Object 1608: The Holder of Zero

Many suspect it. Few now of it. Many seek it unconsciously. None find it.

All stores have a beginning, and all beginnings have an end.

The quest is the middle, but when time loops into infinity, as often it has, indeed, must, when Lorenz collapses and his grand engines of the cosmos fall back into the Eater of All Things, when Thanatos reigns atop his weird citadel, when the limit is exceeded, when the forgotten path forges itself, when all probabilities equal one, in that first moment, where the smallest dot burns with the force of a million suns...

It will be there.

This is the story of the first Object. For, you see, once, long ago, they were together.

They were one.

In the final moments of the coalescence, in any city, head to the center. There, you will find a single point of brilliant light. Nobody else will seem to see it. You are Chosen. You will, without wanting to, perhaps screaming in your mind not to reach out, touch it, and that touch will shift it, the keystone.

Space will shift. Time will crumble.

Before you will stand a singular man-who-is-not.

Before you will stand Jack Empty.

Before you will stand Yochanan.

You will have no time to think, only to grab the sword that floats before you, and fight for your life. You must never look him in the eyes. By doing so, not only will you be lost, so too shall the world at large.

This is his goal. This has always been his goal. Never look him in the eye.

Your skills with the sword shall not be enough to defeat him, indeed, they shall not even be enough to hold him, but by the time he is ready to strike the final blow, the Coalescence will have ended. This is your one and only chance, because for these last seconds, you are no longer just a Seeker.

No longer just a human. No longer flawed and imperfect.

You are more. You are everything, everybody, every name, every second, every iota of what it is to be alive.

You are Humanity. The Face of the Gestalt. But more...

You are every object there ever was. Every Object.

In this instant, you must strike back, or all will be lost. This is no longer about you, Seeker. It never was. You may have thought it was, but it was not so.

Draw the Sword of the White King. Draw it from the ribs of your adversary. And then...

Strike. Back.

If you fail, our reward shall be nirvana. We shall finally be granted Oblivion, what we have sought since time immemorial.

If I succeed, then what?

Then, Human, I will look at you, one last time, eyes full of fury and hatred, and my own emptiness will eat me from within, as it has done so many times before. But know this: One day, I shall succeed. Our will shall be done.

I watched as he, it, faded away, into oblivion. It was the last time I would ever see Empty. I was sure of it. I looked around and saw I was on a featureless gray plain, that extended in all directions. Ultima Gray. I had read about it. It's what exists after the end of all things. Before me was a vast tower of stone, just as dead as the world around me.

I began to climb.

Up I went, for what seemed like hours, days, even weeks. But time had no meaning here, and so I continued onward, never stopping, never slowing, never dropping the Sword of the White King.

Finally, after millennia, I reached the top. At the center was a stone dais. Its purpose was obvious. I walked over and drove the sword in.

And...

The sky...

I watched as the last stars were torn to shreds, as space and time evaporated, falling apart into a sea of chaos. This is what the Prime had wrought. This is what happened when you brought them together.

They must never be brought together...

But they had.

I stood there for a long time, contemplating the scene before me. An idea began to stir in the depths of my mind. I was the Object now. I was Seeker and Holder, two beings made one and more. I was Everything in a sea of Nothing, one in a zero, an Alpha and Omega, a void and the infinite.

I was... Could it be...?

I raised my hand, holding it to the gray plains before me, and willed them to move. They did. I looked at my hand, and at last understood. If there is one thing a universe must never have, it is a Creator, for the Creator would have to be greater than the universe itself.

If I was alive, there would be no world.

If there was to be a world, I must die.

Godhood is pointless if you're alone.

I picked up the Sword of the White King, of the first god, and spoke four words.

"Let there be light."

Then, I stabbed myself through the heart. Above me, the sky exploded in not one, but millions of beings, light crashed down onto the plain, and it howled in fear and pain and rage and the ground burned. As I fractured, I dimly felt myself being slowly pulled to a single world. And then, all thought ceased.

"That is why they must never be brought together, Seeker," said the Holder of the End.

"But wait...," you said. "How could you know all of that? Who are you, Holder?"

"Who do you think?" it asked. You looked closely, and in the details of a face warped by madness, you saw your own.

The Holder of the End is actually Object 0 over ∞, he has seen it all, knows it is happening again, but can no longer stop it.