At The End of All Things

Chapter 1: The End of All Things

     "Renslayer..." Loki spoke solemnly as he sat in the interrogation room across from Mobius. He was coming to a slow realization that everything he had worked for had been a huge waste of time which hurt him more than anything. How could he possibly move forward knowing this fact? Loki let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and he could feel his eyes welling up with tears, his chest tight with anguish. As he tried to process what he was hearing, the room almost felt like it was closing in on them which gave him a sense of claustrophobia. Perhaps it wasn't just the room, however. Maybe it was actually the world as a whole that was beginning to look and feel smaller to him as he realized just how meaningless it all was.

     "She knew the hard thing to do," The man across from him paused. "Was the thing that had to be done..." Mobius' voice rang through Loki's ears and it hit him. All at once, he knew... he had to do the hardest thing of all, lest he lose everyone he loved... Lest he lose Mobius... "And by hard... I mean impossible. There's no comfort. You just choose your burden." A brief silence hung in the air between them. For a man he'd supposedly just met in this particular moment, Mobius had a surprising amount of wise words to say and yet he'd never heard them before in any of his attempts at finding the true ending. Perhaps now he finally had...

     With tears welling up around the lower rim of his eyes, Loki looked up and made eye contact with the man across the seemingly increasing distance. In barely a whisper, he said, "Thank you, Mobius..." and he stood up to silently outstretch his hand. Just as he expected, the world around him began to crumble the moment their hands connected, starting with the one who meant the most.

     Loki had finally come to realize how far his power could go. The tendrils of his magic could stretch out far beyond even his own imagination, yet there he stood as a mortal god. For now, anyway. All that he'd lost would soon be ensured a place in the timeline for good, so long as he could succeed. By now, he had full faith that he would. There was no evidence to the contrary. Loki was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had found his purpose in the grand elaborate plan, but he wasn't sure that he liked it.

     As the lines of reality slipped away and faded into darkness like strands of yarn unfurling, Loki stood alone in the silence. There was no light. There was no shadow. There was no sound to be heard beyond his own breathing and his heart beating inside his chest. He could hear his blood pumping through his veins as if he had stepped into some form of sensory deprivation tank. The quietest room in the world. Wherever he was, nothing else could be. Loki was truly at the end of all things. There was but one remaining question...

What now?