The Edge of Reality

Chapter 33: The End

In the late Spring, I graduated from the University after a year of intensive classes. I could go back for a higher degree, but I knew that I didn't need to for now. All of the people closest to me came to my graduation- only four people, but important to me all the same. I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination, but it seemed like the audience cheered far louder for me than any of the other graduates when I received my diploma. I was thrilled, but strangely not for graduation. I was happy to have achieved this, but I was happy about something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The ceremony ended and I went over to meet Naham, Uma, Audra and Lela. It was a blur of hugs, congratulations and pictures as we made our way to the parking lot and I felt genuinely overjoyed. They were the only ones left that had made it with me. I hadn't known any of them since the beginning, but it felt like I'd spent my entire life with them. I embraced them all meaningfully before getting into my car, and their eyes shone with the pride that didn't reach their lips. As I drove away, I watched them wave to me in my rearview mirror and I smiled because I knew it was the last time. I didn't stare as they faded away. In fact, I stopped looking in my mirrors altogether as the terrain around me began to distort and blend into nothingness. I drove past the university, past my apartment, past the cafe, past every place I had ever lived. I was going to the forest and beyond it. The drive would have normally taken an hour, but time didn't matter today and when I reached the thick of the forest, I parked the car and got out. I looked around the area and saw the cabin I'd stayed in almost two years ago with all of my old friends; it made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, but I did neither as I walked ahead and felt it fade away. I walked over the hill I'd tried to conquer the last time I was there, and realized that there was nothing on the other side. Literally nothing at all. A thick fog was rolling through the trees and I walked into it without hesitation, not caring to look back because I knew there was nothing there either. I took a deep breath as the fog enveloped me and all the pain I'd still been holding on left me, floating away with the rest of the city. And then I faded away too.