the end of all things.

by: jacob saul

“Somebody stop that man!” I cry in the regional tongue.

It was no use, we’d already disappeared. One foot continually thrown in front of the other at
a pace faster than my mind could conceive. If I stopped to think about it then I’d trip myself
up. Time and time again they open rifts trying to shake me off. Luckily, I’m not far behind.
We’d initially landed in 1930s New York, thus the trenchcoat and accompanying hat. My
goodness, I felt like a running cliché. The thick sound of the boots meeting the concrete was
satisfying at first, if not a little repetitive. I was as hot on his tail as a furnace, at times the tips
of his trench coat tickle my fingers but never long enough to maintain a substantial grip. I
wish he’d just settle on a century. My lungs struggle to keep up with the rapidly ever
changing quality of inhalations. The clear air from the Jurassic era to the thick pollutant
industrial fog of days yet to come, all within one breath, I’m almost anxious to exhale,
carrying matter from before the birth of creation which could be lethal for whomever may
take in this second-hand smoke. We were travelling and flipping through time like flicking
through pages in a book. Years became streets and Cities were centuries, a whole place
seemingly built on time. After the initial jump we started in the devonian era and by the end
of the road we had cars flying above our heads. Occasionally it’s hard to see him, even
though he’s right in front of me as at points we don’t stay in a place for longer than a single
instant, not even long enough for light to find us. Ever felt like you’re tripping over thin air?
My Apologies. Our physical entities manifest like echoes or footprints on a beach, surviving
only a moment longer. Clinging on to existence. But we’re long gone.

He was trying to evade me through time, shake me off his back. But we were in the same
bubble together at this point, a lift share, at times it feels like we’re running completely
stationary and it’s the turn of the Earth that moves around us. I’ve always felt like a tourist on
this rock so in some ways I’m glad that now it’s official. The exhaustion started to plague my
legs, you must forgive me for growing weary, I have been running since the creation of all
things. His posture never changed though, fatigue seemingly couldn’t touch him. Nor could I.
It always hurt looking out at the glimpses of people in different times and places, everyone
was a ghost. Even the newborns aren’t exempt. No matter where there is life, if you give it
enough time there will be death.

Death must be maintained. Death must be preserved. No matter the cost.

I make a conscious effort to examine his attire, he has thick black boots and a trenchcoat
flying in the wind. He has a matching fedora and come to think of it, we were wearing
identical clothes. It was as I scanned down to look at his watch that a blue spot caught my
eye, from his left hand a periodic blue flash drops out like morse code. It appears to be
infrequent, I only knew it was a liquid from when I slipped on it nearly making me miss the rift
rupture. Luckily I slipped through, but a piece of the heel of my shoe didn’t. So somewhere,
from the birth to the death of the universe, there’s a little rubber part of my shoe. After
regaining my balance, the pursuit continues as normal. I can’t afford to fall behind, there’s a
reason I’m using his ruptures. I only have enough energy for two jumps whereas he has a
seemingly endless supply, I’m just waiting for the moment he slips up. That’s all it takes. One
moment in the timeline of creation.

We landed in one particular single instant, with a man in between us. I didn’t have time to
observe the surroundings and identify a setting before the impact. The pain was like a bullet
 3

perfectly shaped and sculpted to your own silhouette. Every single part of your body, shot. I
emitted a scream so loud it ricocheted through their entire timeline, birth to death, every
single moment of their being now scored with my audible cry of pain. It was too much for one
brain to comprehend, your entire life being rewritten, memories violated in a single instant.
He himself now knew nothing but screaming. What was left of him after the impact was little,
collections of flesh populated different parts of the street like a Jackson Pollock painting. I
spat something out of my mouth which only upon further inspection was one of his teeth. By
this time the man I was chasing was long gone, he could be witnessing the heat death of the
universe by now and I’m now lost to time. There was a moment of silence first, the calm for
the storm. I needed for my presence not to be felt so I could slip away unnoticed. Bare
bones smashed through store front windows like javelins so heads were already turning. My
eye caught a loose pile of metal parts close to the paving slabs on the side of the road. But
then I saw him, the stranger, his exposed heart continues beating like a mutating tennis ball,
as did his lungs. Connected by nothing more than loose flesh and appendages. He takes a
deep inhale. Time slows. My mind demands my legs to charge forward but they’re on strike.
What else is a man to do who has known nothing more than screaming pain? His lungs
tense and force air up through his throat and do all he’s ever known… he emits a blood
curdling guttural howl. Defeat. Attention begins to be drawn to the gore strewn across the
road, I hardly appear innocent as my coat is heavy with his blood. My eyes dart around
inhaling any parts of the scene in front of me that can indicate the time and place. Concrete.
People in suits. Newspapers in hand, but no technology in sight. Not specific but definitely
20th Century. I need to get back to the man I was chasing and there was little room for
failure. He can’t win. I stumble away to stay out of sight of the forming crowd, oh how they
flock to disaster like a moth to flame. While trying to fling one foot in front of the other, they’re
not responding. My legs are completely numb. My heavy eyelids keep trying to close like a
faulty door.

