(MC's POV)
Year 120
The void no longer frightens me. It moves when I think, slows when I sleep. The Monkey rarely attacks now; its silence feels heavier than claws. I sense it studying from unreachable distance. Perhaps it too learns.
I meditate for decades, breathing the pulse of the Button until the difference between its rhythm and mine vanishes. My thoughts create faint auroras—arches of gold flaring across the nothing. They last seconds, then collapse, leaving afterimages in consciousness.
Creation through will, destruction through limitation. Every flash burns insight into how fragile existence really is.
.
.
.
Year 200
Loneliness breeds invention. I fashion companions from memory—hollow shades stitched from light and language. They converse in fragments, enough to simulate company. One claims to be a scholar, another a priest; all are pieces of me.
When they fade, I rebuild them better. The Button hums approval; each iteration closer to stability. The void tolerates them for a while, as if amused. But whenever I grow attached, the Monkey flickers into being and erases them in silence.
That, too, becomes lesson: nothing endures when grasped too tightly.
.
.
.
Year 300
I discover the void's lattice. What looks like endless mist is actually structure—threads of equations humming in invisible frequencies. By tuning thought, I can pluck these strings.
Each vibration reshapes a small region, forming spires, valleys, rivers of molten color. The realm becomes map; I, its cartographer. But every construction contains flaw: entropy disguised as beauty. Within weeks, each creation decomposes, returning to gray.
Perfection remains impossible; imperfection, inevitable. I stop struggling against it and begin sculpting with decay itself—letting art dissolve by design.
.
.
.
Year 400
The Monkey returns, speaking at last. Not in words, but in mirrored pulses from its three eyes. I stand beneath them and receive impressions: memory, hunger, resignation.
Through these flashes, I glimpse its truth. It was once mortal, perhaps like me—chosen by the same entity. It fought centuries until realization hollowed it into the custodian of oblivion. Immortality, it shows, isn't victory—it's confinement to unending comprehension.
It does not kill me this time. Instead, it points one claw toward my chest, toward the Button embedded there, and leaves.
The message is clear: our fates are bound. One of us must become nothing for the other to end.
.
.
.
Year 500
Five hundred years marked only by rhythm: death, rebirth, meditation. My sensory limits stretch. I perceive time as multiple streams, each carrying different versions of myself. In one, I am scholar; in another, beast. All eventually converge in the same realization—power means less each century.
I start withholding magic, forcing regeneration to rely solely on the void's will. Agony grows unbearable, yet clarity follows. Each restraint strips arrogance, each limitation breeds comprehension.
.
.
.
Year 600
I devise a maze of thought, twelve layered loops of contemplation, each demanding perfect stillness. Completing one loop consumes decades; finishing all grants serenity deep enough to still even the Button's vibration.
During these meditations, revelations dawn: the Button is not separate—it is the seed of the void lodged within me. The Monkey guards the outer shell; I contain the core. To escape, one must destroy the other—or relinquish what connects them.
I record this truth in mental runes carved along the folds of consciousness itself. Knowledge burns, but it lasts.
.
.
.
Year 700
The void rebels. My inner experiments generate paradox storms—swarms of reflective fragments exploding outward, each bearing potential futures. I see myself killing the Monkey, ruling the void, reshaping eternity. Every vision ends in stagnation.
I understand now that power breeds new prisons. To truly be free, I must one day unmake the Button, even if it dissolves me too.
So begins austerity: layers of my strength sealed behind geometric locks of intention. I become leaner, sharper, quieter.
.
.
.
Year 800
For centuries, the Monkey and I circle one another without combat. Occasionally, our minds overlap, forming a bridge of shared echoes. Through it, I feel its despair—an eternity of failed release.
We reach fragile peace. It sits before me like mountain incarnate; I meditate beneath its gaze. Between us flicker symbols carved from resonance—our dialogue after millennia of silence.
It teaches without words how to breathe within annihilation. I teach it patience—the art of surviving purpose. Together, we rebuild fragments of extinct worlds, brief pearls of beauty devoured minutes later.
For the first time, eternity feels almost gentle.
.
.
.
Year 900
Nine centuries since my arrival. I no longer resemble a man; light threads through flesh, haloed by translucent veins. My body translates will to energy seamlessly. The Button's glow dims—either running low on cosmic fuel or preparing for its endgame.
I stop creating. Instead, I observe. Stillness reveals subtler truths: there is meaning even in nothing's repetition. Freedom may not mean leaving; it may mean acceptance beyond need.
Yet a whisper remains—old curiosity, irrational stubbornness—that refuses surrender.
.
.
.
Year 1000
The thousandth year brings return of sensation. The void trembles like heartbeat after silence. The Monkey rises, luminous cracks spreading across its hide.
Without aggression, it kneels. The gesture bends the realm around us. I understand: the void demands evolution, not combat. The next phase begins.
A golden fracture opens in distant infinity—a "gate" formed where endurance meets purpose. I feel its pull but cannot pass. Attached still to power, I am too full to cross.
The Monkey's voice finally becomes audible, thunder disguised as whisper:
"Freedom costs portion of self still clinging to control."
It was right. I cannot be both sovereign and free.
I turn inward, gaze at the Button beneath my ribs. Its glow trembles like a dying star. I sense what future demands: one day—perhaps in one hundred trillion years—I must let it go, abandon the divine machinery that made me godlike.
When that day comes, release will no longer be escape.
It will be surrender so perfect it rewrites what existence means.
The Monkey fades. The gate seals. My next epochs wait, endless as mercy unlearned.
I kneel within the silence, whispering to the invisible:
"Not yet. But someday."