The fabric of space and time shifted and heaved, tearing apart and ripping holes in the weaving of the universe. Ivan watched as molecules collapsed, suns crumpled in on themselves, solar systems drifted apart, and light swirled chaotically through the ruins of the universe.

Everything E.V.E. had tried to do to slow the progress of the degradation only served to speed its advancement. Soon the whole universe would disappear, and a new one would be born. Millennia from now, life would begin again, primitive beings that would evolve into some of the most intelligent species to exist. Nothing would remain of their long lost ancestors.

Matter, time, and space were all warping beyond their parameters and Ivan could feel his own fleshy shell beginning to disintegrate. He wished that his race hadn’t been so foolish as to believe that they were all powerful beings, that they hadn’t fought with the other races over such petty materials as Ticon and Silicrete. He mourned all the time his species had wasted, and the planet dying around him. Ivan hoped that the next universe would be smarter, wiser.

Right before the essence of Ivan broke down with the rest of Everything, he could swear he heard his younglings’ laughter, and with a sudden flash of clarity, realized the solution that could have saved them all. The answer was love. He smiled and was gone with everything else.

Everything that had been and would be clashed and a single molecule burst back into existence.