The sirens were drowned out by the raging wind.\n<<fadeinsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/dvs9xf1sep/1Heartbeat4.mp3">>\nFrom that wind, monstrous sounds came.\n\nThe ferocious, gutteral growls that carried themselves in the air,\n\nWere distorted beyond imagination.\n\nThe way it whispered into their brain,\n\n[[Was not possible.]]

When was the last time they had eaten?\n\nWhen was... when was...?\n\nFood... food...?\n\nCome to think of it,\n\neverything before this corridor-leading up to this corridor,\n\n[[seemed to be gone.]]

But they remember more.\n\nIt's a hazy, strained memory.\n\nBut it exists.\n\nSomewhere in the confines of their neurons.\n\nInstilled in their cells, tied in a knot somewhere in the mess of their deoxyribonucleic acid. Choking their molecules. Gnawing away at their brain.\n\n[[Worthless memories.]]

...\n\nThey remember.\n\nLong nights spent looking out at these fields of stars,\n\nIt always seemed harmless, but-\n\nNow, they feel a sense of dread.\n\nHow long can you look out there and feel as if the stars might not be looking back at you?\n\nThey dreamed, once, of looking up and seeing a thousand eyes staring down at the world. A finger and thumb, larger than the entire world, picking it out of place. As if the planet was just like a [[marble.]]

It didn't matter.\n\nTime was an obsolete, abstract ideology.\n\nKeeping track of it was [[unnecessary.]]

The corridor went on for what felt like eternity.\n\nTime passed.\n\nIt was hard to tell long they had been walking.\n\nTheir legs felt weak.\n\nThey were so tired.\n\n[[They could feel them shaking.]]

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The clang of their feet against ground reverberated a thousand fold in that tiny metal tube.\n\nThey weren't wearing shoes,\n\nand the ground felt wet and slick like ice.\n\nThey felt like they could slip across the blinking lights,\n\nand crack their skull against the virtual grass.\n\nIf they bled out,\n\nand died there,\n\n[[would anyone-]]

[[Every cell screaming in unison. Pain reverberating off the bones and through the flesh. A sharp stab into the top of the spine.]]\n<<fadeinsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/t61lxxm59e/1Heartbeat5.mp3">>

How long had it been?\n\nWhen years stopped meaning something,\n\nit became hard to tell age.\n\nTheir body didn't rot. Not too much.\n\nTheir bones were not too brittle,\n\nand their hands did not shrivel with time.\n\nMaybe that meant they were not too old.\n\n[[But they felt so much older.]]

The world got dark. Impossibly dark.\n\nEvery star in the sky seemed to go out simultaneously.\n\nAnd they were left with themself.\n\nThey looked out at the world,\n\nand the world stared back them.\n\nThe neon lights went off.\n\nThe sounds they made stopped.\n\n[[Everything was quiet.]]

A man could live for a hundred years. The stars would have lived for a billion.\n\nHumanity could exist for ten thousand years. Space would exist for trillions.\n\nThe single worth of a small planet could see itself culminate into nuclear fallout and desolation and self-destruction. Less time than a blink in [[eternity.]]

[[A discomfort in their stomach.]]

The thing they saw at the top of the storm has no name.\n\nThe shadow it cast went on further than the eye could see,\n\nAnd above it loomed, unable to be comprehended.\n\n[[That day, the world met its mortality.\n\nIt was the day that god ate the sun.|That day]]

That's right. It was artificial-a source for this light did not need to exist. In the same space that those clouds were fake, everything up in that sky was a figment.\n\nAn electronic beep sounded off as if to respond to these suspicions.\n\nThis was just a [[metal tube.]]

The day the sky turned a deep red.\n\nAll the tensions of the world felt like a string being pulled and pulled along, stretched and yanked at the ends until it had become unable to move under the force.\n\nAnd that day, September 13th,\n<<fadeinsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/ofyl6a9fn0/1Heartbeat1.mp3">>\n[[The world finally ended.]]

Static momentarily distorted the vision of the clouds.\n\nThey, and the sun were [[fake.|entertainment only.]]

Still, the heat felt so [[real.]]

