Somewhere far away drifting over the echos fair.

Somewhere just south, and north of despair.

Across the cracked and destroyed faces of the air...

Upon the noon time's moonlight gleaming.

With the shattered bleeding of true love's dreaming.

The single last sound of a world's final screaming...

Love scattered all barriers but what when its the last to break?

What's left to wonder, what's left to drive when heart's all turn to ache?

The wind will blow on scattered shoals when mind's finally bake.

In stone, a single poem I etched. Something I took up, once everyone seemed to die. Then I would die, and I would wake up and she was still there watching and waiting for me.

I barely remembered her, this time around. Somethings are better to forget. Forget about all the happy times we shared. Forget about the love that we once shared. Forget. Forget.

Here. You've found my death bed. Isn't that great? You'll find it again, I'm sure, but you won't ever realize it. The snow is falling and the sun is shining and the rain is pouring and the dinosaurs still walk the earth. And hell will freeze over before I stay dead.

Or she stays dead. We'll never kill each other. We still live for the other, you know. Or maybe you don't, after all, and this is another time wasted away. It's happened so many times before you. You are her child after all.

Maybe... Maybe you'll be able to live long enough to tell her I love her.

Shhh... Shhh child. Child, I mean no harm. I know she loves another now, but...

Shhh... Tell her that Ivan is waiting for her. That he has always been waiting for her, and that when the time comes we can embrace each other and finally die. Finally die and stay dead and stop living longer than anyone has any right to.

I can understand how Marty feels now. Yes... Looping about on worlds, worlds that are corrupted just by your presence. I just wish I could keep powers, like he does, or be once again in a world with magic.

That's the joke. Magic. I haven't tasted magic since the beginning of it all. So many worlds, so many paradises, so many times wasted, so many kisses and loves, and all the time she was still there, so close and so far.

If I was a police officer, she was the criminal. If I was ambassador, she was the sniper. If I was the leader, she was the second in command who'd back stab me. Sometimes... I think she remembers.

N-no... Child. Don't leave yet. Please. T-tell your mother. Tell Sera. Tell Catastrophe, that I miss her, and that when we die I'll wait for her, that Ivan is waiting for her. Tell her we'll embrace once more before the end, before everything dies and we can see our friends again.

Now... Now I remember them, when life's blood still pours from my breast, and my heart is bared. They were so happy, and we were so foolish. My gods. What were we thinking back then?

Here, in this park, I'm going to die.

Child, don't cry. Please don't cry. I just want her... to know... that... I miss her... and that she can... wait for me... I'm still waiting... f-for... her...

Tell her that I love her. Please. I just want to know that she knows that nothing matters anymore, that the truth is that I don't matter as long as she knows I still care.

I remember the explosion. I remember when they came for us, and so many people died so horribly, and the fires kept the night as day, and the day as something that would kill. I remember when clouds were so scarce, and we just held on to each other as we starved in the house together. No food. We never found out what happened to Isaac, did we?

That's your name, Child? M-maybe there's hope. Please... Please.. Go now. Go.

No. I'll hang on til then. Get her. Get your mother.

I understand she's frail. I understand. I'm frail too, right now.

GO.

I sat in the snow, feeling the cold slowly eat away at my will. It was never good enough. I was never good enough, could never be good enough to figure out the puzzle. This was all a puzzle, I was sure. An illusion. There was no way that the gods themselves would not intervene to destroy such horrible suffering.

And then I remembered that the gods were long dead, and that magic was long dead.

We were the last of the magicked. Here and there, I would catch glimpses of other times.

The gods were dead because we killed them for trying to kill us.

Sometimes I can still hear Malice.

Wake up, Ivan.

Sometimes I can still hear Malice.

Who am I even talking to? Would it be that much of a trouble to close my eyes and drift away from it all again?

And then I heard foot steps. And I looked up to the crunching of the snow and saw her again.

She was just as beautiful as all my memories told me. For a brief moment I saw her as she once was, as a beast of myth. Then she was back to being a human being, faded in age. Hair was bleached with the tides of time. She was as old as I was.

I recognized her from my high school. We were never that great of friends, we just felt awkward when we spoke, but now...

I looked into her eyes and saw she recognized me, and for a brief moment that smile that I had fallen in love with before memory was on her face and then she was next to me.

I was frail. I could hardly've walked to the park, but I did anyway, without question. This was my birthday, and the day that It all went so horribly wrong.

Oh... she embraced me, and there were tears. It hardly mattered, she was there and she remembered, and I could feel her again, though my eyes were failing, and tears were falling. Here, here we were again.

"Here we are again." She said, with a voice that was beyond herself.

"I missed you." I said.

She said. "Ivan."

"Sera." I said.

And then we were somewhere else entirely, an island away from disaster.

And then I lifted a hoof into the air, then turned and kissed her as deeply as a I could.

Then the world died, and here was the last words of a dying dimension.

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

The old couple died in the park.

The criminal died with the officer.

The woodsman died with the maiden.

I died and so did she.

And like a single voice, the world sighed in relief.

"...Heh..."

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Author's Notes:

This is one of those future chapters. This should be confusing and make little sense, but it is FULL of spoilers of the best sort. They will only make sense after I write the corresponding content.