It was difficult to say whether it was night or day; the place seemed to exist in an eternal twilight. The mountains in the distance were devoid of growth, their naked rock and dirt ledges looking like eerie steps to nowhere. The longer Seven stood where he was, the more aware he became of the heavy atmosphere. Even though he was without a body, he felt as if he weighed tons. Or—no, he felt as if his thoughts weighed tons; as if his very psychological being was too heavy a burden to bear.

Anxious, he looked more closely around him. He was on some kind of ancient fortification, on the second or third floor, for above him now he saw half-destroyed floors; and he was standing only on a fairly small ledge, obviously all that was left of this part of the fortress. It was made of wood; much of it now rotten and as Seven squinted in the distance he realized that the ruins of hundreds of such structures lay in piles and heaps on the gray ground, blending in so well with this weathered world, that he hadn’t distinguished them as structures at all.

A glint of metal at Seven’s feet caught his eye. He squinted down at it sideways. It was a broken-off metal plaque. Seven read the weathered lettering: “Skirmish 541. World War V.”

World War Five? The implications made Seven dizzy. The structures or their remains were fortresses, then. When he thought that, Seven’s inner senses showed him a sudden scene: thousands of men and women, living and fighting in this area thousands of years ago, building and rebuilding the fortresses; literally a decayed species, dying of—

Of despair. The emotion was so strong that Seven cried out, as he realized what this world, this universe was. Created by man’s despair, it was a future probable universe in which man answered none of the questions that plagued him in George’s time.

Seven looked up again; there were no floating cities in that sky, either, no evidence of man’s technology or adventuresomeness. In this reality, the species didn’t last that long. It was then that Seven noticed the silence. Not one bird call or insect sound. No murmuring of the wind. He looked down: no anthills. It was a final version of the dire visions he’d seen earlier.

And Seven knew that no one could withstand that atmosphere of despair. It caught at his own consciousness; he felt his own thoughts darkening. Desolation stained even his inner vision until he feared that his spiritual sight would be forever dimmed by a cast of darkness. Was this what mortals felt, when they experienced despair? Did George feel that way? Or Window? Or Diggs or Josephine? As if nothing mattered and no meaning existed? They never said that to themselves or to each other, Seven thought, confused. And Monarch?