Random stories

“Did you know that we break the universe?” It asked.

There was no sound left but for us. No light left but for what we could imagine. No heat, no cold. Everything was still.

Not a bad place to die.

“How so?”

I cleared my throat, ignoring the ache of thirst that had been my constant companion for longer than I could remember now. Water had stopped existing several trillion years ago at least.

“Energy.” It said, “we move without having eaten in forever, our muscles contract, our cells synthesize and consume ATP without ever having consumed anything to fuel it.”

I knew all this, we had both studied ourselves in extreme detail throughout our lives. Through more and less ethical means, but could it really be considered unethical if you were performing experiments on yourself?

“An equation with energy only on the output. A system without a stopping point. An engine with no end. That’s us.”

I turned towards the voice. Darkness was the only thing that looked back at me. A void more black and more dark than any other human being had ever seen.

“Would you want an end?” I asked.

It laughed.

“We have been here for longer than anyone else can even conceptualize- could even conceptualize. We watched both of our species evolve until we shared as many characteristics with them as we do with an apple and then watched those species die. I have chased you beyond stars and black holes and nebulae so vast you could spend ten billion lifetimes wandering and still not see it all, and see it all we did. I have been seeking something that would be my death since this universe was an infant. I am old.”

I laughed too, though mine sounded much worse, a dry cackle that served only to remind me how long it had been since I’d tasted the sweetness of water.

I think I’d do anything to drink just one more time.

“But would you want an end?”

It was quiet. For minutes or hours or days or weeks or months or millennia, I don’t know. I didn’t care.

I had time. I had more patience than a mortal being could possibly hope to comprehend.

“You know what’s funny? For the first time, the answer is no.”

I blinked. I had not expected that.

“What changed?”

I could imagine the way it retracted and extended its eye stalks into its strange approximation of a shrug so well that I could nearly see it.

“It’s dark now, and if we’re gone, it will stay dark forever. I’m not sure I like that.”

It will stay dark?

What did it-

Oh.

An engine with no end.

I had never even considered that. The slimy bastard was absolutely never going to let me live this down.

I barked out a dry laugh.

“HA!”

The snail laughed alongside me.

“We move, we blink, we produce heat-“ I started excitedly.

“-we breathe, we speak, we cause motion.” It picked up, “Inserting energy into everything around us. Knocking particles into other particles. Insignificant waves of motion, but eventually…”

“Eventually there are spots where there are more particles and there are spots where there are less.” I breathed in wonder, “And those particles begin to pull.”

“Collapsing inwards, coalescing, forming the simplest of bonds, their collective gravity pulling even more particles in. Crushing each other until they start to heat up. And then in an explosion of heat and light…”

“You get a star. An explosion that sends heat and motion and energy rippling out, setting off even more reactions until-“

“The universe begins again.” It finished.

I laughed again, howling my joy into the void, until my stomach ached.

It would take a while, uncountable millennia spent in darkness as two tiny specks restarted a system so vast it defied imagination. It took a lot of energy to kickstart a universe.

But I had time. I had more patience than a mortal being could possibly hope to comprehend.

One day there would be stars again. There would be planets and moons and nebulae so vast you could spend ten billion lifetimes wandering and still not see it all.

One day water would touch my tongue and light would grace my eyes. One day I would breathe real air. One day I would meet the gaze of an old friend.

One day.

For now I just laughed, pouring sound and movement and energy into the still universe around me.

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

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Submitted by AllHailTheFishy on Sun, Jan 29, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

An immortal and the snail that has been chasing them share a conversation as they watch the heat death of the universe