Everywhere And Nowhere, Including In Your Back Yard, Monday

[endsthegame]

When the Nothing was released, some of its nature was altered. To do the job it was released to do, it would need to have a broader... concept of the universe, in as much as it had anything at all. And so for weeks it had spun around, gobbling up the forgotten, clearing away the unnecessary.

And then suddenly, the eye of its storm had changed. So many creatures from so many places in so many times, some from the same places but in different lives, some from the same places but in different times. And some-- some came from realms that had just gone wrong. What was remembered? What was forgotten?

The answer was simple:

All things could be forgotten.

The Nothing clouds spread thinner, further, spinning out of control, no longer set on limited parameters but on everything, to make everything... nothing.

The unbeings that had released it were pleased: things were finally getting back on schedule.

[[ welcome to phase 2! ETA: And have at with your drops! Next week's your last shot to get them in! ]]

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[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

When it had first been spotted, it was dismissed as some random cosmic event, most likely having happened thousands of years in the past and was just now visible on their planet.

Except it kept coming. And then the lights from stars started going out, and something inside Anemone started screaming.

People were thrown into a frenzy. It had been twenty years since the Coralians - barring Anemone - had ascended, but many still remembered the chaos and death that Dewey had brought down upon them all. Some said it was the return of the Coralians, that space was spliting anew again, but Anemone knew otherwise, and had finally, with large amounts of SCIENCE! from the Tresor labs, managed to get the new High Council to listen to her.

Those who had known her at Fandom would recognize the long pink hair and red-on-purple eyes easily enough, but the admiral stars on her uniform would be new, as would the small streak of silver that curled along her face. She was over forty, and still looked twenty save for that one small marker of the years.

In the end, it had been too late, and the 'Star-Eater' had come to their planet, rolling across the skies and devouring anything in its path. The Sages had finally been forced to declare the Second Evacuation of Earth, but there were hundreds of civilians still waiting to board their ships as the darkness bore down upon them.

"Ageha Two and Four, hold your position!" Anemone barked as she banked her Devilfish to the right. "Do not fall back until that checkpoint is cleared of civilians! Five and Six, prepare to escort the launches of the Princess Sakuya and Eureka's Dawn. I want them clearing atmo stat, and I don't want them getting shot down by any of these end of the world fanatics."

"One and Three, you are with me. We are going to play 'chicken' with the Star-Eater, see if we can't get any decent readings off it for the lab rats. I already dealt with one end of the world, and I refuse to let it happen again."

Two of her squad peeled off to follow her as they danced about the Edge of the Star-Eater, feats of breathless flight that kept them from barely being devoured by the creature.

Right up until an SOS started broadcasting on their frequency, and Anemone looked out to see the very last convoy trying to desperately outrun oblivion and make it to the space port. The convoy of those making the last stands. Scientists from Tresor, military personnel;

Her husband. Dominic and Gulliver were both on that transport, along with Eureka's 'kids' (adults, now, but forever children to Anemone) having refused to leave until the last civilians had been evacuated from Belle Forest.

She was the Anemone. A human-form Coralian who could bend physics and reality to her will, should she be willing to risk her humanity to do so. She had the power to end the world or utterly destroy her enemies. And there were still some things she could not do. No matter how hard she pushed the Devilfish, no matter the drugs that she mentally ordered it to pump into her system for the first time in years, no matter her training and her skill.

She was not going to make it to Dominic in time.

It did not matter. Ageha One and Three were devoured by the darkness and then she caught one last glimpse of his face, set in determination and doing his damnedest to get the to the safety of the ships before the Star-Eater surged forward and engulfed him, leaving Nothing in its non-existent wake.

Mistress and Machine screamed as one, throwing their combined power against the onslaught of the Star-Eater. It took Their Dominic, and They would rip it apart until it gave him back. They were wrath incarnate, and the universe held its breath for a moment, waiting to see which way the balance would tip.

Then all - on Earth - was silence. For there was no Earth.