They can't remember their name. It stopped mattering.\n\nThey don't remember how long they have been in here, but they remember there has not been another person, for a long, long time.\n\nMaybe ever.\n\nBut, that's fine.\n\nThey're not sure why, but they know-from somewhere spoken in the pit of their stomach,\n\n[[Everything should be forgotten.\n\nEverything should be destroyed.|Everything should be forgotten.]]

The war had been going on so long that another danger from the sky was commonplace.\n\nThey could see it-the beginnings of it peaking through the clouds like flesh oozing out of them.\n<<fadeinsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/m8s4un4ety/1Heartbeat3.mp3">>\nThe way the wind picked up, the sudden storm that knocked trees down in its wake,\n\nThey remember. They remember watching their child getting swept away in that storm.\n\nThey called out for them,\n\nBut they couldn't keep their body from being impaled by that tree branch.\n\n[[They were so young.]]

It seemed like it happened so quickly.\n\nThe fallout led to barren wastelands, they remember hearing of how entire cities turned to ash.\n\nThe people disintegrating.\n\nTheir bodies melting, some were even still alive...\n\nThe escalation had happened in [[less than twenty four hours,]] they remembered.

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It was a way of [[coping.]]\n\nA way of believing [[in the sun again.]]

They remember.\n\nThe darkness that came [[after-|-]]\n\nAfter.\n\n--

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The wall was cold.\n\nThe wall was hard.\n\nIt was the boundary between them and the world outside.\n\nIt kept them in.\n\nIt kept it out.\n\nSomething about it felt [[safe.|cold.]]

Something pops into their head.\n\nA number.\n\n913.\n\nIt doesn't seem to hold any real significance.\n\nAt least, [[as far as they can tell.]]

-\n\nIt's hard to remember the last time they could feel real air.\n\nIt's hard to remember ifffffffff\n\n[[When was the last time you could feel anything.]]

-\n\nThe fluorescent tubes crackled with activity, and the series of electrical signals reverberated like a heartbeat to patterns that couldn't be understood. Sporadic and irregular, the thumping had a beat that sounded hideous to the ears. Something about it was [[unsettling.]]

There was a time when there was no rain.\n\nIt had gone dry for days. Maybe months. Maybe longer.\n\n[[It was hard to remember.]]\n\nThere is something nostalgic about hearing the sound of rain.\n\nFeeling the wet grass,\n\nthe water dripping on your cheeks.\n\nThe floor was hard, and [[cold.]]

[[Maybe that was better.]]

The world was dark.\n<<stopallsound>>\nThat was when it started to get hard to remember.\n\nIt was hard to tell, who?\n\nThe living spark that moved the animal that was them,\n\nThe relation between them and the world in which they inhabited,\n\nOn that day, something tore in reality itself.\n\nSomething tore into their brain. A physical wound, stretching all the way across, pushing at the top of their skull. They could feel its scar, [[festering.]]

They couldn't remember. \n\nActually, there was nothing to worry about in the first place.\n\nThis was just a virtual space. Nothing here really existed.\n\nIt's purpose was for [[entertainment only.]]

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They remember.\n\nAt first, it was overpopulation.\n\nAnd then, the famine.\n\nThe wars broke out.\n\nThe fight for resources had become brutal,\n\nGovernments collapsed.\n\nLives were destroyed,\n\nPeople gouged the eyes of their neighbors,\n\nFor just a [[bite to eat.]]

[[The small tube was drifting in an endless sea of stars and planets.]]

<<silently>><<playsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/qzo1qe57qr/1Heartbeat8.mp3">>\n<<stopsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/a3i6vglwxk/1Heartbeat6.mp3">>\n<<stopsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Static1.mp3">>\n<<endsilently>><<timedcontinue 4s>>\n[[END.|Credit]]

What had made [[everything]] so dark?

...\n\n...\n\n...\n\n[[Their stomach growls.]]

-

They become aware of their lungs filling with oxygen.\n<<playsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/a3i6vglwxk/1Heartbeat6.mp3">>\nThey become aware of the flesh in front of their eyes, closing, then opening.\n<<fadeinsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Static1.mp3">>\nThey become aware of the sensation of a thousand creatures scattering under their skin, digging for a way out.\n\nThey become aware of the feeling of their heart pounding, ready to explode.\n\nThey become aware that each piece of them is fragilely stitched together, and at any moment they could fall to pieces.\n\n[[They remember.]]

