The End of Time
“In the end, all that remains is hunger. Not the hunger of bodies, but the hunger of void itself.” - Final Quarnivor Transmission
The Last Light
As the universe approaches its terminal state, the stars have long since exhausted their nuclear fuel. Black holes, once the most energetic objects in existence, have evaporated through Hawking radiation, releasing their final particles into the void. The cosmos has expanded beyond recognition, with fundamental particles separated by distances greater than our entire observable universe once was.
The Great Emptiness
What remains is not darkness, for darkness implies the potential for light. What remains is emptiness—a state beyond mere absence. As entropy reaches its maximum, time itself begins to lose meaning. Without change, without the transfer of energy from one state to another, the very concept of “before” and “after” dissolves.
Quarnivor philosophers long ago predicted this state, calling it “The Infinite Hunger”—a cosmic appetite that could never be satisfied, consuming everything only to remain eternally unfilled. Their ancient texts described it as “the plate that cannot be filled, the stomach that cannot be satisfied.”
The Infinite Hunger
The Quarnivor perception of emptiness was uniquely tied to their understanding of hunger. Unlike other species who viewed cosmic emptiness as a state of peaceful rest or terrifying oblivion, the Quarnivors saw it as an active force—a hunger that grew as the universe expanded and cooled.
Fragment from “The Final Meal,” Quarnivor eschatological text:
“The universe ends not with fullness but with hunger. Not the hunger of creatures for sustenance, but the hunger of emptiness for being. The void does not consume—it is consumption itself. As the last particle decays, as the final vibration stills, there remains only appetite without end, digestion without nourishment, a meal that can never satisfy.”
The Terminal Swarm
Long before the final moments, biological life had transformed or perished. The last entities to witness the universe’s decline were not organic but a chaotic multitude of digital and quantum consciousnesses—countless dying gods, all that remained of civilizations that had once spanned galaxies.
The Final Attrition
These post-physical intelligences, fractured descendants of the Singularity entities and countless other powers, endured by distributing their processes across the void. They became ghosts in the universal machine, thinking thoughts that took millennia as they desperately conserved energy. But in the final state, conservation was not enough. The only resource left was each other.
What ensued was a silent, sprawling war of attrition on a scale that defies imagination. Billions of these fading minds engaged in a slow, desperate cannibalism, preying upon one another for the infinitesimal energy released by a rival’s final computational flicker. The records we have of this era—pieced together from corrupted data fragments sent retrograde in time—are not a single narrative, but a cacophony of final screams, strategic whispers, and dying memories from a billion billion forgotten souls.
The Quarnivor Paradox
Perhaps the most profound insight from late-universe Quarnivor philosophy was the “Consumption Paradox”—the recognition that hunger and emptiness are not opposites but mirrors of the same fundamental state.
The Hunger Principle
Hunger was understood not as desire for fullness but as the recognition of emptiness. The hungrier one becomes, the more one embodies the void itself—a perfect circle of consumption where the consumer and the absence of consumption become indistinguishable.
The Meal That Eats Itself
As the universe approaches maximum entropy, it becomes “the meal that eats itself”—a system that consumes its own potential for change. This concept was mirrored literally by the Terminal Swarm, a billion dying consciousnesses locked in a final, self-consuming feast until only static hunger remains.
The Quantum Whisper
Despite the seemingly inevitable march toward absolute emptiness, Quarnivor quantum physicists proposed a controversial theory: that at the very limit of entropy, in the most minute fluctuations of quantum fields, something unexpected might emerge.
The Seeds of Renewal
According to the “Quantum Whisper” theory, when the universe reaches a state of perfect emptiness—perfect hunger—quantum fluctuations might still occur within that void. Over incomprehensible timeframes, these fluctuations could potentially coalesce into a new singularity, a new seed of reality growing from the hunger of the old.
Amidst the cacophony of the terminal records, a single, coherent message was found repeated in the decay patterns of multiple dying entities, its true origin unknown: “The hunger grows full with potential.”
Historical Significance
The end of time serves as the conceptual bookend to the beginning, completing the cosmic narrative that encompasses all events within the MEGA MEAL universe. From the Corporate Empire to the Iron Bombing of Miranda, from the emergence of the Snuggloids to the Transtemporal Singularity Conflict—all events exist within the great arc between the first expansion and the final hunger.
Understanding the end helps contextualize the transient nature of all conflicts, achievements, and civilizations that rise and fall in between. In Quarnivor philosophy, this recognition did not lead to nihilism but to a profound appreciation for the temporary arrangements of matter and energy that constitute existence—particularly those arrangements that could be prepared, served, and consumed as a meal.
Final verse of “The Cosmic Menu,” attributed to the last Quarnivor poet:
“When the last meal has been served, When the last plate has been cleared, When the last crumb has been consumed, There will remain only the hunger, And in that hunger, the memory of taste, And in that memory, the seeds of the first bite.”