Once again, Kinisis had wandered around her home, only to find her son Arkadin sitting in some weird place, quietly thinking to himself. Today, Arkadin was sitting on the edge of one of the palace chimneys, one that obviously hadn’t been lit in a while. It had taken Kinisis two hours and thirty seven minutes to find him, and she wasn’t feeling too happy about that.
“You should tell me if you’re going to run off somewhere…” Kinisis tutted.
“Sorry…” Arkadin muttered, then proceeded to not say anything else.
“Something’s wrong with you.”
“Something is always wrong with me.”
“Something is more wrong with you.”
“It’s…”
“What’s bothering you right now?”
Arkadin tutted. He glanced over his shoulder to where Kinisis was floating. She was wearing literally nothing. Not even her normal smoky wraps. Arkadin immediately looked away.
“You’ve seen it all before.”
“You over-sexualize yourself in front of me and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“Is that what your problem is?”
The Thantophor grunted. “No.”
“Then what is it?” Kinisis kinda wasn’t in the mood for this. She had been busy doing stuff, making and designing things, then she’d cooked dinner, only to find that her son just… seemed distracted.
“It’s… hard to explain.”
“Then explain it anyway and we’ll work it out together.”
Arkadin grunted again. “You won’t get it.”
“Try me.”
Another grunt. “Fine…”
The Thantophor took a deep breath, sighed then gazed off into the distance.
“I’m worried about the future. What happens after all of this. After I’ve gone and killed everything and am completely alone. What will happen? Because I know of one option and there’s no fucking way a messed up kid like me could build a new universe…”
Kinisis snickered. She didn’t mean to, but something about Arkadin’s worries were… amusing.
“Really? That’s, like, several trillion years away from now.”
“It bothers me.”
Kinisis tilted her head to one side. “Why? It’s so far away.”
“It will happen one day. It won’t be pleasant. It will be horrible. I have to prepare for that. And more importantly, I have to prepare for what comes afterwards.”
“Hm.”
Kinisis fell silent. Arkadin shook his head, then gazed off into the distance again.
“So…”
“So?”
“You’re worried about what you will do once this universe ends.”
“Among other things, yes.”
“Huh…” Kinisis drifted off. She thought to herself, smiling ever so slightly. “So you’re worried about being a completely free being?”
Arkadin blinked. “I don’t follow.”
“You’re worrying about what you’ll do when this universe ends. When it ends, You’ll be completely free. Free from the restraints this universe places upon you.”
“But I don’t want to make another universe…” Arkadin sighed.
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. You’ll be free to do whatever you want. Anything at all.”
Arkadin blinked again. “Anything? Including not building a universe?”
“Yep.”
“So I could, I don’t know, spend a thousand years having a party?”
“Yep.”
“Or I could go on an epoch-long shopping spree?”
“Yep.”
“Or I could get laid?”
“Yep.”
Arkadin blinked once more, then smiled ever so slightly. “Well, I suppose that makes things slightly less terrifying now.”
Kinisis patted her son on the shoulder. “It should. Now come along now. I made sausages and mash…”