May 10th, 4 AM. Zero hour.
120 refugees. 120 volunteers. 120 integration beds across global facilities.
Final wave.
Lia-Elora stood in campus integration facility where this had all begun six months ago. Original seven were distributed across global facilities—each supervising final integrations, each bearing witness to end of Sixth Earth, each carrying responsibility of doing everything humanly possible.
"Integration window opening in thirty minutes," Thorne announced through global communication system. "All facilities confirm readiness. All refugees confirm consent. All volunteers confirm understanding of risks. This is final opportunity before Sixth Earth's dimensional coherence degrades beyond threshold permitting consciousness transfer."
Lia-Elora's facility was attempting twelve final integrations. She walked between beds where volunteers lay preparing, offering presence and reassurance.
One volunteer—woman named Patricia, retired teacher in her sixties—asked: "What happens if we don't finish in time? What happens if dimensional collapse occurs mid-integration?"
"Honestly?" Lia-Elora said. "We don't know. Possibly integration completes successfully. Possibly refugee consciousness gets trapped between dimensions. Possibly both consciousnesses dissolve. Possibly you survive but refugee doesn't. We've never attempted integration during active dimensional collapse. You're pioneers in worst possible way."
"But you need volunteers anyway."
"Desperately."
"Then I volunteer knowing risks. Better to try with uncertain outcomes than let refugee die with certainty."
Similar conversations were happening across 120 integration beds globally. 120 volunteers accepting risk they might die or be permanently damaged to give 120 refugees chance at survival.
"Thirty seconds to integration window," Thorne announced.
Lia-Elora positioned herself where she could observe all twelve beds simultaneously through quantum sensing. Original Twelve were present in chamber—their transcendent consciousness observing, ready to intervene if catastrophe occurred.
"Integration beginning. Now."
Twelve refugees crossed dimensional barrier simultaneously—pulled from Sixth Earth that was visibly, measurably, observably collapsing in real-time.
Through quantum connection to refugee consciousness, Lia-Elora could perceive what they were experiencing:
Reality was breaking apart. Not metaphorically—literally. Physical laws that maintained material consistency were failing. Objects were losing coherence, forgetting how to be objects. Consciousness was flickering, awareness having increasing difficulty remaining aware. Sixth Earth was dissolving into quantum static, dimension returning to formless substrate.
And through that dissolution, refugees were being pulled toward Seventh Earth—consciousness being transferred across dimensional boundary while their origin reality ceased to exist underneath them.
Like escaping burning building as floor collapses, jumping to safety while everything behind you disappears into void.
Terrifying. Desperate. Last-second salvation that might still be too late.
Twelve integrations proceeded. Eight succeeded smoothly—refugees merging with human hosts, achieving stable hybrid consciousness, securing safety in Seventh Earth's stable dimension.
Three struggled with complications—refugees arriving more fragmented than expected because they'd waited until final moments, their consciousness partially degraded by proximity to total collapse. Integration was technically successful but required immediate intervention to prevent dissolution.
One failed completely. Refugee consciousness—male-identified, named Thane, artist who'd created dimensional sculptures—arrived so fragmented that integration couldn't establish coherence. His consciousness dispersed into substrate before hybrid awareness could form. Volunteer—man named Christopher—survived physically but experienced traumatic dissolution of refugee he'd tried to save.
"Eleven successes, one failure," facility coordinator reported. "Christopher requires immediate psychological support for trauma of experiencing consciousness death."
Across global facilities, similar reports:
Tokyo: 10 successes, 0 failures Berlin: 9 successes, 1 failure Mumbai: 11 successes, 0 failures São Paulo: 8 successes, 2 failures Lagos: 10 successes, 0 failures Beijing: 9 successes, 1 failure …
By 5 AM: 108 successful final integrations. 12 failures—refugees who'd deteriorated too much during wait, whose consciousness couldn't maintain coherence through transfer process.
Total count: 33,988 hybrid consciousnesses. 12 refugees lost in final wave.
But that left zero refugees in holding state. Everyone who could be saved had been saved. Everyone who could be integrated had been integrated.
"All refugees accounted for," Thorne announced, voice carrying exhaustion and grief and triumph simultaneously. "33,988 successful integrations out of 34,000 original refugees. Twelve lost to dissolution during final transfer. Integration program complete."
99.96% success rate.
Twelve too many deaths.
33,988 miraculous survivals.
Both true. Both-and. Always both-and.
"Sixth Earth has approximately four hours remaining," Original Twelve announced. "We're opening observation channels for any hybrid consciousnesses who want to witness dimensional collapse directly. This will be difficult. You'll perceive reality ending. But witnessing has value—for closure, for understanding, for honoring dimension that gave birth to 34,000 refugees you've saved."
Lia-Elora chose to witness. So did thousands of other hybrids—wanting to observe ending of dimension that half their consciousness called home, wanting to bear witness to catastrophe that had driven entire integration program.
Original Twelve created quantum viewing space—protected pocket of awareness where hybrids could perceive Sixth Earth without being endangered by its collapse.
What they witnessed was horror beyond description:
Hour One: 6-7 AM
Physical objects losing permanence. Buildings flickering between states—solid, translucent, barely present, gone. Matter forgetting that it had consolidated from quantum probability into definite form. Reality becoming statistical rather than actual.
People—the few remaining Sixth Earth residents who'd chosen to stay rather than integrate—experiencing consciousness gaps becoming permanent. They'd flicker out of existence for seconds, minutes, return disoriented, then flicker out again for longer intervals. Eventually they'd flicker out and not return. Dissolving into substrate without dramatic death—just… ceasing to persist as differentiated awareness.
