My eyes opened.

I found myself standing on my feet, not sure how I came to be upright. My surroundings were black as pitch, with only small blinking stars in the distance.

My lips dryly parted as my throat struggled out words. It was as if I hadn’t spoken in years, yet I was still able to force out a rasped call. “H-Hello?”

Initially, I expected an echo, yet nothing sounded back. It did not sound like I was in an open space, either. My words seemed to travel short. Muted as soon as they left my mouth. Consumed.

Part of me wanted to run, but I had no way of knowing where a single step forward would lead me. Every breath I took seemed to bounce back at me like I was caged in a box, yet my surroundings felt spacious and empty, as if I were standing in the middle of a glass ocean.

I stood there for a very long while, simply observing my surroundings. My heart fluttered deep in my chest as I wondered whether my grand assumptions were really true. Perhaps I had simply waltzed myself into a tumultuous death…

Then, after an amount of time I could not recount, something happened. The speckled stars around me seemed to shine brighter. They did not actually shine brighter, though. The blackness around the stars simply retracted like the sea’s tides revealing a grand reef.

More stars appeared. Bigger stars appeared. Wondrous luminescence of all colors were unveiled, twisting between the stars like ink poured in water. It was beautiful beyond anything conjured in my dreams.

The blackness did not just disappear, though. It instead accumulated into a phantablack sphere in the center of my vision.

Vibrations emanated from the globe, sending shockwaves throughout my sternum like the beat of a war drum.

I remembered this. This moment.

Before everything began, I had a dream with this very same thing. Except, in the dream, it spoke in colors with black nothingness around it. The only light in the dark. Now, it was a black hole in the middle of a bright universe.

My feet planted into the reflective ground as the trilling reverberated through me. The tremors were nearly enough to take me to my knees, but I withstood.

Eventually, they stopped, and the globe began to warp and wobble. It fell like a raindrop to the mirrored horizon and reclaimed shape. Now, it was the figure of a man. It looked almost like my own, but narrow. Stretched.

Entropy had come to continue our conversation from months ago. This time, there was no waking up.

The shape was a complete void. The only way I could see details of the shadow was due to the light behind it creating a silhouette.

I took a deep breath, and the air around me felt cool and fresh. Whatever smothered me had faded. Once more my vocal cords struggled to resonate. “Entropy? Is that what you are?”

A choir of voices spoke. It sounded as if it were myself and all the others speaking in unison, yet it came from the figure standing across from me. “I have many names. Ul’roth N’tho C’thelo. The one who consumes. Entropy… I am also called Theodore Chatwood, Herbert Bradley, Emilia Moore, Finnigan Price, Alfred Hughes, and so much more throughout the aeons.”

It was so far away, yet its words sounded as if they were whispered directly to my ears. I tried to keep my cool as I continued. “Entropy it is… I’ve heard much about you… And seen far more.”

“Do not speak so detached from me. Feel at home, as you have returned to the greater whole. Our meaning has been realized.”

My head tilted. For a long while I was silent, but in the end I decided if I were to be there, I might as well ask what was on my mind. “What do you mean our purpose? What are you, really? Not some god like those cultists say, I would bet.”

The figure began to walk towards me, although it did not seem like it grew closer, only larger. “You are correct.” It whispered. “I am no god. Simply a force of nature. A constant, primordial, inevitability. All which came from nothing returns to nothing.”

Carefully, I shot back. “So what, then? Everything is just made to simply return to dust? Where is the meaning in that?”

The figure finally stopped walking as it became exactly as large as I was. It simultaneously felt like it was both a distant trick of the light and right in front of me. “That is the unfortunate reality. There is no meaning but the end. No end but to be consumed.”

Those words led to a question burning in my mind. “My entire purpose is to become your physical form, is it not? If everything returns to you, then why not just wait?”

Quickly, the whispering voices responded. “A flower grows tall and blooms in beautiful colors. Then it withers and turns pale. Returns to dirt. I wish to pluck the flower while it still shines in the sunlight.”

Quite a poetic façade for such a horrifying end. I thought.

Horror is the rawest form of poetry. It thought back.

“R-Right.” I mumbled aloud. There were no barriers where I stood. “You speak of flowers, then what of dandelions drifting in the wind? The beauty of a musical note slowly fading to a close? A dignified, peaceful, end?”

“Do you think humans are truly dignified?” Entropy asked. “They accumulate like rats in concrete nests. Pile atop one another in filth and disease only to blot out the sun with clouds of smoke. They have already shown their true colors, and those colors are muted and cold.”

“That’s not true!” I shouted out, yet the volume of my voice did not seem to raise. “There are indignant times. Times of ruin and times of sin… But unlike you, we can create. We’ve made beautiful things. Things that harmonize with the sun and the grass and the beauty we sometimes corrupt.”

