Epilogue: Dawnlight

It took them a while to put things back together after that. People suffered, as always happens with change. Some even died. But it would be a filthy, abject, outright lie to say things were any worse than they’d been before.

Of those that had lived on Enfirnia beforehand, most of them returned to their old lives, working hard to make sure everything was functional in this new universe. The bright sunlight meant a large project for a great many, with buildings not built to accommodate such heat and machines not built to accommodate such bright light. But there were children playing with a bright yellow Sun above their heads, feeling the light on their cheeks, laughing in a warmth they’d never known, and never known they’d needed.

Of those that had lived in space, some stayed there, helping to rebuild the infrastructure orbiting Enfirnia. Others set out to explore the riches to be found in the asteroids, whilst others still set out at light speed, desperate to see the wonders of the stars for themselves. But just as many chose to leave the ships they’d known their entire lives, and set foot on the green and blue world that had been gifted to them. It would be often hard, and often cold, and often hungry or thirsty or scary, but there was space for them now, an entire world to have for their own, to live together as long as there were stars in the sky.

They’d named the new planet Greenie.

They’d named it in honour of me.

It had taken Konzor far too long to finally realise what he’d found in the rucksack I’d given him. But when he finally figured it out, he cried and laughed and sang. Dagger didn’t believe him at first, but as I was incubated, the tiny pod growing limbs and facial features, she came to understand too.

It had taken me a while to decide, but Konzor had finally pushed me into it, back on the Arkolt transport ship. The decision to propagate. To live.

I’d been so convinced it was time to die, that for my mistakes, for my sins, I would allow myself to crumble and end a billion-year dynasty. That I’d die making up for them, and finally fulfil some sort of karmic quota. That it would be poetic, dying to fix my mistakes.

But I’d come to realise, it was silly, and not just because there was something to look forward to now. I had owed it to the universe to fix my mistakes, to destroy the monster I’d made, but I didn’t owe my death to anyone, especially after so long, especially after how hard I’d worked to fix everything. I wasn’t a slave to my guilt, my shame, not anymore. I’d spent so many billions of years filling my own head with thoughts of self-hatred, but it had only taken a day of friendship to see what I’d never seen as a hive-mind. I was good. I was bad. I was many. I was one. I could choose to be any of those things, as much as I could choose to be Greenie.

I could choose to die someday, if I wanted. Maybe I’d tire of all of this, maybe the stars would one day bore me, maybe there’d be nothing left to see or do.

Today was not that day.

I felt the plants beneath me, like grass, but less pointy. They tickled my neck in an evening breeze, the last of the sunset warming my face. On one side, Konzor lay staring at the stars, hands locked behind his head. On the other, Dagger was slowly dozing off, the book she was writing left unfinished on the ground beside her. That was okay. She had time to finish it. I simply looked at each of them, and smiled.

The universe was truly full of wonders.