[[That doesn't make any sense.]]

The one on their hand.\n\nOn their calf.\n\nOne that started from the left ear and scratched and raked its way through down past their lips to the top of their chin.\n\nWhen they received that one, they had thought they would die.\n\nBut as it turned out, [[that other one had died first.]]

Electric signals pass along the floor,\n<<fadeinsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Electric2.mp3">>\nneon lights respond in a rhythmic pattern among the ceiling and the ground.\n\nIn the workings of that forgotten metal corridor, [[a single person stood.]]\n\n

Shiloh somethingorodder

Time passed. \n\nOr it seemed to. It was difficult to tell.\n\nSometimes a glimpse of the numbers of a digital clock would pass by in the distance, beyond the walls,\n\n[[but it was difficult to tell what was real.]]

As helpless as it would feel living trapped in that empty corridor, as endless as it felt, nothing seemed to quite compare to the [[vastness of this empty space.]]

They took a rest, and lay against the wall.\n\nIt felt hard and discomforting,\n\nbut without it, they would have nothing to support them up.\n\n[[Something about falling downwards unsettles them.]]

[[Dry mouth. Ragged breaths.]]

The fluorescent tubes glow dimly on the [[walls.]]

They scratched their face.\n\nRoughly until it bled.\n\nThey looked at their hand. It was covered in blood. They were still [[alive.]]

Drifting isn't so bad.\n\nThe world is as the world does.\n\nTurning, and turning...\n\nThere was nothing to go back to. [[Nothing to hope for outside of this metal tube.]]

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[[A cold sweat across the forehead.\n\nWaking up from their own screams.|A cold sweat across the forehead.]]

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<<timedreplace 5s>>Sitting in a tin can waiting for the sun to explode I can't remember the last time I could I can't remember the last time I lived I can't remember the last time am I alive am I alive am I [[alive]]<<becomes>>\n[[A thumping pain in the back of the neck.|alive]]<<endtimedreplace>>\n<<silently>><<playsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/qjtl8a176s/1Thunder1.mp3">><<endsilently>>

[[Just look at the world burn.]]

But this body had to be theirs.\n\nThe skin looked like their skin,\n\ntheir hands were the same shape they remembered,\n\ntheir face felt like it used to.\n\nAnd the [[scars]] were still there.

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It wasn't the war that they feared.\n\nBut something in that war had left a lead brick resting in their stomach, and an electric current darting through their spine.\n\n[[...|Remember]]

It was then that they remember.\n\nThey remembered what they were meant to forget.\n\nThey let out a feral yell,\n\nTheir hands beat against the walls of the corridor,\n\nTheir fists pound and echo throughout the metal tube,\n\n[[Until they start to bleed.]]

Cosmos\n\nCreated by Shiloh (somethingorodder.tumblr.com)\n\nThank you for playing.

They look at the stars.\n\nA field of lights in every direction. \n\nSurrounding them.\n\nThe transition is so seamless it's hard to remember which way is [[up.]]

It was a day like any other.\n\nA life like any other.\n\nA world like any other.\n\nThe lives lost never expected anything, and the occurence did not announce itself with fanfare-\n\nIt did not foretell its coming with ancient calendars, nor meteor showers,\n\nBut they remember one thing.\n\nOn that day, the sky was [[a deep red.]]\n\n

Do you remember?\n\nThe way that she ripped his throat out?\n\nThe way they beat that elderly couple to pieces?\n\nThe way that man had blood dripping from his chin?\n\nHow desperate and starving,\n\nHow inhuman and bloodthirsty,\n\nHow quickly it had turned in less than a day.\n\nThe empathy had vacated their eyes, and their bodies were damp with blood. Their eyes looked completely [[red.]]\n\n[[Humanity is a fragile thing.]]

