108 lines
6.4 KiB
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108 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 20</title>
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<div id='s20'></div>
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<div>
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<h1>Chapter 20</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">J</span>ade gasps
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awake, and begins to spiral.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Her body vibrates, sending waves of space
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distortion out in all directions. But there’s nothing to absorb
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those distortions—no space, no nothing. She’s floating in a void of
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pure, overwhelming light. She feels it even before she feels the
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pain from the wound in her chest. The vast emptiness surrounding
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her. The absolute abyss once known as the Furthest Ring.</p>
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<p class="dirk">For a moment, she has the feeling that she’s
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recalling something. Images and sounds in her head that resemble
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memories. But the memories aren’t hers, exactly. They seem to be
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someone else’s. There’s an older version of Roxy... someone with a
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cheerful green skull for a head, who was... Roxy’s girlfriend?
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Something about an election. No, this doesn’t make any sense at
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all. The memories are slipping away, anyway. Quickly, they
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dissolve, and soon they’re completely out of her mind’s reach, like
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she’s waking from a dream. Just like that, they’re gone.</p>
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<p class="dirk">All that’s left are the memories belonging to her,
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along with the dire predicament for which she must claim
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responsibility. Her friends. Lord English. This great nothingness.
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This savage wound in her chest. That...</p>
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<p class="dirk"><em>That black hole</em>.</p>
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<p class="dirk">She looks away from it. Quickly, reflexively, the
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way you turn away from a light source that’s too bright. The hole
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causes the same kind of discomfort to behold. It’s so dark it
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hurts. Yet it calls her.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Her hair spills around her like tentacles
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unfurling. She coils into a fetal position and runs her fingers
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along the edge of the shard in her chest. It sends pins and needles
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under her skin. It’s pure... negative potential. The absence of a
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future. The thing skewering her through right now is the space
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between breaths, between atoms. She tries to remove it but has
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trouble getting a grip on it. It fails to behave like a solid piece
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of matter, remains lodged within her stubbornly. It hurts, but she
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won’t finish dying. Not just yet.</p>
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<p class="dirk">She unfolds, blinking against the vast, empty light
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around her. Her memories crease as she moves, filling her mind with
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the knowledge of the last few hours. She’s sixteen, she thinks,
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trying to orient herself. And she just fought Lord English after
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being plucked out of a doomed timeline. At least, if you can even
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call what she did fighting. But what was that dream? It was
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significant, she’s knows that much. Dave and Karkat? Why did they
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jump into her mind as a unit? Earth C. What’s Earth C? Concepts
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collide, commingle. Two different understandings of her world knit
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into each other as easily as she takes her next breath. Urgency
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bleeds off her neural receptors, melts right out of her fingertips.
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She lets herself float, unmoored, carried along an ebb tide in
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space that only she can perceive.</p>
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<p class="dirk">She wonders if anyone else survived. She wants to
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see John.</p>
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<p class="dirk">She didn’t notice the moment she turned her gaze
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back toward the black hole. But now she couldn’t look away if she
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tried. In slow, hazy spirals, it beckons her. The longer she stares
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at it, the deeper she peers into the folds of infinite atrophy, and
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the louder it gets. Loud? She only now notices there is sound
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emanating from it, but not the kind physical ears can detect. The
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hole has a voice—one that becomes material the more the expanding
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black sphere dominates her senses.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Jade’s wound throbs. She hears the voice fill up
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the dark space between her ribs. It’s calling to her from the
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center of the death of everything. She kicks off her ruby red
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slippers, and drifts ever closer.</p>
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<p class="calliope-dead">come.</p>
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<p class="dirk">What the fuck?</p>
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<p class="dirk">Forget I said that. Jade leans into her
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accelerating descent. She listens for another command. But the hole
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has seemingly said all it will. She considers asking who is
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speaking, but her mouth stays shut, powerless against the forces
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transfixing her. Jade has no way of knowing who this voice belongs
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to. She has no context for understanding the true nature of this
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being, what role she has played in bringing about the end, and how
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<em>long</em> she has been waiting for this. She has no idea. But I
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do.</p>
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<p class="dirk">The dead cherub is making her move.</p>
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<p class="dirk">We should get the fuck out of here. Let’s see what
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Dave’s up to, okay?</p>
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