They say that Coralians never die, for what one knows, all know, and all of them had held deep in their consciousness the idea that had been Anemone, even an alternate-universe away.

But you cannot hold an idea that never was, and so the other Coralians slept on, never knowing that their brashest, bravest daughter was gone, or had even been real at all.

[freelancerchick.livejournal.com]

When Donut had gone missing, nobody had cared and least of all Tex. Honestly, much of the same was true when Caboose followed (and fuck, did she enjoy the silence). Griff was next and Tex wondered if it meant her work was done when the whole of the Reds disappeared into nothing. Sadly, Tucker was persistent and he was one of the last to go. Well, almost last.

"Tex, there's something I need to tell you."

Church. Of course. Tex stared at the blackness that seemed to be eating away at Blood Gulch. She'd tried shooting it, blowing it up and setting it on fire all with the same result.

"This? It's all just a memory. I'm the Director's memory, but the unit I'm stored in is failing and so I created world inside world to buy time to find you. It's all about you."

Tex thought that was a load of crap. Like she wanted to be some guy's memory. Church's memory. That just sucked balls.

"This isn't the memory unit failing," she told him. Not that she understood any of that bullshit, but whatever was happening now, it wasn't that.

"I don't know why the Director did what he did, but a great love like this, it's like a memory and-"

Tex shot him a look. "Great love?"

"What?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"The memory unit! It's failing, but-"

"It's not that."

"Oh-"

She made a face. Not that he could see it and not that she even had a face, but it didn't matter. If she was just a memory, then who cared that she ceased to exist as the blankness closed in on her?

Maybe Church, but then no one would remember him anyway either.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlie was in Manhattan, interning at the Daily News. Sure, it was only a step up from a tabloid, but still! It was a foot in the door! She could get all the experience she needed, and maybe graduate NYU early!

Getting coffee and editing copy on obituaries wasn't exciting, answering phones was.

"You see what?"

She looked out the window, still speaking to the hysterical caller. "Ma'am, the National Weather Service hasn't issued any kind of.... warning....."

A black cloud if Nothing was rolling in from the bay; obliterating all trace of the buildings in its wake.

It was huge. Unstoppable. Fast.

It had been over a year since she'd really let go. But someone had to try to stop it--

Charlie unleashed every bit of potential energy inside her. The equivalent of 1000 nuclear bombs went off, scouring Manhattan from the planet...

...and then the was forgotten, as the Nothing erased her last efforts to use her powers for something good.

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"And in the end of the year, Anno Domini One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighteen..."

Darkness seeped into the library at Oxford. Erasing the ancient stones, the tomes, the undergraduate sleeping in the lounge.

"...darkness shall fall. It shall... eradicate? Oh, that can't be right..."

It crawled up the stairway, swallowing the Victorian paintings and the new electrical lights.

"...really, this translation is utterly ridiculous... Who on Earth would believe any kind of prophecy about being eaten by Nothing?"

Clearly not Evie Carnahan.

So absorbed was she in translating the ancient Coptic script, she didn't even notice when her feet were erased, or her legs, and she only had one moment of oh, really, was that necessary? as the script in front of her dissolved...

before Evie had never been there at all.

[doesnt-vomit.livejournal.com]

The Nothing lingered in the Jeffersonian's forensic anthropology department longer than it had to, enjoying the sensation of glutting itself on so many forgotten lives. It took the stored skeletons before starting on the staff. The intern went first, then Dr. Saroyan, then Dr. Hodgins. Booth and Angela went next, swept away in the middle of a conversation.

"Can someone please bring me the DNA sample?" Brennan called into the empty lab without looking up from her cadaver tray, then raised her voice. "Anybody?"

No one answered. No one was there to answer.

"Hello?"

A moment later, Brennan was gone as well.

And then there'd never been a forensic anthropology lab to start with.

[dawn-bearer.livejournal.com]

There was a bar. The location of it was neither here nor, but any patron who stumbled upon it would believe they knew it's exact location.

