We Too Shall Inevitably Fade Away

Yin Shen felt himself fly out of his own body, slowly drifting toward the heavens.

He looked down at the building, the city, the continent, and finally the Earth itself.

He flew higher and higher, drifting beyond Earth's orbit, and suddenly saw rapid changes occurring on the planet below.

In the blink of an eye, the cities were gone, and then even the traces of humanity disappeared.

The continental plates were moving, and green plants gradually covered the land.

Yin Shen immediately understood what was happening.

"Time feels like it's speeding up, changing so fast. What I'm seeing right now could be a hundred thousand years, maybe even a million."

"I can't tell if it's moving forward or backward. If it's forward... does that mean humanity is already gone, completely wiped out?"

His gaze shifted to the universe. An invisible force then pulled him away, hurling him into the vast, boundless cosmos until he left the Earth far behind.

Eternal silence enveloped him.

He saw countless stars born and then fade away, and watched galaxies collapse one after another in rapid succession.

He witnessed wonders beyond anything he had ever imagined, sights so breathtaking and extraordinary they could shake a person's beliefs.

These sights made his entire life, and everything he had ever pursued, feel insignificant, even laughable. A sense of panic crept in as he reflected on the mediocrity and unremarkable nature of his existence.

Do our fleeting lives truly hold any meaning?

The birth of life, the origin of civilization, the grandeur of technology, are they truly as great as humanity claims?

The life of a human being, the history of the species called mankind, and even the entire Earth itself felt fleeting and insignificant.

At this moment, Yin Shen could only describe it with a phrase he had once heard.

"We are but specks of dust!"

The race and civilization called humanity were like a faint glimmer that suddenly emerged in a corner of the universe.

Gone in the blink of an eye, without any meaning.

No attention, no care, and unable to change anything.

We originate, we are born, we shine with all our brilliance, and we too shall inevitably fade away.

Vanishing on that insignificant island in the corner of the universe, fading away in a moment that to the universe is but a blink.

Yin Shen's mind was shaken. Yet, by witnessing such extraordinary sights, his own dim and brief life seemed to finally have a glimmer of light.

He transformed into a beam of light, heading toward the depths of the universe.

Time seemed to reverse its course, carrying him beyond the boundaries of space and time, guiding him toward the Origin Site of everything.

An immense gravitational force at the origin of time pulled him toward the very beginning of existence.

At last, the stars extinguished, and the universe converged into a singularity.

All things ceased to be.

He too arrived at the end.

"Where am I?"

Yin Shen questioned himself.

In this place, even darkness seemed to have vanished. He felt as though he had disappeared entirely, leaving behind only a silent consciousness adrift in endless emptiness.

This was a realm devoid of space, time, or anything at all.

He could only respond to his own thoughts. He might be the first life form to reach this place, the only existence within it.

"Am I beyond the universe? Or is this some kind of dimension we can't even begin to understand?"

He could not cry out. He could not perceive any other existence.

A sudden fear gripped his heart as his friend's words echoed in his mind.

"It could be another universe, the source of time, another dimension, or something completely beyond human imagination."

"Maybe there's nothing there at all. It could be like a prison, where your soul is trapped for ten million, even a hundred million years."

"Even until... eternity."

In that instant, his panic and unease surged. Just as that final thought crossed his mind, a light suddenly appeared before his eyes.

He heard the gentle rhythm of seawater, the ebb and flow of the tides. The sound was vivid and soothing, and a sense of warmth spread through him.

He could almost feel the bubbles rising beside him, softly drifting upward through the water.

Swish, splash, bubble bubble...

The sound stirred something deep within him.

The ocean unfolded before his eyes, revealing the sandy seabed.

He noticed a tiny trilobite-shaped creature, no larger than a fingertip, crawling across the sand. Nearby, a noodle-like worm twisted and wriggled its way upward through the seawater.

A trilobite called redlichia, and a tiny, barely perceptible unnamed worm.

Recalling his friend's words once more, he realized what was happening.

"Anchor points..." Yin Shen murmured to himself.

"They've shown up on Earth... and they're letting me see it all."

"They're like my eyes, my link, my coordinates in this endless expanse."

He never imagined that the trilobite fossil his friend had given him would be the very thing to re-anchor him to the Earth, pulling him out of eternal darkness and the bottomless abyss.

His friend likely never anticipated that the fossil contained not just a trilobite, but also a worm from a distant era.

He extended his hand toward the creature called redlichia.

In that moment, he broke free from his confinement and returned to the universe.

His consciousness returned to the Earth. He left the mysterious realm beyond the universe, crossing immense stretches of time.

It was anchored to a moment in history from hundreds of millions of years ago, tied to an ordinary planet in a distant corner of the stars.

This was a shallow sea where sunlight filtered through the water, casting a warm glow.

The seabed was covered with ancient algae and primitive fern plants. Large patches of underwater vegetation, resembling tulips, drifted gently with the rhythm of the waves.

There were also cactus-like sponges with sharp, long spines protruding from their outer walls.

Hyoliths lay embedded in the sand, while groups of trilobites scuttled across the gravel.

Step by step, Yin Shen walked upward along the seabed. He was confused and lost, sensing the strangeness of this place.

This seemed to be Earth, yet it was nothing like the Earth he remembered.

He stepped out of the shallow sea and onto the land.

The ground stretched out before him, barren and desolate, an empty continent untouched by time.

Yin Shen gazed at the Earth from hundreds of millions of years ago, at the untouched sky and sun. In this vast world, he was the only being known as human.

"Is this... the ancient Earth?"

He stood upon the shore as the ocean behind him surged, erupting with a tremendous roar.

BOOM!

The worm that had accompanied Yin Shen's appearance began to mutate.

It consumed sand, seaweed, and ocean water, and in an instant, it grew into a towering beast tens of meters tall.

It absorbed plants and creatures alike, merging them into its own form.

A massive spiral shell began to grow on its back, while spikes emerged from within its body. Strange tentacles extended outward from the shell.

Its flesh split apart, revealing cracks where eerie green eyeballs appeared, darting in every direction.

The grotesque creature was a deformed monstrosity. Its immense size made it an unrivaled apex predator in this era.

As Yin Shen's gaze fell upon it, the giant beast lowered itself to the ground in complete submission. It remained motionless, as if it had surrendered its very sense of self.

Then, a trilobite began to crawl out from the shallow sea, its body growing larger with every step.

As it emerged from the water, its form started to shift and change.

It developed a humanoid torso, sprouting limbs and a head.

The creature transformed into a humanoid figure covered in black carapace, its head encased in a tightly fitting, trilobite-patterned bone helmet.

The creature slowly made its way onto the shore. It approached Yin Shen step by step, its gaze lingering on him as he stood silently.

Yin Shen could feel its emotions. He placed a finger on the bone helmet covering its head and listened as this ancient life form on Earth uttered the planet's first word, its first syllable.

"God!"