video;

[onlyasign]

[When the SFC turns on, it's pointed towards the ocean, and it stays there for a few moments, just recording the waves rolling in and out, the soft sounds of the water, the occasional cry of a seabird. Then someone clears their throat, and starts speaking quietly. Those who have heard him speak before will recognize Sufferer's voice.]

I've been thinking about time lately, and how its path is not linear and seems to follow no set pattern. Sometimes, when there's a moment you want to cling to with everything you have, it flickers past, here and then gone; and then when there's something you want to rush through, it lingers, and minutes become hours, and hours days, days weeks, and so on.

The only thing consistent about time is that it passes.

Until it doesn't.

[There's a sigh, and the SFC turns so it's pointing towards Sufferer's face. He looks tired, like he does most of the time now, the bags under his eyes staining his skin like bruises. The flesh on his face hangs off the bones, deep lines that were never there before framing either side of his mouth.]

[He still has the orange stitches on his cloak, though.]

I've died, twice. Once here, where I revived five days later, and once in my own world, where I woke up here. In one instance, the time between passed quickly, full of light and love and beauty, and in the other, it lasted for lifetimes, lifetimes in the darkness, in the spaces between the stars.

[He shrugs.]

So tell me, Vatheon... which one was the true death? Which one showed me the truth about time, and which was the lie?

Comments

anonymous text

[aim_exorable]

Why does it only have to be one?

[onlyasign]

[Really, Darkleer, he knows it's you! No one else ever uses anontext with him! But he'll keep up the illusion of anonymity, for now.]

WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT COULD BE TRUE?

[replicatedcourage]

[Died twice... Sola has too, though he has no answers. Death for him is only a terrifying nothingness, absence of being, absence of all. He knows that's not the case for others, from what he's heard and read, and sometimes wonders if it's simply because there's something wrong with him.

but he can't say that to his adopted father, not when he's making a face like that.]

Maybe... it depends on how you died.

[onlyasign]

Oh?

[It's cool, Sola, there's something wrong with him too.]

Can you explain that a little further?

[bestestfurrend]

Dad...

[onlyasign]

Hello, Nepeta.

[donotcomprehend]

[Before he had disappeared from Vatheon for a few days, back to the real world with the black sun, Gale probably would not have had understood this, not completely. But now, he's experienced so much more loss and death, of those significant to him, and has died himself.]

.. The first. In death awaits Nirvana, even if it cannot be found in life.

[onlyasign]

[Signless had always respected Gale and his wisdom, so Sufferer does too, even if they might not believe the same things any longer.]

But the first death was a false death, wasn't it? I awoke five days later, my body whole and returned to me, my memories intact. In the second, it was my real life, my life outside of Vatheon, and I stayed dead.

[Video]

[dotthedisconnect]

It seems to me that your view of life and death here is unnecessarily specific and dichotomic. It's a false dilemma. Similarly, time is is simply a measurement of convenience, used to quantify something that is otherwise an entirely subjective experience. You could posit that there is in fact an objective measure for time--even if it's largely self-directed--but still, your interaction with "time" is based completely on perception.

[Video]

[onlyasign]

[Finally, someone is talking sense!]

That's all true. But why would the perception of two very similar events be so different?

video;

[terribubblykoi]

That's such a stupid question, you know that? It doesn't even matter. You're alive now, so just go and be alive. Time and death and consistency shouldn't tangle you up in their net when you've got better things to do.

video;

[onlyasign]

[Wince. Oh god, poor Feferi, he was so cruel to her the last time they spoke.]

Hello, Feferi. I believe I owe you an apology.

[seeriouswizness]

You know, I've come to learn that both Time and Death are very fickle things.
There's no hard or fast truth behind either one, likely because they often come hand in hand.
What may seem like your death - the end all be all of your life - could really be what helps you truly begin living, and what may seem like it will last forever...can be quickly snuffed out.
Especially within the confines of the universe you and I come from.
I don't believe we've met.
I'm Rose.

[onlyasign]

HELLO, ROSE. I'M SUFFERER.

YOU SAY WE COME FROM THE SAME UNIVERSE. CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT YOU MEAN BY WHAT SEEMS LIKE DEATH MIGHT BE WHEN YOU TRULY BEGIN LIVING? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE GETTING AT.

video;

[420]

Whichever does make a motherfucker happiest.

video;

[onlyasign]

[Sufferer remembers when he could believe in something so whole-heartedly. He misses that time.]

And it's just that simple?

[p2iioniicii2t]

II beliieve you are miisiinformed.
Death iinvolves liight.

[onlyasign]

[It's a good thing this is text, because otherwise Psii would have to listen to Sufferer's voice shake. They've never talked about it, Psii's death.]

YOU

YOU SAW THE LIGHT?

voice

[bufudine]

[At this point in time, Serph believes he has died once, back in the real world. In the future, he will believe that death is but a moment between one life and the next. But right now, he doesn't really know the answer; he doesn't yet understand the nature of the world, of the universe.]

The truth is what you make of your experiences.

[Can't both deaths be true?]

Welcome back, Signless.

voice

[onlyasign]

Thank you, Serph.

[Sufferer's voice brightens a little when he recognizes Serph's voice. The Embryon have always been friends to him, and there's something about Serph's quiet stoicism that he finds comforting right now.]

