The Paradox Corridor

Chapter 35: Depth's End

Amber was gone. Completely and utterly. Any part of her that had ever existed was no more. But then...why could she still feel? How could she still hear? It was subtle at first, but she eventually caught on to the fact that she was gently being pulled ahead, even though she didn't seem to actually have a body. She could hear a tiny, tiny noise, minuscule at best, if she strained to hear it hard enough. But what was it? After what seemed like forever and yet no time at all, she suddenly jerked forward, as if something had pushed her from behind, but instead of falling flat on her face (did she have a face?) she just kept flying forward, still sideways like she was halfway through falling over, but stuck like that. She could tell that she had begun flying/ floating/whatever forward a lot faster, and she kept on accelerating. The 'wind' on her 'face' began to sting, and she would have let out a scream if she had a mouth. Instead, she screamed inwardly as she sped towards...whatever it was. She kept hurtling faster and faster, and felt more and more pain as the wind whipped her 'face'. The pain was had become unbearable when finally: everything stopped. After a while, she realized that she wasn't dead. She groaned as she picked herself off of the grou-wait a minute. She realized with a start that she had hands. And a body. And a voice. And there was ground! Whatever had happened to her had finally stopped. Wait...or had it? She still felt a pull, like a vacuum, which seemed to come from somewhere behind her. Groaning (and loving the sound of it) she picked herself off of the ground, which seemed to be ordinary grey pavement. But as she looked around, she could tell that something was wrong. Very wrong. To her left and right was space, grand and majestic, with stars twinkling and nebulae...doing whatever cool thing it is that they do. It was breathtaking. Then she realized something weird. She was breathing normally...but she didn't have anything to breathe with. She looked around her, trying to figure out what was going on...and then she saw what was going on. She seemed to be standing on a solitary chunk of road, a bridge, perhaps, due to the guardrails on either side. It seemed dilapidated, as quite a few pieces of the bridge were missing. It seemed to be floating around for no reason, but Amber was no longer paying attention, as she finally saw what was pulling her ever so slowly toward the edge. She saw a white light, maybe half a mile away from her. It looked harmless, even 'friendly', but those thoughts were quickly put out of her mind when out of nowhere a giant tree trunk flew right over her head, almost knocking her over, and hurtled straight into the white light. The light seemed to grow, just a little bit, and it seemed to glow brighter. Suddenly, the pavement she was standing on shook, and she screamed. The portion of bridge began to break apart, and she turned and ran, the bridge collapsing behind her like in a nightmare. As she ran, objects of various sizes and origin, rocks, cars, trees, UFO's, and even comets flew past her toward the light, and the light kept glowing brighter and brighter. After what seemed like an hour of running, she finally reached the end of the bridge. She stopped, windmilling her arms so that she wouldn't fall off. After regaining her balance, she looked ahead (away from the light) and almost died. Before, where there had been stars and magnificence, there was nothing. Besides a few rather close stars and systems (she seemed to have gained the eyesight of an eagle) there was nothing. The stars were a few white dots failing miserably to hide the utter blackness that lay behind them. She finally realized what was happening. Turning around, she looked at the light, which glowed like the hottest star. As she saw objects flying into it, she whispered,

"It's...eating the universe..." Suddenly, she heard a loud CRACK, like a dull-sounding thunder. Everything stopped. The trees and telephone wires that had just hurtled over her head stopped cold. The light ceased pulling everything towards itself and simply hung there like an evil lamp. And not a moment too soon, for the final section of the bridge had begun to crumble. But what had done it? She got her answer almost immediately, as a dark spot appeared on the white light, right in the middle, and it grew bigger. Not bigger, she realized, closer. As it got close enough for her to make out various details, she immediately knew by the black armor, red eyes, and humongous figure that it was the time robot, the same one that they had fought at the Mills! It tore through space at hundreds of miles per hour, getting very close very fast. She didn't even think about moving, she was so transfixed. She didn't know why, but the robot seemed different. Almost...beautiful. Too late, she realized that it was about to ram right into her. She didn't even have time to steel herself for the impact when all of a sudden it stopped cold turkey, and landed about fifty feet in front of her, even though she swore that that part of the bridge had collapsed earlier. It landed almost silently, like a cat landing on its feet. It stood there for a while, not making a move, the moving gears inside its body clearly audible. After what seemed to be an eternity of silence, Amber spoke, shaking with fear.

"What are y-you doing here? And whats h-h-happening?" At first the robot didn't respond, so she assumed that it couldn't speak, but as she finally came to the conclusion that it was mute, it responded, with an extremely non-robotic voice that sounded almost human. 

"Incorrect" Amber stared, confused so much that she temporarily forgot her fear.

"What do you mean, incorrect?!?" The robot thought about that for a while, then finally answered.

"You are incorrect in assuming that we are 'here'. In a location, a place; when in fact we aren't 'here' at all. We aren't anywhere. This is your mind, the deepest realms of your human consciousness. This is what you humans call a 'dream'. Or, more properly, a 'nightmare'." Amber had already kind of thought that, so it wasn't that big of a surprise.

"Wait a minute," she said, "If this is a dream, I can't die. Right? And that means you aren't even real, just a figment of my imagination. And if that's true, then-" She was interrupted by an incredibly strange noise. The robot was making a strange sound that sounded like metal grinding on metal. The only thing that Amber could think of in that moment was that the only thing that she could think of that sounded remotely the same was a witch's cackle. The robot...was laughing at her. After a while, the robot stopped.

"You are even more of a fool than we thought..."it mused, "I am not, as you say, a figment of your imagination. I was the one who brought you here in the first place. I took over your mind and knocked you out. I control everything in here right now, not you."

"You're wrong!" yelled Amber, "You aren't in control of me! I'm still in control of myself!" The robot laughed again.

"You are a fool. The only reason why you are in control of yourself right now is because I am allowing you to." It replied calmly.

"You didn't answer my question!" yelled Amber back, furious that this thing was messing with her life. "Where are we?"

"You are at Depth's End," replied the robot, "As we call it. You would call it the end of everything. The reason why I am showing you this is because this is the future. This is what happens not if but when you and your friends fail in your quest."

"That's not true! That's not true!" yelled Amber, "we won't fail! We will save the universe! And it's not just us, either. There's more where we came from!" 


"Are you sure? These paradoxes rip the universe apart, and soon even the past that you are trying to save will have never existed. And about your friend, the Custodian,"  it said audible disgust in its voice, "how can you trust him with your lives if he won't even tell you the truth?"

"Wait, what?" asked Amber, "what do you mean?" The robot chuckled.

"Well, now, I'm not the one to give away trade secrets...my employer doesn't take kindly to things like that, you see."

"Tell me! TELL ME!" screamed Amber helplessly. The robot shook his head.

"Just think about that for awhile. Then tell me who your allies truly are. And you won't need to look for me. I think I'll be seeing you soon enough. You have three days." Amber gasped, thinking about how disastrous that would be to pretty much everything she could think of. The robot laughed again.

"Well, I'll be seeing you..." it said, and as it did, the bridge underneath her crumbled into a million pieces, and she fell, screaming, into the white light.