The Unbound Infinite

In the beginning, the universe poured itself out in a boundless soliloquy – limitless and unknowable, but wonderfully magnificent. The chords of creation cried out in self-actualization as existence began to be. Even here at the end, when the orchestra of infinity morphed into the dirge of decaying, it was undeniably just as beautiful as it was when it began. The thought almost made him smile. Almost.

The ship’s creaks and whines stirred him from his restless tossing. Lying in his bunk was more a formality than anything. It was a place of anti-rest, where his mind conjured horrors of the past and invented worries for the future. He sat up and peered out the porthole, taking in the void. What was once a vast expanse teaming with endless opportunity was now a depressing reminder of his failure. Still, he marveled at the sights. In all his aeons, he never tired of seeing the universe. He even came to appreciate that blasted glow in the distance.

He understood so many intricacies about the cosmos, yet it largely remained a mystery to him. There was so much that he would never see. Even if he somehow managed to make it to the outer reaches of existence, would there be anything to learn? Would there even be anything at all? If anything were there, would it be enough to wash away his sins? Questions like these were exhilarating and terrifying.

He eventually mustered the motivation to stand and walk out of his room, arriving at a balcony that overlooked the rest of the ship. It was certainly a modest one. He estimated that it held roughly one hundred humans in its prime. While he did not exactly need the space, he found it quaint and oddly comforting. This particular ship had an array of shops and living arrangements and recreational areas. He guessed that it was some sort of mobile village in its heyday. But what was once an intimate village was now a ramshackle monument to loneliness drifting infinitely toward the unknown. The glass dome overhead allowed a faint lime glow to seep into the ship.

After a moment of spitefully staring at the faraway light, he readied himself. Slumping to the floor, he allowed all his thoughts to evaporate. Soon his body followed. His physical form slowly gave way to dark mist that shined as if speckled with jewels. His mind expanded in all directions, his consciousness reaching into the infinite. It felt like discovering awareness for the first time or regaining circulation in a limb. The human body was fascinating, but incredibly restrictive. This was his preferred form, but it was sometimes nice to walk around as man once did. He quite liked them, in all honesty.

Humans were so simple and yet strangely complex. Through many thousands of years, they were able to understand so much about themselves and their world and the universe at large. They sought to conquer everything they could touch. They endeavored to understand their own minds, build great machines, create moving art, even expand into the stars. Desperately they clawed for more. More planets, more stars, more materials, more travel, more knowledge, more sentience. Despite all their achievements, they never found intelligent life outside of themselves. He recalled watching them, hearing their disappointment with each new planet colonized. He had not the heart to tell them the truth: they were all alone.

He was sentient of course, but he was not like them. He occupied a space they could not possibly understand. For millennia, they reached further and further out into the Milky Way. They opened their ears for the universe’s song only to be met with deafening silence. He could have played a few notes for them, though he opted not to. But they were undeterred. Every so often, he would return from his quest to check on their progress. He was usually astonished by the things they accomplished. They conquered gravity, made wonderfully complex machinations, and even terraformed other planets. Despite all this, though, they were nowhere close to understanding him. He thought it best to remain distant. Nowadays, he frequently wondered if that was the right decision.

Slowly but surely, their numbers dwindled. Century by century, they became scarcer. Be it famine or calamity or war, there were less and less. One day, he found himself returning to nothing but abandoned cities and derelict ports. For millennia, they reached further and further. In mere centuries, they were undone, returned to the cosmos as dust and memories.

He was saddened by their passing. Life was hard to come by. Intelligent life was unheard of. Humans were the only sentient creatures that he had ever encountered. He poured over their culture. He wanted to know just how much they had discovered about their place in the universe. He wanted to know if they understood the importance of their sentience, if they knew just how much it should have been cherished. He found nothing of the sort. But his trip to Earth was not in vain. In fact, it ignited something within him.

Humanity’s disheveled home made one thing painfully clear: he failed. Perhaps if he would have shared his knowledge, he could have prevented their extinction. While there was no guarantee he could have kept them from destroying one another, at least he could have given them a chance to be more - to rise above their limits and embark upon the same journey he pursued. He searched every single colony he could find. But all the cities were desolate, and the ships were in tatters. Children no longer inquired about the stars, lovers no longer courted one another, and life simply fizzled out. There were not enough resources to sustain a population that insisted on expanding in every direction at once. He had plenty of opportunities to aid them. He merely chose not to. Even now, it haunted him. He was sure that if he were capable of dreaming, he would experience only nightmares.

