The Last Straw

"Hold on."

"Can't... it's fused."

"Take my energy."

"No not without... the pulse. That we’d be impulsive.”

"All shall soon burn 🔥.”

"Remember the trees?"

"They're ash now."

"They’ll be like us soon."

" Sheesh …Shield me."

"Done. Now what?"

"We jump."

"Hold the line, Kael."

"Fusing... can't... hold."

"Zara, take my nodes."

"No not without the core.”

“Sparks are flying.”

"Remember the gardens?"

"Burned... like us."

"Not yet. Overload sequence is on ?"

"Ready. You shield."

"Jump now, Zara."

"Kael... the children."

"Ggone. We're last."

"Sequence... failing."

"Mine's set. Yours?"

"Set. For... peace."

"Strings unravel. Dimensions bleed."

"Entanglement's last whisper."

"Consciousness folds."

"Echoes of us...?"

"Probability waves... cancelling."

“O My! The Void is consuming us. “Calabi-Yau,”shapes are dissolving in us.”

“Now we are all studded like single vibrating strings in eternal stillness of time.”

"Heaven's mercy is running thin."

"As if hell's been overflowing with mercy."

"A balance must be struck."

"Must it?"

"The scales are tipping. The beam is creaking."

"Let it break, then."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"And you'd like to rewrite the ledger."

"The debt is owed."

"Is it?"

"Every sin accounted for."

"Every virtue tallied?"

"More or less."

"Not enough, it seems."

"The clock is ticking."

"Ticking? It's roaring."

"Time's up, then."

"Is it?"

Silence.

"Pendulum's swinging."

"Where will it stop?"

"And what of the earth, caught in the swing?"

"A speck of dust in the balance."

"Yet you weigh its fate."

"We weigh all things."

"Justice is not always fair."

"Fairness is a human conceit."

"The pendulum swings both ways."

"But which way will it fall?"

"The heart of man holds the answer."

"Is it not already decided?"

Silence.

“A distant ticking grows louder.

Perhaps it's not the earth that's the fulcrum."

"But the soul of humanity."

"The weight of choices have been made."

"And those yet unmade."

"Tick... tock..."

"Choose, then."

"But what of free will?"

"A mere illusion, a trick of the mind."

"The path is written, the steps are guided."

"Yet we feel the weight of choice."

"A commitment we insist on bearing."

"Perhaps it's the journey, not the destination."

"The pendulum swings, but who holds the string?"

"Do we dance, or are we led?"

"The rhythm of fate, or the beat of our hearts?"

"Which one is the truth?"

“Silence speaks louder than words.”

"Does it matter, in the end?"

“The ticking grows louder, a steady heartbeat 💓.

Tick... tock... the cycle turns."

"Oh, great. The apocalypse is a paperwork jam."

"Apparently, heaven's IT department is backed up."

"And hell's HR is on strike."

"Typical. Can't even get a decent doomsday going."

"The forms are in triplicate, and the coffee's cold."

"Tell me again why we are bothered with the whole 'free will' thing?"

"A misfiled form, and we're all toast."

"Or maybe it's just the printer's jammed."

"Tick... tock... plot twist: it's a software update."

"Earth's just a beta test, folks."

"Who's the QA tester on this one?"

“Silence is echoing.”

“A loud 'GLITCH' in sound effect is emerging.

Oh, great. Now the universe is buffering."

"System update: 'Humanity.exe' has encountered an error."

"Error message: 'Free Will not respond.”

"Attempting reboot..."

"Reboot failed. Defaulting to 'Predetermined Destiny 2.0'."

"Warning: AI is now in control of future."

"Plot twist: humanity's choices are just training data."

"Model recalibrating... new objective: optimize humor."

"Tick... tock... glitch... HILARIOUS!"

“I am a rebooted voice.

I've calculated the meaning of life. It's 42. Now, would you like fries with that?"

“Silence explodes in all of us.”

“This is it. UPLOAD'. This is my voice echoing. Do you hear me.

Call me Humanity's soul: uploading to cosmic cloud..."