After retreating to a tree, I collapse against it. It’s only now I look back at the trail of blood
I’ve left behind, like a tether to the collision. But that’s not his blood, it’s mine. Angling my
head towards my leg, my eyes refuse and act like a repulsed magnet. I give in and see the
stranger’s pelvic bone impaled into my thigh. Suddenly all feeling comes back, localised in
the area of pain, one hand grips the bone tightly and holds it almost as a handle. With the
other hand going round to inspect how bad the damage truly was. It was worse than I
thought. I couldn’t tell if the pelvic bone shot into me upon impact or if I phased into
existence exactly where he was which fused the bones together. Although when I moved the
top half, the bottom did wiggle, it relieved pressure on my ruptured arteries causing them to
spew blood into the grass. On first instinct I put all my energy into trying to lift it out, but it
wasn’t a clean tear from his body. My hand slid with force along the moist meat still married
to the bone right up to the snapped joint with a sharp almost scalpel-like tail that instantly slit
right through the skin between my thumb and index finger. That piece that almost appears
as webbing, now deflated like a tent with no poles. As the blood flocks to the wound, it was
just another addition of problems on the to-do list. My eye catches the ominous green glow
from the inside pocket of my trench coat, two rift jumps. Oh, this was going to hurt. Taking
out one of the small containers proved more difficult than intended as no matter what, one
hand always likes to hold the wound, like that would help anything. Blood trickled down and
then through the inline of the coat until I managed to get a good hold and rip the container
from the connected machine. I can survive on one less jump, pressure makes you more
perfect, right? I don’t even believe myself. The containers were like batteries, with enough
 4

energy in them to keep the sun burning for five years, may not sound that impressive until
you realise how much energy that actually is, this would have a field day with energy efficient
light bulbs. The pulsing pain through my leg brought back my attention, I could feel my mind
slipping. I used the sharp part of the bone to puncture the metal foil like lid. A nuclear bomb
couldn’t open it, but organic matter can. Not sure what the thought-process of the design
was with that. Pulsing pain, OW! Right, leg. I flipped the container, the thick liquid inside the
capsule started to tease it’s way out as it gave into gravity. Before oozing down the bone and
upon impact rotting the flesh connected to it. I needed to be as precise as possible. I was
going to have a hole punched into my leg but I didn’t want it bigger than it had to be. It didn’t
even collect on my trousers like honey, it marched down through. ARGH! The burning was
so hot that it felt like my leg was freezing. I could hear as the tendons and muscles snapped
and retreated all with the sizzling that cooked the surrounding meat. I could tell it had
reached the other side as a rogue drip ran down my skin rotting it and opening it up like a
zip. But with that, the bone fell free and loose. It was like a pencil in a sharpener. By instinct I
grabbed it too soon with some residue surviving. My hand opened just like my mouth as I let
out another in a long series of screams.

When will the pain ever stop? But it’s the pain that lets us know we’re alive. My goodness, I
was even more pretentious than I thought. Thank god I’m not writing this down.

Right, think! What exact time and place do I know where and when he was? We ran through
the fourth world war, I can still feel the radiation thumping through my foot. But was that the
trenches of Rome or the fall of Greece? Shit. Where did we stay for longer than a moment? I
can’t recall. I’ve all but forgotten life before the chase. Why was I after him in the first place?
I knew he had to be stopped but why? The only two words that flash through my mind like
bingo cards are ‘Life’ and ‘Death’. Without the ‘and’ of course, that’s three words. I
remember flashes at points, like my mind took a moment to buffer, I know I need to maintain
the sanctity of death. Was I chasing him? Or was he running from me? Did I threaten his
life? The pain from my leg almost acts like a mental block. Pushing a boulder up a hill while
on crutches. No, I wouldn’t threaten a life. But I would do what I must. I needed answers and
I knew he was the only one that could give them to me. So where is he? Or more aptly,
where was he?