They would, of course, be wrong. But it wasn't important.

What was important was the metaphorical storm on the horizon. The proprietor of the establishment watched from the window as it rolled along the edges of where his influence ended. How troublesome.

"I was not expecting you. Either of you," he admitted.

[living_endless]

"I wasn't expecting to come here, especially not about this" the girl said. Her dark hair was a curly cloud around her shoulders, and she tugged her black jacket collar up as if warding off a chill. "I thought I was done with that place."

A thoughtful beat.

"Mostly done. You know."

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

"You're still watching him?" her brother asked. He was dead, in some timelines and some realities, but that fact didn't stop him from being in the bar now. He idly twirled a a full glass of white wine between his long pale fingers as he spoke.

He did not specify which him.

[living_endless]

"Sometimes," Death said, then gave him a defensive look. "Don't start. This thing ... I might not be able to. Not for much longer. That's bigger than my love life."

She turned her attention to Lucifer. "What do you think?"

[dawn-bearer.livejournal.com]

"Another annoyance," Lucifer said, finally looking away from the window. "It can't come any closer."

For now.

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

"It's been wiping out patches of the Dreaming," Dream revealed. "Library books, mostly. A handful of nightmares. Nothing I can't fix."

He glanced out the window himself, watched the dark devour a few trees.

"It's not our problem." For now. "But I think it will pass."

[dawn-bearer.livejournal.com]

The corner of Lucifer's mouth turned up in a distant sort of smile. "Doesn't it always?"

[living_endless]

"So far, so good," Death said, a quick, slight smile of her own darting across her face. "So ... we wait, and if they can't handle it out there, then we see what we can do."

And if they couldn't do anything ... Death would be the last one to go, and she'd make sure she turned out the lights before locked the door on the multiverse and figured out whatever was next. But that felt almost as much of a long way off as it ever did.

[dawn-bearer.livejournal.com]

"They've managed so far." Somehow.

He shrugged, heading for the bar. "A drink then? To the end of world as we know it. Again."

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

"To all the ends of all the worlds as we know them," Dream corrected, showing that thing that was almost enough to convince those who knew him he might have a sense of humor. Maybe. If you squinted.

He picked up his wine.

"... again."

[actingreaper]

Daisy stared down at the post-it. She'd seen a lot, even for a reaper, having spent time teaching in the cutest little interdimensional nexus of a town, and then traveled around space and time with a man with no name. But this one was new on her.

"It's blank."

"Really?" Mason, walking down the street next to her, leaned in to peer over her shoulder. "How'd you get all the -- wait, no, hang on, so's mine."

Daisy frowned. "They weren't always blank."

"Well . . . sure they were, right? It's not like we got disappearing --"

"Mason?" Daisy turned. Mason was gone.

Wait, who was Mason, anyway?

She turned again, tilting her head. Something was rather off here.

And then the Nothing came down upon her as well, and it wasn't, any more.

[forgottenpants]

"Now what in tarnation do you think you're paintin' up there?" Pete practically howled down at his latest hired talent.

The man looked from the boulder to Pete, then back at the boulder. "It's a sunset?"

Pete rolled his eyes dramatically and threw his hands in the air. "Well if that ain't the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Who's ever heard of a sun?"

[makestheworld]

The thing about being a spirit deeply tied with the earth was that, whether he liked it or not, Coyote was extremely aware of what was happening to his world.

He just chose to ignore it.

He was currently a cougar lounging in a sunbeam in the desert, one of the last remaining places in his world untouched by the Nothing. Possibly because, compared to the big cities of the rest of the world, the desert had very little there already.

Still, the Nothing came. Coyote sighed, squinting open one eye as his sunbeam vanished.

"So," he said. "The final final coup. I guess you get the last laugh, Anubis, my brother."

Except Anubis didn't. Because Anubis, lord of the Dead, brother to Coyote, was already gone.