the last sovereign of infinity

Lucien had spent a considerable amount of time discovering things about himself that he would have preferred remained hidden.

He had learned that he cried more than was socially acceptable.

He had learned that his relationship with promises bordered on pathological.

And now, standing before the final door at the edge of existence, he had discovered something else.

At some point in his life, he had looked upon his own grief and decided that it deserved a home.

He found this deeply unreasonable.

The child sitting upon the small bed yawned quietly.

He couldn't have been older than eight.

That detail disturbed Lucien more than anything else.

The room beyond the final door was impossibly ordinary.

A bookshelf stood against one wall, filled with worn stories. A lantern hung beside the window. There were drawings pinned carefully beside the bed.

Every single one depicted someone smiling.

Interesting.

Lucien immediately distrusted any room that contained this much sentimentality.

"You decorated."

The child looked around.

"Oh."

"There it is again."

Lucien ignored him.

"Tomorrow helped."

"Traitor."

Tomorrow laughed softly from beside the door.

"I regret nothing."

The child slid off the bed and walked toward him with the careful steps of someone who had spent a very long time waiting for visitors.

Lucien remained perfectly still.

He was becoming increasingly aware that every version of himself possessed an unfortunate tendency toward emotional ambushes.

"I thought you'd be taller."

Silence.

Lucien blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

The child shrugged.

"We always expected we'd eventually become taller."

"That seems reasonable."

"It didn't happen."

"No, it apparently didn't."

The child nodded solemnly.

"A tragedy."

Fair.

Lucien looked around the room once more.

There were names carved into the wooden walls.

Thousands of them.

Some he recognized.

Others he did not.

"What are these?"

The child's expression softened.

"People we said goodbye to."

Dangerous.

Every answer continued to be dangerous.

"You remembered all of them."

"No."

The child shook his head.

"I remembered how saying goodbye felt."

Silence.

Lucien suddenly found himself unable to look away from the names.

Some had stars beside them.

Others had small drawings.

One simply read:

«He laughed too loudly and always cheated at cards.»

Orion.

Another.

«She pretended not to like flowers.»

Seraphina.

And beneath it, written in smaller handwriting:

«She cried after we left. Pretend not to notice.»

Lucien closed his eyes.

Dangerous.

Everything was dangerous.

"You wrote these."

"We both did."

The child smiled.

"You were afraid."

"Of what?"

"That we'd forget they were loved."

The simplicity of the answer hurt.

Lucien was becoming increasingly exhausted by pain.

The child suddenly tilted his head.

"You still carry it strangely."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The sadness."

Silence.

"I do not carry sadness."

"Oh."

"There it is."

Lucien chose not to acknowledge that.

The child continued.

"You hide it behind sarcasm now."

"That seems inaccurate."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

Lucien was beginning to suspect arguing with younger versions of himself was a fundamentally unwinnable endeavor.

"When did I leave you here?"

The room grew quiet.

Tomorrow stopped smiling.

Even the lantern's light dimmed slightly.

"The first time."

Lucien had expected that answer.

He still disliked hearing it.

"Tell me."

The child was silent for a very long time.

Then—

"The first time we died, we were afraid."

A memory surfaced immediately.

Rain.

Cold.

A sky without stars.

And a small hand reaching toward something he couldn't see.

"WAIT!"

The memory vanished.

"We didn't want to leave."

The child's voice was very soft now.

"We promised we'd stay."

Lucien remained silent.

"But promises are difficult when you're dying."

The room felt smaller.

Quieter.

"What happened?"

The child looked toward the window.

"The universe wasn't finished yet."

Interesting.

"That's not an answer."

"It wasn't one then either."

Fair.

The child continued.

"Tomorrow was crying."

Lucien stopped breathing.

"What?"

"It was the first time we'd ever seen it cry."

The lantern flickered.

"And we didn't know what to do."

Something inside Lucien's chest hurt.

Again.

He was becoming increasingly tired of possessing a heart.

"So we made another promise."

Of course.

Naturally.

"What promise?"

The child smiled sadly.

"The same one."

Silence.

"'I'll come back.'"

The words echoed through the room.

Lucien found himself staring at the floor.

"And then?"

The child looked directly at him.

"Then we didn't."

The simplicity of the answer somehow made it infinitely worse.

"Not at first."

The stars outside the window dimmed.

"Tomorrow waited."

The lantern's light softened.

"One year."

Silence.

"Then ten."

The room grew quieter.

"Then a thousand."

Lucien closed his eyes.

"And eventually?"

The child laughed softly.

"Eventually, it started leaving the lantern on at night."

Something broke.

Small.

Human.

Dangerous.

"It thought we'd get lost."

The words were spoken with all the unbearable honesty of a child.

Lucien found that he suddenly hated lanterns.

Tomorrow remained silent beside the door.

The child walked to the window and looked out at the endless darkness beyond.

"You know what the funny part is?"

"I suspect I won't."

"We weren't afraid of dying."

"No?"

The child smiled faintly.

"We were afraid it would think we'd lied."

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Lucien could not breathe.

"Every life after that..." The child looked back at him. "We kept trying to come back faster."

The memories came in fragments.

A man crossing a battlefield.

A child beneath a mountain.

A king abandoning his throne.

All moving in the same direction.

Always.

Toward home.

"Oh."

"There it is."

Lucien ignored him.

"Is that why?"

"Why what?"

"Why I keep returning?"

The child laughed softly.

"You really don't know, do you?"

"No."

The child walked over and gently took his hand.

"It's because we're still trying to keep our first promise."

The room fell silent.

The child looked up at him with ancient, tired eyes.

"We've saved worlds."

The lantern brightened.

"We've buried stars."

The names upon the walls glowed softly.

"We've taught dragons how to laugh and children how to dream."

Lucien felt his chest tighten.

"But none of that was ever the reason."

Silence.

The child squeezed his hand.

"We're just trying to go home."

The words settled over the room with impossible gentleness.

And for the first time in any of his lives...

Lucien realized that every step he had ever taken had been carrying him toward the same destination.

Not power.

Not destiny.

Not even salvation.

Only a lantern left burning beside a door at the end of existence.

Waiting for someone who promised he would come back.