154 lines
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154 lines
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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 18</title>
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<div id='s18'></div>
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<div>
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<h1>Chapter 18</h1>
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<div class="o-story_text o_epilogue type-rg type-sm line-caption line-copy pad-x-0 pad-x-lg pad-b-lg">
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<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="opener type-hs-opener-rg type-hs-opener-sm">Y</span>ou wake up.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: wh-what?</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You open your eyes. Actually, you’re not
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sure they’re open. Everything is intolerably bright, like it was
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inside the juju, but worse. Did you go blind? Are you dead? Is
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your... <em>ghost</em> dead?</p>
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<p class="dirk">You spend a couple seconds filing through miserable
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worst-case scenarios, but then you see it: your own blood, floating
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around you in a nimbus of shiny, taut bubbles. You reach out to
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touch one and it bursts around your finger.</p>
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<p class="dirk">You finally process the true magnitude of what has
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happened. The Furthest Ring has been completely destroyed. And
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you’re all alone.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Everything hits you all at once. The light, your
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memories of the battle, the untethered sensation of weightlessness.
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It’s a hammer stroke that hits you in the center of the head. It
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splits like rivers through your gray matter. That pain and
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disorientation goes all the way down your throat. You double over
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and...</p>
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<p class="dirk">Well, you’re vomiting up everything in your
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stomach. Rest assured, it’s pretty gross, and I don’t think anyone
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needs an explicit account of the way you’re disgorging your entire
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gut in zero gravity or the way it’s coating your entire torso in
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puke, from your long blue hood to your silly yellow slip-ons.</p>
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<p class="dirk">You seriously need to get it together. You look
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like absolute shit right now, my man. In fact, you really should
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strongly consider issuing an apology for the mess you’re
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making.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: i’m...</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: i’m sorry.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">Who are you talking to, dude? Nobody’s
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around for miles. Everyone’s dead. Well, almost everyone.</p>
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<p class="dirk">But certainly the vast majority of what qualifies
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as “everyone” in your current frame of reference. Every single
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person and every single thing, nearly literally, has been sucked
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into that monstrous black hole up there. Including every single
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fragment of black, empty space that used to provide the canvas for
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this bleak continuum. And most of your friends—Rose, Dave, absurd
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Cat Dave, and hundreds of ghosts, who all valiantly contributed to
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a victory which you’re only now beginning to question the
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functional necessity of.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: functional... necessity?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: that... that doesn’t sound like something i
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would think.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">That’s because it’s not.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: what the fuck...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You’ve finally noticed.</p>
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<p class="dirk">No, not me. You go back to ignoring the fact that
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I’m the voice in your head. You noticed how it hurts when you
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breathe. Suddenly you remember: Lord English’s tooth is still
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embedded in your chest. You panic, wrap your hands around the base,
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and give it a little tug. It’s excruciating. The tooth makes an
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awful grating sound as it grinds along one of your ribs. You gasp
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and lose your grip, biting the inside of your mouth so hard that
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you taste blood.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Can’t blame you for trying, but I wouldn’t do that
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if I were you. Without someone to administer proper medical care,
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you’ll bleed to death pretty much instantly. On the other hand, the
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tooth is poisoned. So you’re pretty much fucked either way, and
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that’s really all there is to say on the matter.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: sigh.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You sigh in painful resignation, and
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wonder what to do next. English is dead, so you suppose you can go
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home, right? It’s tempting. You consider zapping back to Earth C,
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being done with this nightmare for good, and never breathing a word
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of it to anyone ever again. But you can’t yet, can you?</p>
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<p class="dirk">Why not, you wonder? What’s the harm? You’re right,
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it would probably be a harmless decision, in the grand scheme of
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things. Certainly the easiest thing to do. But what about your
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friends? You saw Rose and Dave die with your own eyes. You saw
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countless ghosts getting swallowed whole by a voracious
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singularity. How about Jade though? She could still be out there
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somewhere, injured, alone, scared. And it’s your fault, isn’t
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it?</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: it’s...</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: it’s all my fault.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You decide that no matter how terrible
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you feel, you should look around first before you leave. You were
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the one who dragged her here. You owe her at least that much. Plus,
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there’s someone else on your mind, isn’t there?</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: ...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You proceed to wander for a long fucking
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time. Time passes differently here than it does for everyone else.
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Here, I’ll simulate it for you. I just left to go take a piss. Then
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I microwaved myself a hot pocket. Then I came back. In the time it
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took me to do that, you just spent hours drifting around the entire
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circumference of the black hole thinking sad-sack thoughts about
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the years of inaction that led you to this point, intermittently
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humming the <em>Ghostbusters</em> theme to yourself. You get so
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worked up about one of your <em>GB</em> freestyles that you almost
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miss it.</p>
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<p class="dirk">There. Eleven o’clock. Do you see it? It’s that
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tiny dot floating over there.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: huh?</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">You scramble to catch it before it drifts
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any closer to the event horizon. <em>Got it</em>. What the
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hell?</p>
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<p class="dirk">It feels familiar, but you want to make sure you’re
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not imagining it. A wallet. Your <em>dad’s</em> wallet. You chew
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your lip and press your fingers into the soft leather. Space is an
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infinitely large expanse and a wallet is a tiny, insignificant
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object. Sure, there have been crazier coincidences in the course of
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this wacky adventure you’ve been having for the past ten years, but
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this one feels very precisely aimed at your heart.</p>
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<p class="dirk">You take a deep breath, unfold the wallet, and open
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it.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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