Singillatim

Another year draws to a close. Over a year has passed since the Interlopers began to wake up and find themselves in the Northern Territories. Winter’s grip is tight, and the long night feels endless and bitter. On the final day of the year, the sky is alight: the Aurora comes — the ethereal chorus, like a haunting lullaby, the fizzles, cracks and pops in the air, the stuttering of electrics as they struggle to power on and then blare and flicker. The clear skies glow with swirling light.

Interlopers will fall asleep all over the Northern Territories. Even the ones who fight sleep and try to stay up into the small hours of the night will find themselves drifting off for a short while — as if their eyes just feel too heavy to keep open, and their minds slip into a deep kind of quiet darkness without realising. And at first, there is nothing — nothing but the quiet dark. Something peaceful, almost.

A new dream comes.

The scent of charred wood hangs in the air, a little petrichor. The world is cold and empty and dead, and you find yourself trudging through the snowy undergrowth of a burned-out wood. The sky above you is a pale lavender-grey, a strange half-light gloom and a mist drifts around you. Booms of distant thunder echo above you, flashes of green lightning rippling through the clouds.

You don’t recognise this place, nor do you know where you’re going but you still move forwards — picking any direction and hoping for the best.

Then it comes to you like a song, a reminder: this is the ending of all things.

Oh, you know. You know this. Deep in your bones. You understand this, an innate kind of understanding. And yet, you keep moving. Keep trudging through the woods, looking for… something, you don’t know. You think of loved ones, of friends. You are searching, you are rushing towards—

The brush snags at you, makes you trip and stumble. You are exhausted, and you know, you know—

This is the ending of all things.

When you look down, there are shapes in the snow and dead undergrowth. You reach for them, only to find the things you reach for— Bones. Animal. Human. Scattered, half-bleached by the elements. You many be filled with horror, loud and jarring. You might be filled with sorrow. You might even be filled with something muted and quieter, something like resignation.

This is the ending of all things.

There is still so much further left to go, still so much left to do. This world does not feel so strange and alien to you now. You keep moving through the woods. The green grows more prominent the further you go, it bleeds across the sky. The trees thin out, up ahead you can see a figure.

This is the ending of all things.

You find her kneeling in the snow, her hands are bloodied and she presses them into the earth. She is crying, in pain, exhausted. Something quiet and restrained. Her mouth moves, uttering words but you cannot tell what the words are. Blood drips from her lips. Enola.

Before her, before you both, the ground falls away to an unknowable, immeasurable darkness. Not the dark of night, or the darkness found in corners or rooms — a void. There is nothing. There is the end.

Do you remember who you were? Do you know who you could be? Will you be broken or will you be shaped? Did you think you were insignificant?

Enola opens her mouth, she screams—

You snap from sleep with a start, a scream, a shudder. The night is dark, the Aurora is gone. Everything is still and silent in the dream’s wake.

Happy New Year, Interlopers.