Chapter 332 (1/2)

The night sky was empty and had been for billions of years. Space held nothing but the odd photon slowly losing energy as it traveled through emptiness. Gravitons were long gone, even chronotrons were largely extinct. In places space time had ripped apart, leaving nothing behind but something beyond emptiness. Black holes had evaporated away or been ripped apart into smears of not being.

In a small area, surrounded by more than emptiness were a handful of the last remaining. Six massive red giants, the final phase a stellar mass could hold, being fueled by the huge magnetic fields that extended out to the more than emptiness in hopes of stray hydrogen atoms.

Around each red giant were dozens of planetary bodies, ranging from only a few dozen miles in diameter to tens of thousands. Each one, no matter what the size, even the ones that orbited masses that orbited masses that orbited the masses that orbited the stellar mass, was covered in dim cities where the last sentiences dwelled.

Their universe was beyond dying. Dying infers death throes, some semblence of life still remaining.

The universe was dead, had rotted away, and now the powdered remains of the bones were blowing away.

The sky was more than dark.

It way beyond empty.

There was still some hope for those who dwelled.

A small tear. A rip in the dusty remains of space-time.

Chronotons, gravitons, and gravity waves had left the realm beyond, a tiny hole torn in between the universes.

It had only lasted a second, less than a second, but when every available matter and energy scoop was arranged to find the slightest remaining piece of a particle, the tiny leak had represented a vast array of energy to be hoarded.

It had allowed the stellar masses, grouped together, huddled together against the more than darkness, to operate for almost another eight seconds.

Raw gravity waves. Gravitons still at high excitement from a Big Bang less than a half trillion years before. Dark matter leakage that had streamed through the hole like water through a tiny crack in a dam. Chronotrons that were still at high excitement instead of exhausted and dark.

Those who dwelled had jumped on the leak, tried to reach back.

But the tiny gap had closed before they could reach through.

It had taken time, time that they didn't have, time where the chronotrons had become more and more still, more and more flat.

More dead.

Those who dwelled were almost out of food. Some planets, they had begun feasting on one another in an orgy of semi-intelligent cannibalism.

The others did not judge them.

Anything to survive in the final moments.

Energy, even the energy expended to be at full wakefulness, was something to be hoarded.

Now, they knew they needed to expend it.

There was somewhere else that could be reached.

That fact alone stirred to life those who intended on attempting to sleep through the end, to hopefully awake on the other side.

One of the suns was consumed opening a new portal, stabilizing it.

Beyond was a wealth of riches. Matter, energy, of all sorts. Matter that was nothing more than a theoretical historical note was abundant.

But most of all, there was life beyond. Life meant something to the dwellers, who lived in the small cold dark space surrounded on all sides by less than nothing.

It meant food.

Ancient science had to be relearned.

In some places, the food fought back. Resisted having their stars stripped away, fought back against their stellar systems denuded to where even the gravitons were harvested.

Chronotrons were harvested and brought back.

The five almost black stellar masses, so purple they were barely visible against the beyond emptiness, flared to dim life again as the abundant resources of the universe beyond was harvested.

Two races were able to stand against those who dwelled in the Last Darkness. Powerful races, huge in number, with servitor races and food species. Those Who Dwell Below were forced to treat them as allies even as their salivated over the thought of devouring them.

Then, somehow, one race found out what the Dwellers were doing. How they were harvesting the universe, how the Dwellers planned on eventually harvesting all of reality, in order to keep their own reality going.

Overtures were made.

Perhaps the Dwellers could migrate to the new universe, leave their old one behind.

No, because this universe too would eventually suffer its own ripping heat death.

But not for hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of years, the two species answered, even as they prepared for war beyond the sight of the Dwellers.

No, because it would still suffer the fate the Dweller's own universe had. It was safer for the Dwellers to harvest this one and carefully shepherd the resources extracted.