Chapter 31: Null’s Friends
Null’s “friends” arrived at dawn—if dawn was the right word for a collapsed dimension where the sun had frozen mid-rise two thousand years ago.
The first was a being called Ink, who appeared to be a sentient stain. It spread across the broken ground like spilled coffee, forming temporary shapes: a dog, a tree, a very rude gesture aimed at Null.
“Ink and I had a disagreement three centuries ago,” Null explained. “About whether existence was fundamentally meaningless or just mostly meaningless.”
“And who won?” Lyra asked.
“We agreed it was meaningless to argue about it.”
The second arrival was more substantial: a towering figure made of crystallized time. She called herself Epoch, and every surface of her body showed a different moment in history—battles, sunsets, a cat knocking a glass off a table in ancient Rome.
“Null, darling,” Epoch said in a voice that echoed with centuries. “I received your message. A fight against cosmic annihilation? I cleared my schedule.”
“You don’t have a schedule. You exist in all moments simultaneously.”
“It’s an expression, dear. I’m trying to be relatable.”
The third and final ally was the strangest. A perfectly ordinary-looking middle-aged man in a cardigan, holding a cup of tea. He introduced himself as Gerald.
“What are you?” Jake asked, because in his experience, the most ordinary-looking things in other dimensions were the most dangerous.
“I’m a concept,” Gerald said, sipping his tea. “Specifically, I’m the physical embodiment of the concept of ‘giving things a try.’ I exist because sentient beings throughout the multiverse occasionally say ‘oh, why not’ and do something they weren’t sure about.”
“That’s… oddly specific.”
“You’d be surprised how often it comes up.”
Jake looked at his assembled army: a void entity, a baby math creature, an Elvari student, a being made of lost stories, a sentient stain, a crystal of frozen time, and the concept of giving things a try.
Against the Eraser.
“This is either going to be legendary or really, really embarrassing,” Jake said.
“Both options are interesting,” Gerald offered. “That’s why I’m here.”