Outer Wilds fic containing Outer Wilds spoilers from the Outer Wilds brain worms below. Be warned.
At the end of the universe, the hatchling reflects and mourns. (Ao3 link -> [x])
I made it. Some part of me started to think I never would, if I'm honest. Maybe that's why I didn't say goodbye. Still, I never gave up. I don't think I ever would have, not really, even if I lost all hope.
I don't think that would've ever happened, either.
And now I'm here. In a Nomai Vessel, the Nomai Vessel, at the Eye of the Universe. The reason they came to our star system in the first place. Or, stumbled into it, I guess. Or were dragged. Or whatever.
I was glad, when I slid the orb into place to warp the Vessel to the coordinates, that I would be able to bring the Nomai's skeletons with me. After all this time, all these thousands of years, I would help them finish their journey. But now, when I turn, they are gone.
Even now, even after everything, they never made it. Despite my best efforts.
My heart breaks a little, and my first thought is that Gossan cannot find out about that. My second thought is that I so desperately wish I could tell them about it.
I'll never see them again. Nor any of the others. Nor my home.
I'll never see home again.
I turn back towards the window to gaze at the stars shining above the Eye. The closest one shines a brighter orange than the others. That's my sun. The closest I'll ever come to seeing Timber Hearth again.
I remember telling Arkose not to throw rocks at the ghost matter (oh how many loops ended stupidly because of that stuff). I remember celebrating with Hal after finishing the Nomai translator (they have no idea just how far it brought me). I remember dozing off next to the fire with Slate (nothing like a nap to speed the approach of your impending doom). I remember teasing Gossan about their hesitance to act on their feelings for Porphy (unbidden, I think of Poke teasing her sister for exactly the same reason). I watch my sun—our sun—as it glows steadily. By my count, there are still two or three minutes before it explodes. Dimly, I wonder how long it will take for the light of the supernova to reach me. How long will I be able to see my home system even after everyone and everything in it is destroyed?
How long will my friends be dead before I see them die?
Movement catches my eye. The Quantum Moon, visiting its home as if for the both of us. Solanum is alive on there. Or, as alive as she can be, anyway. I press my hand against the glass, reaching out for her. My friend. My friend. The only one I have left now, I suppose. She was about my age when she died. I can pretend she still is, even thousands of years later.
I wish I could talk to her. I wish I could tell her I made it. I wish I could bring her up here with me, to show her what it looks like. She spent her whole life hearing about the Eye, resenting it for what it did to her clan. I wish I could show her just how beautiful it really is. In a terrifying, ominous, don't-come-any-closer sort of way.
Riebeck might be getting to me. I probably spent too many loops on Brittle Hollow.
I remember where I first saw Solanum's name, in the school district of the Hanging City. She was so young then, writing about the birth and death of the universe. She never would have imagined that, in a way at least, she'd be alive to see one of those. Nine million, three hundred times.
I'm glad I only saw sixty or so deaths. I'm glad she won't remember any of hers. I wonder if she remembers the first one.
Some part of me is desperate to get close, to reach out and hold Solanum's hand at the end of it all, just so she isn't alone.
The best I can do is run along the glass so I'm at the closest spot to where she is in her orbit around the Eye of the Universe. I follow her until she dips out of sight, back to my star system. I know, in my bones, that she's at Timber Hearth. At my home, just as I am at her moon's.
The weariness settles over me. Sixty twenty-two minute loops. Almost two weeks straight of space travel. Of dying over and over and over again. Of watching my livelihood get obliterated, with nothing I can do to stop it, no matter how aware I am of it, no matter what I try to do. Of knowing that anything I do, anyone I save, won't make any difference in less than half an hour. Every single change I made now exists nowhere outside of my own memory.
I wish I could've known which mask on Ash Twin was mine. It likely wouldn't have made a difference, but it would have been nice, nonetheless.
Across the universe, my sun explodes. It is just one of many to do so, neither the first nor the last, yet to me it spells the end. While it existed, I could have found a way home. But now…
I know, logically, that Solanum is back. Her moon comes home when my sun dies. There is nothing else—nowhere else—for her to go. But with almost no stars in the sky, I cannot see her. I know she's here, yet I am still alone.
I don't want to be alone.
I have no home to go back to.
One by one, the last of the stars blink out. I'm left in darkness, only the Eye providing any light to see by, and even that is minimal.
I lean my forehead against the glass beside my hand. Step back. Flick on my flashlight.
During my training, Gossan taught me about the Hearthian spirit. About turning over every stone, following the path of curiosity, trying things to see what happens. I hope they would be proud if they could see me now.
I fly back up to the power controls and slide the orb into place to open a black hole. If my theory is correct, this will take me to the Eye. I will finish the pilgrimage Solanum never could. I will do what no Nomai or Hearthian has managed to do before.
What they will never get the chance to do again.
I have one final voyage to make.