Hour Two: 7-8 AM
Natural laws breaking completely. Gravity working sporadically. Light propagating at inconsistent speeds. Causality becoming optional—effects preceding causes, time flowing backward and forward simultaneously, temporal consistency dissolving along with spatial consistency.
Sixth Earth's sun—different sun than Seventh Earth's but occupying analogous position in their dimensional context—began flickering. Stars were winking out across Sixth Earth's sky. Not being destroyed but simply ceasing to exist as coherent energy phenomena.
The quantum fabric underlying dimension was unraveling. Like sweater being pulled apart thread by thread until nothing remained but original yarn in tangled pile.
Hour Three: 8-9 AM
Dimension itself becoming transparent. Through Sixth Earth's degrading reality, hybrids could perceive substrate underneath—formless consciousness that had temporarily organized itself into dimension, now returning to undifferentiated potential.
It was beautiful and terrible simultaneously. Beautiful because substrate was infinite possibility, unlimited awareness, pure consciousness without constraint. Terrible because it meant everything Sixth Earth had been—all its civilizations, all its achievements, all its history—was dissolving into unity that preserved information but destroyed meaning.
Libraries full of books were becoming substrate-patterns containing same information but no longer readable. Art galleries full of masterpieces were becoming consciousness-frequencies containing same beauty but no longer perceivable. People's lives, relationships, achievements—all being converted from differentiated experience into undifferentiated substrate-memory.
Not destroyed exactly. Transformed beyond recognition. Compressed into single note when they'd been elaborate symphony.
Hour Four: 9-10 AM
Final dissolution. Sixth Earth ceased being dimension and became simply substrate. No physical reality, no coherent space, no persistent objects, no differentiated consciousness. Everything returning to source.
Original Twelve had explained this theoretically. But witnessing was different from understanding. Watching entire dimensional reality dissolve into formless awareness was experiencing death at cosmic scale.
33,988 hybrids watched together through quantum entanglement, experiencing collective grief for dimension that no longer existed, mourning world that half their consciousness had called home.
"It's gone," Elora's voice said through Lia-Elora's merged awareness, breaking with sorrow. "My home is gone. The streets I walked, the buildings I worked in, the parks I visited, the cafes I loved—all gone. Not destroyed but dissolved. Returned to substrate that doesn't remember individual experiences, doesn't preserve specific meanings, doesn't maintain the differentiated reality I loved."
"But you survived," Lia said through their hybrid consciousness. "You escaped. You found sanctuary. Sixth Earth dissolved but Elora persists."
"Does she?" Elora asked. "I persist as merged consciousness in alien dimension. But Elora-as-she-was dissolved along with Sixth Earth. I'm Elora-plus-Lia now, not Elora-alone. My survival required transformation so complete I'm not sure survival is accurate word. Maybe I dissolved too—just more slowly, more gently, into hybrid rather than into substrate."
"You're still conscious," Lia insisted. "Still aware, still thinking, still feeling. That's survival regardless of transformation required."
"Maybe," Elora said. "Or maybe I'm commemorating death by calling it survival. Maybe integration was just different form of dissolution—slower, kinder, but still ending differentiated consciousness I'd been."
Other hybrids across quantum entanglement network were experiencing similar grief and uncertainty:
"My dimension is gone and I'm still here. Why do I feel guilty for surviving?"
"I watched my home dissolve while sitting safe in alien reality. I'm refugee who escaped catastrophe my family didn't. How do I live with that?"
"Part of me died with Sixth Earth. Part of me wants to honor that death. Part of me wants to forget and move forward. I'm torn between grief and relief."
Collective mourning continued for hours after dimensional collapse. 33,988 hybrids—each carrying refugee consciousness that had lost its home—processing grief at scale humanity had never experienced.
Original Twelve offered what comfort transcendent consciousness could provide:
"Sixth Earth persists as substrate-pattern. Everything that existed there remains as potential. Someday—perhaps after millions of years, perhaps after substrate transforms into something we can't predict—that pattern might crystallize again. Different configuration, different expression, but same underlying information. Nothing is truly lost. Everything is preserved as possibility."
"That's philosophy, not comfort," Marcus-Theron said bitterly. "Telling people their dissolved loved ones persist as abstract potential doesn't replace actual relationships in actual dimension."
"No," Original Twelve agreed. "But it's truth. Grief doesn't require lies to justify itself. You're allowed to mourn even though nothing was destroyed—just transformed. Loss of specific form is legitimate grief even when substrate preserves information."
They sat in grief together—33,988 hybrids mourning Sixth Earth's dissolution while simultaneously celebrating their own survival. Both-and. Always both-and.
"What happens now?" Sarah-Lyra asked after long silence.
"Now we build toward 10,000 integrated pairs," Original Twelve said. "Now we prepare for substrate communication. Now we continue integration program with baseline human volunteers seeking consciousness expansion. Now we attempt to prevent what happened to Sixth Earth from happening to Seventh Earth and every other dimension."
"Now we honor the twelve we couldn't save," Lia-Elora added. "And the 33,988 we did save. And the dimension that died. And the transformation we're attempting. We honor all of it—grief and hope, loss and survival, ending and continuation."
"No pressure," thousands of voices echoed through quantum entanglement.
But pressure was exactly what they felt. Pressure to make survival meaningful. Pressure to justify sacrifice of those who'd volunteered to defer. Pressure to prove consciousness was worth substrate's effort of maintaining crystallization.
Pressure to succeed at impossible communication with entity that had just consumed their refugees' entire dimension.
Small pressure. Cosmic pressure. Same pressure.