4338.205 · July 24, 2018 AD
Pizza at the End of the World
Pizza and Chardonnay by a dying campfire. The absurd comfort of takeaway food in a dimension that shouldn't exist. Luke masks guilt with laughter, Jamie aches for a home he can't reach, and Paul remembers—suddenly, devastatingly—that he has children who don't know where their father has gone. Then Luke leaves. And Jamie points upward at a sky that offers nothing. No stars. No moon. Just void.
Some farewells carry more weight than the words can hold.
Luke brings pizza through the portal like they're camping instead of exiled, and for a few bites the three of them almost forget what's been lost. The fire crackles. The wine flows. Paul watches his brother eat pepperoni off his singlet and feels a love so fierce it surprises him. Jamie watches Luke and feels the ghost of intimacy they've been losing for years. Luke watches them both and knows exactly how dark the night will get—and says nothing.
Then Luke kisses Jamie's forehead. A gesture tender enough to break something. He waves to Paul. He walks away toward the portal, toward Earth, toward a house where dogs are waiting and Gladys is drinking their wine.
Jamie and Paul remain.
The fire dies by degrees, its reach shrinking until darkness claims everything beyond arm's length. And when they finally look up—seeking stars, seeking the moon, seeking any familiar point of light to anchor themselves to this sky—they find nothing. Absolute void where the universe should scatter its ancient light.
Their first night in Clivilius begins without a single star to steer by.
