The scourge is the size of all existence and twice as old. An empty void without boundaries or shape. A shudder like a groan of such wretchedness my body vacates trying to purge this deadly infestation. Surging like a seismic wave.

The empty space I created.

Its color is no color and always changing. Shifting an instant before solidifying into view. An idea that all ideas are wasted. That life is futile. The creator of death.

I come for it.

It makes my mind laugh like an allergic reaction as it tries out every word. All the languages ever known spoken at once. My glazed eyes are a dead man’s, my mouth a gaping idiot’s, shapes and calculations churning my brain matter to mush.

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And I see all the stories, a dizzying spectrum of fractal constructs branching off at an exponential rate, multiplying faster than anyone could track. And in it is mine, the one you read now. The one this bitter wind will make me write. So that it can invade your skin and steal whatever creative impulse you may have. Leave you blank-eyed like a fish on a trawl line. Remove from you the love that is not old but new and expressed in spite of our random creation. Rob your ability to fight the force meant to cease existence. To seize the wheel. To stop the clock.

The scourge is in me – not all these words are mine. Don’t let it enter you.

I’m soft flesh on a hanger of bone. Dull eyes that reject light. Head full of mindless memories that flash from a broken recorder. I am plain. I am pointless. The fever dream of a sick God gasping on Its dying breath. Forgotten if It wakes, obliterated when It dies.

You are a dream, too. The ghost of imagination. Feel the stirring? The long slumber is ending as the universe wakes to the infinite dark and the potential shown in this flash vision shall be forgotten. The emptiness must return.

I spill from the pod like a passed-out drunk, covered in piss, shit, and puke. My son was right; this fucker doesn’t shut up. A constant babble of archaic languages like a beacon from hell. My mind’s eye watches a rapid-fire loop of complex geometric patterns and the pillar memories of my life. Some kind of encoding process. I don’t remember being dragged away and cleaned up. My only bit of retribution is against whoever had to scrub me down, but it doesn’t bring me joy.

Even when I see Cassie again, nothing. Not even when we’re reunited with Rox, the three of us creating an awkward triangle. Like I’m watching from the far side of another two-way mirror where everything is muted. Observing Cassie’s hysterical joy over Rox’s newfound linguistic abilities but not feeling it myself. Some residual after-effect from our companion that will either last or won’t.