text: The Last Planet (1,095 Words) -AR Mirabal We’re nearing the end now, or is it the beginning? We’ve been floating in the dead of space for so long now, it feels like the universe’s already come to a close. Our biggest folly has always been arrogance, but it’s also the driving force that’s gotten us this far. Starting as single-celled organisms swimming in primordial goo, we ascended to the height of heights; no nebula too far, no sun unconquered. Our unrelenting will to fight-on, to surpass the legacies left by our ancestors, has evolved us past the physical plane into a collective consciousness of energy. We’ve weathered countless super novas, seen what lies through a black hole, even mastered the looms of time; we’ve outlived everything else, we’re the last planet. Just as we’ve predicted in our infancy however, the end comes with a whimper not a bang. The light’s dying. Only a couple stars remain in all the cosmos, and soon those will die too. Dueling supermassive black holes and lingering asteroids are all that’s left in the starless void. The last chapter for life in the universe, after all our strife and resilience, is a long and dry death; but we won’t go gently. Projections of our energy-forms flood the fabrics of space, collecting data and piecing it all together in every possible variable combination till we crack the last secret this universe holds; there has to be a way to save the light. Our planet is the last beacon of hope, the final bastion against the darkness. Warmed by three artificial suns, each siphoning the remaining latent energies that still scarcely linger, the planet floats in frigid isolation. Like our physical flesh, the planets soil is made of nanite-rich organic bionetics; a living, breathing commutative intelligence. Long ago now, when the sky still had stars, we infected the infant planet like a plague; hollowed it out and corrupted it, formed it in our image. Now left with only the blackness of the void, we defiantly stand in unison and plot our survival. The problem is, we’ve exhausted this universe to its limit; we’ve manipulated the curvature of time, peered into higher dimensions, but still there’s no answers in sight. It’s seeming that this problem may not have a solution, this may be where life has to end. There is, however, one bell that’s yet to be rung. A last ditch effort resulted in the creation of another artificial moon, the largest satellite to date; named Umbra. It’s purpose is to simulate endless universes simultaneously. Broken up into clusters, each cluster is separated by slightly varying parameters; the clusters contain countless universes and each universe is accompanied by an infinite alternate copies. Studying all those simulations, we hope to find the missing piece of the puzzle that’s eluded us in reality. I’m hopefully this will at the very least be an interesting experiment. v.0.1 The pilot experiment was deemed a failure; the parameters were set too delicately, it was too perfect. It didn’t resemble the chaos of our own enough to give us any type of value information. This will be noted and improved in the second iteration. v.0.2 The experiment was a great success but some unforeseen circumstances caused the data to be corrupted. While we got the parameters right and the data was reflective of our own universe, it appears that something in the program became sentient and started talking to one of the projections that was operating the simulation. v.0.3 This...will be the last iteration. The experiment, in respect to our original goal, was a success; but it brought us no solace. This third version fixed all the flaws of its predecessors and got us the data we thought we wanted. What we didn’t foresee was that the same equations we derived for the salvation of light for a simulated reality, worked for our reality too. It’s possible we’re in a simulation ourselves. Obsessively reviewing the data we received, we’re been able to pinpoint structural similarities between space-fabric anomalies and realize that this isn’t the first time this has happened. It seems life truly is resilient to a fault; we’ve dealt with this problem in the past, the dying of the light. When we didn’t find the answer before, we projected the last of our dying essences into a fixed point in the bleak void; a maelstrom of our bitter resolve. In it, a fully new universe bloomed, existing (then dying again) in the finals breaths of the original universe. Within the copy, scattered remnants of the previous life survived; it was a place for them to reset and experience all of evolution once more before the light died. Whats more alarming is that it’s impossible to pinpoint the origin. Mathematically speaking the first universe, a four-dimensional object, was copied; creating a three-dimensional ‘shadow’. From the perceptive of lesser evolved entities, it’s similar to how a two-dimensional shadow is created from light casting onto a three-dimensional object. These ‘shadows’, however, aren’t few; they’re many. I’m reflective of my original passage into this journal as I inscribe this now. “Our biggest folly has always been arrogance,” I didn’t know then just how true those words rang. It seems that these copies are endless; when the initial copy’s time was done, and it’s light too started to die, another copy was created in the final moments of the previous. The line seems to go on forever too, all on borrowed time; all too reluctant to except that it’s over. I’m the last of my race to remain here; the rest have pooled the last of their energies to create yet another shadow and are projecting themselves into it now. Watching them in bitter contemplation, I see the last bits of light stretch across the black canvas of space as disípese into a fading dot. I’m now the last thing living, on the last planet; it’d be an interesting title if it weren’t so meaningless at the moment. I’ve decided to inscribe a portion of my energies with this journal entry and send that into the projection instead. Perhaps something can at least find some entertainment out of this. The frigid tendrils of the void now wrap around me. The artificial suns orbiting us have died a flickering death and the bitter chill of solitude is beginning to strangle me. Soon, so shall I parish like the stars, a relatively noble passing. It’s been a long time coming and I refuse to face my end with fear; I’ll take it in stride instead. We’ve lived long enough.