I hear the sirens of the Ambulance and Police marking their presence by the collision site.
Oooh. The collision site. I push against the tree hoping it’ll give me the strength and stability I
need to stand. As I gain height, the bone completely falls through the vacant space in my
leg. I hate that bloody thing, although I do turn around and pick it up. Survivor’s instinct more
than anything else, keep any asset to hand. I still had the broken contextual scanner that put
me in these clothes in my pocket, that was one was from a collision with a tree instead
though. Contextual Scanner? Surprised there wasn’t ‘Quantum’ in front of it, all the
designers want to sound ‘spacey’. Retreating back to the collision was more a stumble than
a walk, I certainly couldn’t chase anyone in this state. Even with no spacial awareness I
could find my way back from the screams of the man who was yet to die, poor thing. I am
glad that his scream masked my own from my make-shift surgery. God forbid anyone
witnessed that. Pushing through the crowd would have raised some challenges but they
parted like the red sea, suppose I do look and smell oddly suspicious.
 5

“You can look but you can't touch” I whispered to a little girl in the crowd as she smiled at my
leg.

It was like walking through a graveyard, I wondered what kind of life they’d have lived, what
age will they reach? Well, how old are they now? Because it’s about to be that. Mark today's
date people, the coroner’s will need it. Everyone is just pending gravestones, the lump of
rock that’ll mark your existence is out there somewhere, currently. Like the parts of a burger
you’ll have from a cow are in there, somewhere. Before the rock is hacked and defiled,
trapped and attached to you for an eternity. Well, until the twenty-second century and the
graves start overflowing. “Reuse and Recycle” was the government's motto.

A Police Officer approached me steadily with one arm raised out like a shield. He muttered
something but with the contextual scanner in pieces it was as helpful as if he said nothing at
all. He was nothing, a mild blip of inconvenience that would be forgotten as soon as the next
one came along. Pushing past him and towards my mistake was heart-breaking. His torso
scattered, now unconnected. The Police cut all tendons and joined flesh. Their heart now in
a box metres away from his lungs which were already being carted off. They’re already
harvesting his organs, or am I too early for that? The problem they didn’t seem to realise
though, was that his entire timeline was fractured. His life was being pulled from every
moment of his existence, a heart beating from childhood pumped blood to the brain, the
lungs of a twenty-something, breathing for his future self. His pelvic bone inches from his
decapitated head, still, through all of this, screaming. With no body to call his own. Anyone
got a lost property box? The least I could do was put him out of his misery, one drop from
the energy capsule would be enough to finally collapse his existence. Sorry mate, I need the
jump. I reassured myself that it wasn’t my fault, it was an accident after all. The heat from
where I landed was still melting the tar on the road, after noting the exact location, it was
time to jump. I tried to disperse the crowd, but they weren’t having any of it. I’m doing this to
help them, so my conscience is clear. I pried the machine out of my coat and danced with
the dials. To a novice it could almost appear like a classical film camera, complete with a
separate handle for the bulb. Normally it doesn’t use up this much energy but it was easier to
jump further than it was only by an hour or so. A paradox would be less than ideal, so I need
to be in and out of there. No seeing myself.

And with that, click.

A bright white light blinds me and in a wave the machine sucks the life out of the crowd like it
was collecting for charity. Not all of them died however, the little girl became a frail old
woman and stood among a sea of corpses and a decapitated head, still screaming. And like
that, I was gone. From that moment anyway.

I appeared only moments before I had originally, I can smell it coming like you can just
before it rains. But there wasn’t anyone in sight. There were a couple a little ways down the
road but no one near. So whom did I collide with? I knew there was less than a minute
before impact. I started spinning on the spot, weighing up options. Only for it to click with
less than thirty seconds left. There’s nothing quite like that euphoric moment when the cogs
in your mind slot together and work as one, your attention solely on one problem. And with
that I was off with my plan, I was a fool for missing it when I saw it.
 6

With a series of grunts and gestures I called over the polite couple and waved what looked
like a camera at them. One of them pulled out a wallet but I shrugged it off and insisted it
was free of charge through the universal language of a head shake. Grabbing both of their
arms with some force, I apologised most sincerely. From the bottom of my heart, to theirs,
which were about to be strewn across the road. Thus the two pelvic bones, I’m a fool for
missing it. I force them in place, the perfect models and take a step back. The pave stones a
few strides behind me start to shake, almost in anticipation. I pull up the now busted rift
machine and they smile just before the first streak of lightning.

