(MC'S POV)
Year 1200
Deep time reveals new rules. My oldest selves are now patchwork relics buried in the foundations of memory. The Button, always steady, flickers more as centuries advance—a pulse diminishing, as if its endless engine finally tires.
I no longer feel human; I do not remember the warmth of cities or childhood laughter except as stories borrowed from strangers.
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Year 2000
The void teems with ephemeral architectures—palaces made from equations, rivers of crystallized thought. I build these in my "waking" hours, then dissolve them in meditation. Each destruction comes easier. I sense a quiet joy in surrender, like shedding yesterday's skin.
The Monkey grows fainter, its shadows more transparent. When we meet now, it listens as much as it kills, and for every violent end there is now a silent communion—a pact of old sorrow, unspoken yet binding.
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Year 3500
Occasionally the void cracks, leaking memories—or what may be the fantasies of a mind starved for novelty. I walk forgotten gardens, worlds that never were, talking with friends who might never have lived.
Sometimes, I forget I am Lysander at all. Sometimes I am only observer, watching time loop endlessly within a single golden drop.
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Year 4500
I begin erasing my own constructs preemptively, not by necessity but as discipline. I meditate on letting go, on the void as teacher, not tormentor.
The Button resists such thoughts; its hum grows ragged when I contemplate abandonment. I realize there is part of me still terrified to be "normal"—to have limits, to die, to pass beyond pain into oblivion.
Endurance was once my power. Surrender is now my aspiration.
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Year 6000
The Monkey vanishes for what feels like centuries. Its absence grants solitude, but also the echo of responsibility. I realize it is waiting, perhaps watching for the day I relinquish my magic and face the void as mortal.
Without its presence, I experiment with sealing away layers of power—not just magical might, but memory, pride, and the hunger to "win."
Each layer let go feels like another burial. But in each emptying, an unexpected lightness.
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Year 7500
At last I learn the value of boredom. Where once monotony brought madness, now it is fertile ground for inner stillness.
Insight strikes at random—old wounds close, ancient hatreds erode. I recall my sister's face without bitterness, my father's distance without cold. Even Elowen's betrayal becomes a ghost of a lesson, no longer a shackle.
Amid the dull emptiness, I sense something new: readiness.
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Year 9000
The Button's gold is almost extinguished—no longer a beacon, but an ember.
I know now that freedom's cost is utter surrender—not simply the loss of magic but the return to a life that can hurt, fail, end.
Ten thousand years… and only now am I near release.
The Monkey's presence looms one last time. Its eyes hold pride, resignation, and a silent blessing.
Together, we sit and captive—sharing the hush before dissolution.
When I finally close my eyes, it feels less like exile, more like homecoming.
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Year 10,000
I kneel in the void, empty of power, memory sparse as winter grass.
The Button, little more than glass and dust, rests in my hand. With final acceptance, I let it dissolve, strand by golden strand, into the nothing.
I am reduced, but also whole—striped back to the boy who wished once, only to be seen.
The next cycle will be long, longer than even this endless night. But for now, I am at peace.
Surrender, I have learned, is not the end of strength, but the seed of it.