Litvir sighed to himself as he pressed the ignition button and, yet again, the ship failed to start. In his original, panicked state, Litvir had made a multitude of miscalculations, the main one being how far he could travel with the amount of fuel he had. Now, the ship was essentially dead and was drifting mindlessly and endlessly, caught in a dead zone with no cosmic winds, meaning that not even the ship’s emergency solar sails worked. There would have been battery power, but somehow Litvir had flown into the path of some sort of gigantic magnetic storm, potentially the death or birth of a new, tiny universe, and that had destroyed the ship’s remaining power supplies.
Really, all Litvir could do was blame himself. When he’d stolen this ship, all Litvir had in mind was self-destruction. As far as he was concerned, Litvir was an unredeemable monster, a liar, cheater, sinner, who had harmed the one person capable looking past his monstrosities. That thought had somehow overwhelmed Litvir’s overly powerful survival instincts and nearly pushed him to suicide. By flying into a small star. An instant, flaming death. A final, burning spark to end a horrific existence.
However, as he travelled through the darkness and was unable to locate any small stars, Litvir had somewhat calmed down. Yes, he had ruined his life, yes, he had run away from those who had potentially cared from him and abandoned the sect he was supposed to have been a leader of, but Litvir couldn’t bring himself to completely act on those suicidal thoughts.
At least, not in a fiery inferno.
An idea came to Litvir, that he could go to the universe that had replaced his own. Sure, he would end up being made mortal, and due to the large number of genetic defects that Litvir had (that had been held at bay due to his becoming a Decay Lord), he’d probably only live for a couple of years, but he’d get to see Arkay maybe before he died. Assuming Litvir wasn’t killed the second he entered that universe by the deities that kept his lost partner in chains.
Really, suicide wasn’t an option. Litvir was too cowardly for that.
Instead, Litvir decided to just keep on running. Maybe he would find something out there. Anything, really. Somewhere where Litvir could hide away, build a new life, maybe even create some new power for himself. There used to be loads of Life Oases and Decay Lord pit stops. No, that was all gone now. The death of Kinisis and the passing of Ahkron had killed this entire sector. There was nothing left. Not even the odd Voidborn, looking for servants. Everything was cold and dead and empty, just like Litvir’s heart and spirit.
Not that Litvir could get anywhere anyway. He had no fuel left. He hadn’t even covered half the distance to where his old universe used to be. As far as Litvir could tell, he was in the middle of nowhere.
He couldn’t even call for help either. He’d disabled all the tracking equipment on the ship, permanently. Literally ripped it out and cast it into the void. And because he had originally been trying to conserve battery power to keep the ship vaguely comfortable (but also because he didn’t really know how to), Litvir couldn’t get the ship’s roaming network connections to function. They probably didn’t work anyway. The magnetic storm had fried pretty much everything.
Another attempt to restart the ship ended in yet another failure. Litvir slammed his hands against the controls in anger, then swiftly gave up and leaned back in his seat. The seat was a little too big and not particularly comfortable. But this ship wasn’t supposed to be comfortable. It was a warship, meant for short range dog fights. There were no amenities or anything, just a basic heating system to stop the controls and windscreen from frosting up, and even then, when things were supposed to work, everything was kept at a cool 285 Kelvin.
Just hoping that the Phantai would come looking, searching for their ship, wasn’t really an option either. Litvir hadn’t taken a conventional path. He’d gone all over the place. Even with gliding, he’d wasted precious fuel, he’d taken strange paths. Litvir had made himself impossible to find and now he was regretting it.
“I am such a fool.”
In hindsight, Litvir wasn’t even completely sure why he had acted like this. He’d attacked Retvik. And Retvik had told him to leave. Litvir took that to mean that Retvik wanted him gone forever. That was what Litvir intended to do. He didn’t deserve someone as pure, noble and caring as Retvik. If anything, he deserved to die by Retvik’s hand. Litvir almost wished Retvik had killed him then and there. That was why Litvir had originally wanted to fly into a star. It would have been fitting. Deserved.