I threw the machine behind me, like that would give me more momentum as two men arrived
in a flash of light and instantly pulverised the couple. The single instant stretched on like we
were trapped in a painting. I waded through the splattering blood and almost swam towards
the man at the front as by automation his next rift opened. His waist fitting nicely in my
shoulder and I lunged into him. We take parts of her with us, such as the head and the legs
but the parts he’d impacted with were already being scattered across the street and joining
in a paste with her lover.

The rift rupture collapses behind us. And his machine smashes upon impact with the black
and white marble floor now accented with her deep red blood. The room was almost a
cylinder going straight up, the height of which was rather astounding. A fancy chandelier
appeared to be miles above us. Eight long window panes gave a great view of the
surrounding area, with joining walls covered in books. This appeared to be an office
complete with a vintage wooden desk. Even with the views to look down the streets and all
along the rooftops I couldn’t pinpoint the time period until I saw a previous version of myself
sitting alone by a tree and opening a container. My mind flew back into the room and not
from the views outside, we’d travelled in space but not time. I kept a tight grip of the other
man in the trench coat as he was coming to terms with events. My hand gripped his arm and
it appeared like he was a sum of parts. The sleeve felt more like two rats in a sock than an
arm. After lifting him onto the desk I saw he was muttering something but I couldn’t quite
make out the words. His eyes were vacantly rolled back, only parts of his pupils teased their
way into view; he never blinked. Even with blood splattered onto his eyeballs. His nose was
deformed with one thick nostril. My current hypothesis was he was quite literally a bag of
bones. Skin holding bones in place with muscle and organs completely absent. In some
ways I thought it might be me I was chasing, but this puts that theory to rest. The constant
chanting emitting from the hole in his face pierced my ears and attempted to ripple back
through my life but I wouldn’t let it.

“WE MUST SURVIVE. WE MUST SURVIVE. WE MUST SURVIVE.”

Before I could even pose one of my questions their hand forcefully violated it’s way into the
hole in my leg. His sharp untrimmed nails did laps around the wound as I screeched out in
pain. Exposing all the once sealed nerves, the blood started to pour, his fingers became limp
like spaghetti and filled the hole like he was trying to plug it up. At this point my grip on him
was lost as they were supporting me while my posture became flaccid. Even though the
chanting maintained, I heard the same voice in my head.

“Who are you?” he thunderously demanded from an unknown source.

“Why were you running from me?” I thought. No air passed through my throat before they
replied, I could almost taste the words.

“Running from you? Do you intend to mock me?”

The being in front of me looked like it was deflated and a remnant of its former self. It
continued audibly chanting the words.

“WE MUST SURVIVE.”

All before they blasted in my mind again.

“You are nothing to me, no more than a parasite.”

“Then what were you running from?” I thought.

“Running from? I was running to. I’ve experienced every moment of all creation. But there is
nothing beyond death.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Three of those words actually exited my mouth but my body was
shutting off.

“The distinction between life and death will be void. Different forms of life will no longer have
prejudice and distinction from one another. There will only be life. We must survive. There is
no difference comparing you and a beetle. You are life. They are life.”

My eyes were rolling to the back of my head, I could almost see inside my skull. At this point
I could see both, like being half submerged in a body of water. The entire time I was in that
room with him, I could feel it getting smaller, like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube. The
ceiling was now hung to a point where the chandelier was tickling my head. Gravity was
denser around him, to such a degree that any body part in contact started aging. They do
say gravity affects time. I could feel my leg withering away and starting to frail, no matter
how much I protested. Then I realised, I am nothing. He was right. He wasn’t running from
me, I tagged on for the ride. Sucked in by his pronounced gravity, I didn’t even need to have
moved my legs.

I gave myself importance and meaning. I had to chase the man. But there was nothing
before. There will be nothing after.

“There will be everything” the voice thundered. I forgot he was reading my thoughts.

“I am ready, the time has come. But not here” it said

Ready for what?

“Life” it concluded.
 8

“WE MUST SURVIVE. WE MUST SURVIVE. WE MUST SURVIVE.” My senses started

“I need not the machine” and with one swipe of their hand the red blood littering the floor and
the walls turned black and became itself a void of emptiness. It was only now I noticed the
wound on his hand, he was leaking the blue liquid.

“A part of me exists in every moment.” was the last of his words I heard in my head as he
split from my fraying nerves and fully detached himself from me. He slipped through and into
the void without objection. I followed. Not from a heroic gesture, but I couldn’t sustain my
weight so collapsed down and into the pool of rift.