<<timedreplace 1s>>Red, red, red, red, red red red red redredrederederedredredredred-<<becomes>>[[An itchiness in the back of the skull.|less than twenty four hours,]]<<endtimedreplace>>

There was something out there-beyond the veil of walls, slithering somewhere beneath the ground, lingering somewhere above the ceiling. Towards the sky.\n\nBeyond the neon lights, they could see that clear, blue sky. Cumulus clouds hung lazily somewhere up there, very far away. It was bright. It was hazy. There was no [[sun.]]\n\n<<loopsound "1Electric2.ogg">>

To look out to the stars was to wonder how many of them had been consumed,\n\nHow many of them long since dead,\n\nIf the distance of lightyears meant their deaths would happen long before their light would stop finding its way to them,\n\nMaybe they were all [[dead]] already.

[[Deep space.]]

... If the stars in the night sky can be considered the specks dotting the universe, \n\nWe are [[less than specks]] in the face of eternity.

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They don't want to remember.\n\nThey had spent so long starting to learn to forget,\n\nThey feel it [[might be better to die.]]

They remembered the sirens the clearest.\n\nThey were loud and unrelenting.\n\nGoing for days, going for days...\n\nThrough the night. Through the sun.\n\nNo matter where you went, you could hear them.\n\nThere was a lot of talk during that time. They... didn't remember what about. A lot of concerned faces, a lot of frowning. Furrowed brows, looking dissatisfied.\n\n[[A lot of screams.]]

It felt like they were sideways.\n\nOr, maybe they lived their life sideways, and they were [[standing upright for the first time.]]

There was war. So much war.\n\nLakes dried up. Water was scarce.\n\nThe oceans were empty, and as deep as they were, filled with the bodies of millions of sea creatures, they looked like a massive, open grave.\n\nNo, maybe the [[portal to hell.]]

A [[headache.|What a vivid experience.]]

That was... that was right.\n\nThere was something there, in the number 913.\n\n[[They remembered.]]

Millions of them.\n\nMemories of lying down on a quiet summer evening and trying to count the stars fill their head.\n\nThe fireflies danced like the children of the constellations.\n\nIt was warm.\n\nThat was a long time [[ago.]]\n\n

Something smelled like [[rust.|real.]]

It was a way of expressing oneself.\n\nA way of just [[passing the time.|passing the time.]]

It was hard to keep track of everything that happened.\n\nThere was... a building.\n\nPeople gathered there; though, for reasons they do not remember.\n\nThere was arguing, yelling,\n\nAnd then they got into the metal tube.\n\nThere were hundreds like them. A field of metal tubes, pointing straight up towards the sky.\n\n"You're the only hope we have," they said.\n\nWhat [[hope?]]

It was,\n<<fadeinsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Static1.mp3">>\nIt was,\n\nIt wwwwas,\n\n[[...]]

That's right. The day 8 billion people disappeared.\n\nSeptember 13th, 2024.\n\n[[The day the world had changed forever.]]

They look out at the stars.\n\nTheir body won't stop shaking.\n\nSuddenly, it is not the tightness of the corridor that makes them uneasy,\n\nBut a claustrophobia from the smallness of space.\n\nThey see it, and scream.\n\n[[They remember.|END]]

The light begins to fade.\n<<fadeoutsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Rain2.mp3">>\nThe storm begins to die down.\n<<fadeoutsound "http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/qjtl8a176s/1Thunder1.mp3">>\n[[The sky is filled with stars.]]

-\n<<fadeinsound "http://wesleystroupe.com/otter/1Rain2.mp3">>\nIt started to rain.\n\nIt felt like rain had been a long time coming.\n\nThe [[smell]] of it was fresh in the metal tube, the sounds of gears whirring was muffled by the sound of water hitting grass. \n\n[[What a vivid experience.]]

Time passed.\n\nIt was hard to tell how long they had stood there, staring out into space.\n\nThey put [[their hand against the wall,]] and [[took a step forward.]]

Then, they saw it.\n\nThe cosmos.\n\nOne by one, it started,\n\na trillion stars, across an innumerable distance,\n\nlit up in rapid succession.\n\nToo fast for the human eye-as fast as the speed of light.\n\nThey had stopped living in the world, \n\nand had found themselves [[lost in space.]]