So you believe that I can simply choose which one was real, and go based on that?

Voice

[feralfanatic]

[Before she would have jumped at the first option, if nothing else, to try and cheer him up, but he did not need that. Other things had changed as well over her stay in the bubble.]

I do not believe either was a true death like you say. Life seems to have a peculiar way of continuing regardless of what we thought to be a finality.

While you were... gone, the scientists placed a body swapping curse upon us. I swapped bodies with the young Miss Megido. I had the strange fortune of inheriting the time manipulation powers she was granted, as well. They changed how I look at... well, everything. It surprised me how something I thought so set in stone could be so malleable. It got me wondering what else was not as immutable as I had previously thought.

Twice now, you have died. Twice you have come back. To me, that is the only important truth.

Voice

[onlyasign]

Do you remember, Kitten, when I was Death?

You would think, during that time, that I would have discovered the answers. But no... even Death itself doesn't know what lies beyond.

[He sighs. What she's said is sinking in, though, and he doesn't sound quite as depressed when he speaks up again.]

Twice, I've come back to you. Back to you, and Psii, and Dualscar, and everyone else I love here. Perhaps you're right, and that is all the truth I need.

All the truth I should need.

[sniffdeceit]

[There's really only one reasonable response to this post.]

WOW!
K4RK4T W4SN'T K1DD1NG 4BOUT YOU 4T 4LL
T4LK 4BOUT W31RD!

[onlyasign]

UH

HELLO

I DON'T BELIEVE WE'VE MET

[Video]

[blessedbyfarore]

...I don't know.

[It's video, but the camera is pointed at the ceiling, not giving any clues about the speaker. The voice is pretty similar to Sola's, though...]

I don't really... remember it. Just... it happened, and it got colder, and then I was here. [There's an exhalation.] Do you remember it? Something between dying and coming here?

[Video]

[onlyasign]

[That voice is very similar to Sola's, but whatever, Sufferer will roll with it. If the speaker wants to reveal his identity, he will.]

It happened twice, and both times, I saw something in between. It was very different, each time. I saw light... and I saw darkness. I don't know which one was real.

[Video]

[closedcircuit]

I don't think that either of them are. I mean, perhaps you went elsewhere, but you weren't truly dead, can't be, because you're here.

[Video]

[onlyasign]

Is this part of your faith, Ky?

[Voice]

[dwightandclean]

[Wow...someone looks like hell.]

Circumstance of death probably has a lot to do with things. Plus the whole how you lived your life.

[Voice]

[onlyasign]

[Someone feels like hell.]

I thought I lived my life the best I could. Perhaps I was wrong about that.

[shippingmath]

"The spaces between the stars." Mind explaining that one?

[onlyasign]

Emptiness. Vast gulfs full of nothingness, more space than you could cross in a million lifetimes.

[VIDEO, filtered]

[bethehugejerk]

[Well this is... something. Death is a heavy and weird thing to handle, certainly. He's been there once. Well, twice if you want to count his dreamself, but that was much different than dying himself. Even then, it was the kind that doesn't last - not the kind he would go back to and have nothing else after. Save horrendous dream bubble shenanigans. Still, Terezi never made mention of actual ancestors appearing in those bubbles, and even if he were to eventually, that doesn't erase the weight of what's happened.]

[Still, it's kind of hard for Karkat to take seriously when he put it like this.]

Signless - and yes I'm calling you that, so don't argue - neither one of those showed you a damn thing about time. Time is fucked up here. The scientists snatch you up from whenever they please with no regard to what you or anyone else wants, and damn the consequences. If anything, I'd put them down as sadists, with some of the points they choose.

Second, how "real" either death is depends on what frame you put it in. It's the second one that's real for the timeline in our universe. But that doesn't mean the first was just some figment you dreamed up. I know it sure as hell felt real when I died. This scar isn't coming off my neck just because I want it to. But neither one of them has to do with time either. They're death, not a mystery tour to the workings of some giant creaky space clock keeping track of the universes. And time doesn't stop just because you died, either.

[VIDEO, filtered]

[onlyasign]

I know time didn't stop with my death, Karkat. I'm not nearly egotistical enough to assume something like that. I'm just... trying to find some purpose, I guess.

I don't mean that my life had no purpose before! From what you've told me, you wouldn't have been given a lusus and chance to live if I hadn't died first, and I'm not begrudging you that. But... what do I do now? What do I do when everything I worked for was wrong, and I know that I'm a failed prophet?

[devwocean]

[Wait, wait wait, what is this? Did Dualscar miss something in his usual stalking of his moirail? He eyes the video for a long while before putting his thoughts down]

Neither a them wwere real.
You got savved by the scientists.
Anywway, the wwhole time thing is fuckin stupid.
Evveryone knowws time is goes by quick as a clipper wwhen you're happy and slowws dowwn an wwallowws wwhen you're sad.

[onlyasign]

THE SECOND ONE WAS REAL ENOUGH. THERE'S NO BODY FOR ME TO GO BACK TO ON ALTERNIA, NO LIFE OR SELF OR ANYTHING. ALL THAT'S LEFT OUTSIDE OF VATHEON IS THE DARKNESS.

I

I CAN'T SLEEP, DUALSCAR.