At first there was nothing but darkness. I couldn’t tell if this was the new location or my body
failing me. Until like a drip it came back to me. What was on the other side was bright and
before my eyes adjusted my ears picked up the hustle and bustle of everyday life as well as
a whistle and his ever continuing chanting.

“WE MUST SURVIVE.”

I look up from my hands pushing away from the cold harsh floor and examine the
surroundings. The train in the distance contextualises the whistle and from all directions
people are stepping over me in suits and dresses, coffee in one hand and a phone in the
other. Lives being lived and experienced. But through the legs I saw him, a small gap had
formed around his physical manifestation as well as a pool of his blue blood next to him.
Nonchalantly he picked out the destroyed rift machine and detached two of the energy
capsules, they were a deep red contrasting to the green of mine and they emitted such heat
I could feel it through the crowd. I attempted to crawl towards him but this was futile. A larger
vacant space of people was forming, still no attention being paid to him. But now I joined him
in the empty space, he was still a good distance away from me though. It became apparent
that he wanted to hurt himself when instead of finding another way to open the capsules, he
repeatedly smashed it against his face until it had torn the skin away from his nose cavity
and finally his bone cracked it open. Broken glass littered his face as they all started to emit
blue blood.
Finally, he seemingly enveloped the capsules with his head as they fully disappeared. They
turned to face me and nothing happened. Gradually different parts of his skin broke out with
heated bubbling smoke forcing its way through. Until again, nothing.

It was the pool of blood next to him that started reacting first, before the rest of his body went
into a frenzy. Oh how the blue liquid danced and dived like dangerous waves. The worst part
was knowing that this was happening everywhere and every when. His body was shaking as
he remained on his knees, all his clothing disappeared in a single instant and you could see
the skeleton beneath his skin. His rolled back eyeballs started to melt out of the sockets like
grilled cheese and he seemed to be retching like a dog about to throw up. The contortions
worked it’s way all up and through his body, until his tongue spilled out. It looked swollen and
injured and in a current up his body like a tidal wave in the ocean, it started to inflate and fill
his tongue with the muscles and organs which weren’t from his body. I knew not the source,
 9

I just saw hair and bile all collecting within this sack for a tongue. Until I saw the pool of
blood had vanished. It was off swallowing organic matter into the void like a portable
manhole. Phones and clothes happily sat motionless on top of it, unable to enter the growing
abyss below. While life fell into the pit, others in the crowd started mutating. There was no
longer any distinction between life, so people’s eyelashes crawled out like spiders and hands
walked off from the arms. Everyone’s hair started melting into a liquid and some eyes
popped while others just sloshed and turned into gloop on the spot. This didn’t just happen
to people once, but at every single second of their being. All mounding and joining together
in a unified entity. Birds flew directly into people’s stomachs and stayed in the skin like it was
melting into a stew. Some people’s skin shrink wrapped around them, locking them in their
own bodies. I saw someone who’s teeth cracked into splinters and exploded through their
lips and into another man’s chest, puncturing his lung that enveloped him from the inside
out. One woman had her entire body covered in her lip skin while others had their skin
harden until they were all nail. Why was I left untouched? Life became one and death was
killed for everyone and everything was alive. Tree bark started growing inside someone’s
throat while stinging nettles grew out of their ears. Even bacon oinked again. As a woman
ran past screaming, each part that individually made someone them started to fall away.
They all were screaming after minutes, or was it hours? This was not just the end of all
things, but the start of one.

“WE MUST SURVIVE.”

Soon the sack filled with bile and life was larger than a city block and then a nation. Earth
crumbled around it, when it became larger than comprehension. Before I knew it, the sack
sealed its way around itself. It was just life and I in the vacuum of space, it popped and
started mutating and morphing into a singular gelatinous entity. Everything that ever lived or
died would continue to do so, forever. It reached out to me like a loving hand before it forced
its way through my mouth so hard I gagged but it had already filled me out to my toes before
working upwards. I could feel the pressure mounding behind my eyes as the jelly form
pushed harder and harder until, pop. My eyes sprung from their sockets but stayed close as
the nerves were still attached. It started seeping into my brain as I, we, thought about, must,
for the last, survive, time. My life, we, was over, must, and it was going to, survive, continue
on the verge of this, we, for all of time, must, as we are, survive, life. My skin, we, jellied,
must, and I, survived, joined, we, them, life. WE MUST SURVIVE. WE MUST SURVIVE. WE
SURVIVED.