’re still hard-pressed to recall, that warm, fresh bowl of stir-fry is a comfort in these final days.

—— AN HOUR PASSES IN MICROSECONDS. you lived for so long that you know time can be wasted in the blink of an eye. there is so little to do here when the food has vanished, and all escapes, too.

not that you were interested in leaving. you lie on the double bed, shift over the covers, make peace where it cannot be sought. the tick of a clock echoes in your ears, marks the shifting of the tide, marks the minutes left to you. you’ve gotten to a point here in your aching exhaustion that you no longer want to move.

it makes sense. when one is sick, they only want to go home. they stay there until they get better, where the warmth of their loved ones’ hands and hearts are a blanket warding off the encroaching rot.

but this isn’t home. this isn’t amaurot; this isn’t home. it’s trying to be a replacement, but all it is is unfamiliar. that cavity in your heart crushes you in that warm seat and grows large enough to swallow you whole, disease and all. you feel all that’s left of your heart torn apart with teeth as hard as diamond, and you lie back and don’t do anything about it.

you want to go home. you have to go home. you have to go home.

but no matter how many times you click your heels and wish upon that burning eye, you know that you can never go home again.

elidibus opens his eyes, and it is not to the stars or the sea. the lonely eye stares back in place of the empty moon. the watcher reaches a hand out and whimpers. it wants forgiveness; it wants love. it wants you to come back and fill the gaping maw of its bloodied heart.

i am so sorry, for hurting you. i couldn’t help it. i didn’t mean it.

but i can bring you back. i’ve heard your pleas.

oh, themis. don’t you still want to go home?

it is delusional. it is impossible. you tried and you failed and you can never get them back. for as long as you’re trapped here you will never, ever see them again.

but you’re still too hopeful and you still want to try.

the watcher holds out its hand and whimpers.

the last clear memory in elidibus’s mind is a futile attempt to take it.

THE SUNRISE TRANSPIRES IN MINUTES— and that still isn’t slow enough through your eyes. the water dries and the rift room shifts away. you’d been in a realm just like this before and you couldn’t do anything to change its fate. at least it decidedly wasn’t home to you, nor did zosia make any pretense of it.

but you almost wish she had. there’s a saccharine familiarity to what she says, exchanged with a personal recollection of home. no one else listens, keeps their ears turned away to a vanished door; but, oh, do you try. you start to make your case until it all falls apart.

you wish it had just been you who made it through so you could try to understand her. ( you would have done it, had they not been here. you’re delusional and hypocritical for thinking it. )

IN A RIFT ON THE RED LINE, WHERE YOUR BLOOD RENEGES AT THE PRECIPICE OF REVIVAL— you can only feel time move BACKWARDS. your memories nearly save you and fail the faceless echoes as they try to find purchase in your nightmares. but, still, they find something.

and it is not close to anything you could bring yourself to like.

the train departs the subway stop and finds light in a terrifying sight: it blinds with rays of golden heat that drown all other noise and passengers out and away. the mending bones and bandaged injuries of the past week—the ache and the suffering and the not-quite-guilt that’s easier to swallow is left behind on the last station. it’s only you, here, riding towards home. really, truly, honestly, this time.

unless you want to doubt the only miracle you’ve found since dying.

it’s home. you’ve found it. you didn’t even have to click your heels three times, and here it is, in all its glory. if you reached a hand out past the sealed windows you could feel history wind between your fingertips again. like a lightbulb sets off on the roof of the train: a memory rekindles and burns as an inferno.

it’s exactly what the echoes desire.

dear emissary, are you well? no.

how have things been? who—

do you remember me?

get away from me.

you bind a fighting ghost in solid chains. you hear the shattering of glass. you pull the shepherd through. you hear the first thump on the metal-plate ground.

then the world drains away, light, love, and memories all.

in a new memory, a delirious, frantic dream: you imagine yourself drop to your knees, and you feel yourself bury in the blood and ashes of the traveler. you wake up in somyu—you wake up in amaurot—you wake up in nouchali—you wake up on mare lamentorum—you wake into another dream—you wake up between the aetherial rifts—and you always feel the same way. the cavity in your chest beats worse than the tremor of a drum; the blood has paled from your face and sweat has drained you of the ability of speech; you look down at your hands and you see long, white, well-worn sleeves and rusted gloves and the craters of the mournful moon.

and then the vivid recollection fades away. the blankets around you form a puddle of clear blood and your hands have buried under them, gripping to rotting, dissipating flesh and crushing the remnants of bones. breathe in, breathe out. ai’s ribbon is shut within one of the drawers with the spare bandages tied in knots.

they weren’t real and you still killed them. you did it—azem is dead because of you. in another world they’re gone for good and in this world you killed them. who are you now to stand judge over the lives of others—over the lives of those equal to your own? who are you to have committed deed after deed in the name of good and think yourself righteous for it? you’re the one who indulged in that falsified home moons ago, tried to take their hand, would have reached for zosia’s own if she hadn’t found an easier victim to keep or been sabotaged and taken away. and still you think you can go home after it all.

you move to the edge of the bed: one leg hangs over the side, then the other. your feet dangle between the fabric, ungrounded.

no matter how hard you try to tell it to yourself, this isn’t home. no matter how hard you wish for it, this is never going to be home.

and no matter how selfish, how desperate, how maddening the search gets, no matter how you’ve wanted it—you can never go home. and the cosmias will never provide you that.