Entropy’s head tilted. It hissed out. “The optimism you offer is misplaced and unneeded. Did you return to yourself in hopes of debate?”

A smile came across my face. “No. I came here to win.”

The figure across from me undulated and convulsed. Laughter erupted from everywhere, although it sounded less like a chuckle and more like a chittering screech. “There is no victory in surrender! You are fully aware that there are only two options. Give in to your truth or perish like your mother and let the cycle continue.”

I chuckled as my attention turned from the silhouette to the colorful starscape beyond. “My mother was forced here years ago. Correct?”

The rapturous laughter ceased as Entropy’s many voices, with a hint of anger, whispered back. “Correct.”

“She had told me of those two options… And I had thought it strange that she had options. I am here, right next to you. Why not simply take me, Entropy? Use me for my intended purpose?” All I received in return was a deafening silence. With that, I continued. “You keep saying ‘we’ and ‘our’. I’ve been told again and again that I am not cursed by you, I am a part of you.” I took a step forward, and my foot found purchase on solid ground. “Believe me when I say, parts of a person do not always obey. Your heart flutters in fear, which makes you run. Your eyes see things that are not there. Cancers grow and kill the cells they derived from.”

Entropy growled back. That vibration that drummed in my chest became more intense, causing my entire body to shake and the floor beneath me to tremble. “Is your great plan to kill me? Neither of us are bound by mortality in this place.”

The experience led me to fall to my knees. Nevertheless, I continued. “You’re all consuming… Yet, you aren’t all-powerful, are you?” I rose to my feet and continued walking, gazing at the stars as I went. “I have two options, meaning you can’t choose for me. The one thing you can’t consume is yourself.”

“I cannot choose for you?” The voices sounded as if they circled around me. “You have never chosen your own path.” That caused me to stop in my tracks. “As you drowned in that sunken ship, I outstretched my hand and brought you to oxygen. As you wandered aimlessly throughout the corridors of your hospice, I led you to the truth. Ever since you were a boy, you were led by me to this very moment. What makes you so filled with pride now that you are given a single choice that leads to the same inevitability?”

Again, the thrumming heartbeat caused me to wince, but I held my footing. “You killed my mother effortlessly, yet even as I taunt you and waste your time, you do nothing? Why not make my decision for me? Consume me or spit me back out. Those are the two options, right?”

Slowly, my arms raised. My heart nearly beat out of my chest as I waited in silence. My plan was either correct, or everything we fought for would be meaningless.

I waited outstretched for an eternity yet received nothing but silence. I could feel a deep hatred within the air.

Finally, Entropy responded in a deep snarl. “You still have but two options. Return to your disgrace or become whole. You canno-”

“Wrong!” I interrupted happily. “I have three options, actually.” Turning back from the stars to the smaller silhouette, I sighed in relief. I was proven right. “You could have possibly tried to kill me back in the physical world through indirect means, but we aren’t in the physical world now. I saw your grasp on the stars rescind as I got your attention, and now you can’t ignore me.” Again, a chuckle escaped me. “At this moment in time I control you, and you can’t even continue to interfere with my friends or my home.” I looked back to the starry sky. “As is true throughout much of life, you prove to be your own worst enemy.” The ground rumbled at my feet, yet the more I noticed it, the less it seemed to shake me. “I think I’ll stay here for a while… A long, long, while.”

“Do you have even the slightest comprehension of infinity!?” Again, the floor beneath me seemed to billow, yet I somehow felt unphased. I supposed I had gotten my sea legs, so to speak. The shadowy figure looked like it had started to walk towards me, but it stayed just the same size. Eventually, though, it stopped and simply stared at me as it continued. “You will not last. You will plead for me to release you from this prison within time.”

I waved my hand nonchalantly. “Oh sure, eventually I’ll give up. Remember that note quietly playing out?” For a moment I thought about my friends, and the lives they could have free from our shared burden. I would miss them, but it was worth it if they could live content lives. “Instead of dying right here, I believe first humanity will reach that infinity you were talking about… And once the final star has gone out, and the final song has been sung, I’ll let you rifle among the echoes. That’ll be a satisfying end.”

The many voices of entropy screamed out, yet instead of emanating from all around me, they weakly called from the frozen silhouette. “You are a fool to think of yourself so imputable! You cannot stop creations one meaning! YOU CANNOT STAY AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE!!” It was strange. As Entropy continued talking, it spoke in less and less voices. At one point, it was all five of us together, but by the end of its speech, it was just my own.

Slowly, I eased to the ground. My legs felt tired, and I was quite ready for a chance to relax. The stars were striking as they floated about the cosmos in a timeless dance. The smile on my face softened to a reminiscent grin. I spoke out softly. Little more than a whisper, yet more sure than I had ever been in my life.

“Well, my friend. Every unstoppable force has its immovable object.”