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147 lines
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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 26</title>
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<h1>Chapter 26</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 kicks
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her shoeless feet behind her slowly, as if she’s swimming with the
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current of the gravitational waves pulling her ever closer to their
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source. Her feet aren’t completely bare; they’re still covered by
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her gray-striped witch stockings. But the ruby slippers are gone.
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She kicked them off hours ago, as if to jettison all hope of
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returning anywhere resembling a place she used to call home. The
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fond remembrance of such a place no longer has any pull on her.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Now, something else entirely is pulling her.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Believe me, I’m sympathetic to the temptation. It’s
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always just <em>there,</em> isn’t it? A limitless reservoir of
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emptiness, perfectly available to you, patient, omnipresent, and
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dead ahead. As someone who grew up in the middle of an ocean,
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completely alone, on a planet purged of all human life four hundred
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years before I was born, I understand the feeling well.</p>
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<p class="dirk">But something isn’t <em>right</em> here. She should
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really reconsider whatever it is she may be about to do.</p>
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<p class="dirk">There’s something about being alone for so long, it
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makes time feel like it doesn’t exist. She knows this almost better
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than I do.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Jade also knows well enough by now that time
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doesn’t actually exist in a literal sense, the way we generally
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understand it. It’s just one aspect of many, and the complement of
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her own, Space. It therefore can be neutralized by the introduction
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of her essence. Reduced to white noise or soft light. The continuum
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of time is therefore demonstrably an illusion. The field of
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sequential moments and physical conditions that stretch on and on,
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resulting in the mirage of loneliness, is pure projection from
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disproportionate attention given to a single side of one cosmic,
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polar pair of ideas: time.</p>
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<p class="dirk">It’s my way of saying, and thereby alerting her
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mind to what she already knows, that this feeling of all-consuming
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solitude and despair haunting her since childhood—it’s in her head.
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The ticking of time is a little contrivance in her mind as a
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byproduct of imbalance, of the vast disparity between her limited
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self and her Ultimate Self. It lives rent free there the way Dave
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once did, and for this version of Jade, probably still does. He
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made fun of her sometimes when they were kids because she couldn’t
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always keep real and fake things straight, but he never meant it
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seriously. It was just the way he showed that he cared, which is
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one of the things Jade always liked so much about him. That he’s so
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clumsy and genuine underneath it all. Maybe Dave broke her heart a
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little, and he keeps doing it too, no matter how many different
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timelines they try out.</p>
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<p class="dirk">She slips closer to the event horizon, still making
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no effort to impede her descent. My persuasion skills are
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admittedly a little rusty. Bear with me here.</p>
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<p class="dirk">In my experience, there’s something about being
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alone that can take a person’s limited meat-engine and make it
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imagine that it can see beyond the confines of its own electrical
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processes. Make it believe that it is ascending to a place where it
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can see the four dimensions spread out beneath it like a set of
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windows. Like sheet music. Like a garden, where Jade used to spend
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so much of her time with her hands in the earth and her head in the
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clouds, dreaming about flowers that bloomed in six colors and grew
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when she played them a song. Was that real? It’s hard to tell. But
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it made her happy, didn’t it?</p>
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<p class="dirk">Isn’t that what she needs now? Isn’t it reasonable
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to presume that’s the only thing capable of persuading her to slow
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her descent—to being invited to imagine, fake or otherwise, that
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which once made her happy? That which could still make her happy,
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if only she’d slow down, think about it, and do whatever is
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necessary to place herself in those surroundings again?</p>
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<p class="dirk">It’s possible that manning the other end of a
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suicide hotline, transmitted through pure thought in a metatextual
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format, may not actually be my true calling. I’m doing my goddamned
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best here. She just isn’t slowing down, for some incomprehensible
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reason. Perhaps my touch is too soft. It wouldn’t be the first
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time. Perhaps the limits of persuasion itself are being tested by
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the most powerful gravitational force to ever exist? Or perhaps
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it’s true that insistence is just the more effective half of
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persuasion.</p>
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<p class="dirk">So I’m insisting now.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Jade Harley <em>will not</em> go into that hole.
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She <em>does NOT</em> want us to all to see what happens when she
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unsettles the spirit residing there.</p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">she does, though.</p>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">Fucking yikes.</p>
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<p class="dirk">Jade throws on the brakes. I <em>say</em> she does.
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But by now, the gravity is overwhelming. Is she even trying to
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resist, or is it just that it’s useless to try? I’m not... I’m not
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sure I can tell?</p>
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<p class="dirk">Jade realizes, preferably before it’s too late,
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that this is fucking serious. She <em>needs</em> to turn this
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around. She doesn’t want this. <em>She doesn’t want to
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die.</em></p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">she wants to return to me.</p>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">All right, I’m done messing around.</p>
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<p class="dirk"><em>YOUR</em> name is Jade Harley. <em>YOU</em>
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decide, right now, that you do not want to die. You resist the pull
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of the black hole with all your might. What would killing yourself
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accomplish? Sure, most of your friends are dead. But John is still
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looking for you. Do you want to let him down? Do you want to
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<em>crush his soul</em>? Do you have any appreciation for what he’s
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going through, Jade? He can take you home. To your <em>new</em>
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home, Earth C. The home <em>I</em> made for you, Jade. Your friends
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are all there, alive and well. Rose, Dave, Karkat, slutty adult
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Jade, Jane, Jake, Roxy, me. You wouldn’t want to disappoint them.
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You wouldn’t want to disappoint <em>me</em>, would you, Jade?</p>
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<p class="dirk">You can avoid all this. The unpredictable
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consequences about to be unleashed by your thoughtless act. You can
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still turn this thing around. <em>It’s not too late.</em></p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">but it is too late.</p>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">Christ.</p>
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<p class="dirk">You’re close now, to the ceiling of the cancerous
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deformity. Too close. Just skimming the edge of this thing’s
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vicious horizon. You dip your toes through the place where the
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singularity is snapping everything apart at the seams. It’s so loud
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that it’s completely silent. You can already feel yourself
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stretched thin, distorted, pulled out with your descent elongated
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for all eternity. When you look down, the stripes of your witchy
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tights go on and on for miles. Please, Jade. Don’t ever say I
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didn’t try to stop this.</p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">she closes her eyes and lets
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go.</p>
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