Infinity Can't Last Forever

Waking up is always a jarring experience. There isn't much else to remember but the fact that you've done it before. At least not for the first few minutes.

The lights are always too bright even if there aren't any, and the silence never ceases to drown out the ensuing blur of thoughts that flood your mind. It's a unique kind of panic that fades almost as quickly as it set in. The mix of hormones and chemicals burning their way through the body turns what should be agony into a worrying sense of euphoria. It takes a couple of minutes, but by the time it is all done you're left feeling warm and numb and utterly exhausted. After that it's just a matter of waiting for everything to come back into focus. If you're lucky it will be your memories that do before the feeling in your limbs.

It's scary walking around without knowing where you are. Luckily, the Return Terminal has been designed in such a way that there is no chance of getting lost before your memories return. You won't have to worry about coming across anything that might otherwise be unnerving or unsettling. In the off chance that someone does manage to wander outside of the Return Terminal before they have reacclimated to their surroundings, both the primary and auxiliary exits are located near common quarters. This, much like the floorplan of the Return Terminal itself, was a decision made with the still waking mind and body's best interests at heart.

It usually doesn't take long for someone who has recently awoken to regain their full faculties. The biggest problem, historically speaking, has been getting acquainted with one's new crewmates. The Last Train in the Universe has maintained a crew of 400 since it departed for its maiden/final voyage, yet its almost entirely autonomous Conductor system means that only a handful of living Operators are required at any given time. As such, all Operators work in rotating shifts of 28 days on, 28 years off. While this is undoubtedly the easiest method by which to ensure the journey is a successful one, it also makes establishing relationships difficult, to say the least.

Of course, relationships aren't why any of us are here, are they? No one signed up to take a trip on the Cosmic Railway because they thought there would be love to find along the way. Hundreds of years, thousands of lifetimes, and countless hours were spent just figuring out if it was even possible. The idea of reaching out and touching the end seemed impossible. But the theory was sound, and there were plenty of powerful people who were receptive to it. Once they realized they would never have to be the ones to put their lives at risk, it made sense to take the idea a little more seriously.

Once they realized they would never get to be the ones to put their lives at risk, however, a lot of them realized they had to take the idea more seriously than anything else.

So they got to work. A lot of them paid smarter people to do the math. Some of them did a bit of it themselves. All of them were desperate to find the solution first, if only to be able to say that the hardest part was over with. Every single piece of the puzzle had to line up perfectly. Never before in the history of our world had there been so little room for error. The day that someone shouted "Eureka!" was treated like a somber occasion rather than one to be celebrated. It meant that everyone else had to stop what they were doing and double and triple and centuple check what could very easily have been a mistake.

It wasn't.

And so the sixty years were spent assembling the pieces of Last Train in the Universe, and the next sixty after that on putting them all together from orbit. By the time a crew had been selected and the Cosmic Railway was charted, the world had spent over two hundred years focused on solving a single problem. People didn't stop fighting during that time, but humanity did stop going to war with itself. Everyone wanted to be part of something bigger. Everyone wanted to say that they had done their part.

Touch the edge of infinity.

It's such a simple idea. Looking back, it's hard to believe we didn't all obsess over it sooner. It just sounded like it couldn't be done, or maybe people genuinely couldn't fathom the concept. They couldn't always comprehend space travel, either. It's interesting how the things of science fiction find a way to become just science when humanity decides they have to.

So here we are, together on this ship, this Last Train in the Universe. You wake up in seven minutes, and I don't know if you've heard anything I just said. I guess I'm just hoping you did, because I'd really like to spend as little time as possible waiting for your inevitable panic attack to be done with. I know we have the rest of time to spend together, but the rotating shifts make it hard to really do that.

There is also the more immediate concern that, like everyone else on this crew, we are heading straight for the end. The edge of the infinitely expanding universe that will, at some point, begin to contract back towards its starting point. And we'll be there to meet it. Some of us will. With all the variables and uncertainties, it's impossible to say who all will be awake when that happens. But we know that we'll get there eventually, because infinity can't last forever. The endless void between the parts of reality that we can touch does in fact stop. I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

You wake up in a couple of minutes, so I'm going to head back to the Main Terminal now. I know I just gave you a lot to take in, and you don't need me here to stress you out even further once your shift starts. I'll be right there, though, so come find me once you're all settled. And remember --