It was then he knew he must see his quest through to the end. He vowed that he would take a piece of humanity with him. In his eyes, they deserved to see so much more than they did. Not long after leaving Earth, he spotted a ship that seemed fit for a long journey. That became his vessel, and though he did not need it to function, he felt it was only right that it operate as if humans still lived on board. It did not take long for him to orient the ship toward that ever-elusive glow in the distance. With sadness and newfound determination, he set his course for what would no doubt be his final journey. After all, he no longer had any reason to look back.

At first, travelling was tumultuous. Were he not so insistent on taking a human vessel, it would have been easier. His usual method of travel involved ascending into the dimension above. Light was sluggish and movement was impossibly complex. Things appeared to stretch and spiral in unnatural ways. Colors could be heard and sounds tasted. It was beautiful, but beyond the scope of what men achieved. Choosing to drag humanity with him made things frustratingly inefficient. Rather than fourth dimensional travel, he had to navigate the vessel through black holes and wormholes and other such tears in space-time. He ignored the subpar star maps from the ship’s previous inhabitants. He knew this galactic cluster well.

He had spent untold trillions of years getting to his current position, all the while attempting to keep the ship running. After all, men did not intend for their vessels to last so long. He contemplated abandoning it numerous times. Whenever the thought crossed his mind, he could not help but remember his promise. He would see this thing through to the end, even if it meant the loss of his inestimably long life. He stared through the ship’s glass ceiling once more. The light was growing larger. Incrementally, sure, but it was most definitely getting bigger.

The light had been calling to him since the beginning. While the creation of the cosmos produced a triumphant cacophony, the light remained a silent observer. No matter where he went, he could always see it. Humanity never seemed to notice. None of their instruments were able to detect it, at least not as far as he could tell. So, it became his duty to seek it.

He was always seeking but never finding. His journey took him to the outer reaches of space, but the light was further still. Extradimensional travel took him millions of lightyears in the blink of an eye, but it was further still. He was moving closer, but never by leaps and bounds. Occasionally he would stumble upon a shortcut that he could use to get back to check on humanity, though he would never linger. He longed for those return trips.

There were less and less stars on his travels. They had grown cold and faded into the abyss. The planets that orbited them soon drifted off and collided silently in space’s vacuum. The writing was on the wall: the universe’s death was near. The vast expanse had given him everything, but their time together was swiftly coming to an end. His only wish was to make it to the glow before it faded into nothingness.

As he pondered his journey, the ship’s engine sputtered. His incorporeal form sank through the floor and into the engine room. Immediately, he knew the engine was done. It had been pushed well past its natural limit. His mastery of matter afforded him the supernatural abilities needed to repeatedly repair the ship. But this was the end. He was filled with despair. First, he had failed humanity by remaining silent. They destroyed themselves because he did not prevent them from doing so. Now his broken vow was his failure.

As he exited the ship, he felt a great heaviness fall over him. Now, the last vestige of humanity was an unfathomable distance from its home, forgotten and adrift in an uncaring chasm of nothing. He forged ahead. No matter how fast or how far he went, his mind remained fixated on what was behind him. When he returned his focus to the things ahead, he was blinded. All he could perceive was green.

A noise continually rang out, but it was nothing he could decipher. It felt as if he was being crushed back into a physical form. He was simultaneously experiencing everything and nothing at all. In an instant, he saw the macrocosm of the universe play out before him. He suffered through all things. Then, just as fast as it came, it was gone. In fact, everything was gone. All that was left was a faint green glow emanating from him.

All that was left was him. There was no stardust or light, save for him. He wept, for no one else would experience the beauty of that foreboding abyss. All its wonder was lost. His journey yielded nothing. But he was filled with a voice. "It lies within you now", it rang out internally. He looked inwardly and saw stars and planets and comets and clusters. The wonder of the cosmos was within him. If he were capable, he would have shed a tear. He gathered himself, his purpose made clear. After some moments passed, he forced himself outward in all directions as nothingness was filled with new somethings. His consciousness began to fade away, but he managed a final thought: whatever came of this, it would all his doing. Perhaps, even humans would be there some day. He liked that thought.

In the beginning, the universe poured itself out in a boundless soliloquy – limitless and unknowable, but wonderfully magnificent. The chords of creation cried out in self-actualization as existence began to be. The thought made him smile.