t = Ω

IT WAS SO SIMPLE a reaction, the equation describing it could fit on a leisure shirt.

What had been broken was made whole again.

The dimensional wound—upon whose fractal edges something called reality had grown like random frost—closed seamlessly in an instant. Healed at last.

And where there had been eleven dimensions of existence, there now were none.

Perfect unity had been achieved again.

In that last eternal moment before the illusion called time ceased to be, the expansion of what had been called space-time abruptly stopped. All at once. Throughout the full extent of its reach.

Some sentient intelligences might have been aware of something gone awry, a sudden slowing of the worlds around them, a sluggishness to the atmosphere or the liquid from which they drew life. But that moment of disquiet was all that they would know. For there was no more time left to explore the reason for the slowing.

If a vantage point had been possible within another realm, then the cessation of expansion would have been apparent. Followed not by an explosion from the point at which the ripped dimension had been rejoined, but by a sudden condensation. A condensation of existence.

Matter did not move through space. Nor did energy change over time. But space-time itself shrank.

Instantly.

A bubble bursting.

A dream vanishing upon awakening.

Not even a black hole extinguished existence as swiftly, as absolute as the effect of total nothingness.

There was not even a place for there to be an absence of anything.

There was not even a place for nothing to exist.

The human adventure had come to its end.

The universe was gone.