It was starting to get cold. Litvir took off his cape and wrapped it around himself like a blanket. He wondered how long he could last out here, on his own. Technically, Litvir didn’t need to eat or drink, but the frozen temperatures, he couldn’t stand them. Outside, it was close to absolute zero. Eventually it would reach that temperature inside too. Maybe, if Litvir put himself to sleep, he’d at least survive. Maybe someone would find him one day.
With a sigh, Litvir reached for the few other personal belongings he had brought with him. Things he had angrily thrown in the empty seat next to him. The laser blaster on his gunstaff was as dead as the ship. His tablet computer refused to turn on. But his communicator did somehow turn on as he pressed the small power button on the side. Not that it mattered. There was no Periuniversal Void network connection. Still, that didn’t stop Litvir from trying the other network options. Maybe he could pick up a vastly distance bluetooth or wireless fidelity connection or something.
For a brief second, Litvir managed to connect to something, but it was too brief and far too weak to do anything. Somehow though, he had been connected long enough to receive four messages. Two from Retvik, two from Kuta, Litvir’s twin brother. One of the messages from Kuta had been cut off, most likely due to the brief connection.
Retvik’s messages were predictable. He had begged Litvir to come back, that he couldn’t understand why Litvir had run away and that, whatever Litvir had done, Retvik would forgive him. Right now, as the cold was sinking in, Litvir could no longer completely understand why he had run away. But deep down, Litvir knew his sins were unforgivable. Everything he had ever done had been to save himself. Survival of the fittest, at any cost. Except, as Litvir had grown as a being of the Periuniversal Void, part of Litvir had… changed, and fought against that eternal desire to survive. He’d learned true empathy and a hint of selflessness. It conflicted with his instincts. To the point that Litvir was unsure whether he had actually changed, or if it was just a different form of his desire to not die.
As for Kuta? Well, Litvir had admittedly forgotten about his long lost sibling. Out of all the people in the multiverse that Litvir had hurt the most, Kuta was certainly one of them. But somehow Kuta had forgiven Litvir. They’d even considered working together again, until Kuta decided he wanted to life a mortal, Decay Lord-free life. Litvir had realised later on that, firstly, he had deprived Kuta of a normal life, and secondly that Kuta had probably detected Kinisis’s manipulations and had gone to live a normal life to avoid them. It was a miracle that Kuta was still alive, after all that had happened, let alone that Kuta had forgiven Litvir and wanted him to be happy. As happy as Kuta was.
Kuta’s messages were simple. He’d asked if Litvir was alright, that Retvik was looking for him and that he’d told Arkay that Litvir had gone missing. Kuta had added that Arkay hadn’t been replying to messages, but he hoped that Arkay had seen them, and maybe Arkay would help Litvir, the same way he’d helped Retvik.
Litvir tutted. While part of him wanted to be saved, he knew it was just those deep, dark instincts kicking in again. Litvir had only ever hurt others. He was a monster. Being saved wasn’t an option.
Still, despite that thought, Litvir put his communicator back down and tried the engines again. Nothing. Completely dead. Instead, Litvir wrapped his cape tighter around himself. He couldn’t die, but he could sleep. At the very least, his tormented dreams and repeating memories of regret would distract him from the steadily dropping temperatures.
As Litvir closed his eyes, he swore he briefly saw something flash, followed by a glimmer of dark energy, but it was probably nothing. Just another universe dying or something. Dead universes were all that was left in this sector anyway. And even if it was something it was probably too far away to notice the tiny, dead ship Litvir was trapped inside. It would take a miracle to save Litvir now, but as far as he was concerned, Litvir didn’t deserve a miracle.
Litvir took a deep breath, then closed his eyes again and quietly and swiftly fell asleep. Hopefully for the last time.