The tide of Nothingness kept rising.It had no color, no shape, yet it spread like a runaway spill of black ink, seeping into the world. Air, ground, sky—even breath and heartbeat—were dragged into it, as if everything was about to be converted into "nothing."
Ethan walked slowly through it, his steps light as though he were treading on soap bubbles.His body was vanishing inch by inch—first his fingertips, then his arms, then even his chest was turning transparent. Strangely, there was no pain. Instead, it felt like being tickled by bubbles in a broken hot tub—except the bubbles were filled with cold laughter.
"Heh." He let out a dry laugh, his voice sounding like torn rags."So death isn't a painful beheading—it's just slow, boring disassembly that makes you want to yawn."
Nothingness didn't respond. It simply drowned him, quietly, like coworkers nodding along at a meeting while secretly thinking about lunch.
His sight blurred, as though rolls of old film were being layered over his eyes. Yet in the blur, he saw more clearly: the essence of Nothingness was nothing but familiar human faces.Teachers, bosses, neighbors, random strangers A through Z.Their mouths opened and closed silently, repeating the same phrase— "You must sacrifice."
"I see now." Ethan gave a sarcastic shrug, and half his shoulder immediately dissolved."Void, you're no monster. You're just our collective negativity—fear, envy, laziness, burnout—all stewed into one black hotpot nobody ordered."
He thought of his friends swallowed one by one, and now his own turn at the end of the line. The thought made him laugh, loud and off-key, like bad karaoke: tone-deaf, but weirdly enthusiastic."Mr. Void, I get you," he shouted with the scraps of his voice. "You're nothing but humanity's stubborn flab—no gym, no self-help book, no success seminar can burn you off. Brilliant! You understand market monopoly better than capitalism itself!"
Nothingness seemed to pause for half a second—or maybe it didn't care at all.It surged on, cold and relentless, like a subway rush-hour crowd with dead eyes.
By now Ethan's legs had vanished, his body half gone, yet he still stood straight—delivering what sounded like his last absurd stand-up routine."Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in—this has been humanity's self-produced epic! Theme: 'Destruction.' Subtitle: 'Somebody Else's Fault.' And me? Ha… honored to play the final punchline."
He raised his half-transparent hand, trying to make a goofy "V" sign, only to realize his fingers had already dissolved. So he simply let the act of vanishing serve as his victory bow.
The world fell quiet. Crying, shouting, music, explosions—all dissolved into the endless black. Only one lonely consciousness remained awake.
In his final sliver of awareness, Ethan muttered:"Void, you think you've won. But if you swallow everything, who's left to laugh? That makes me… the last narrator."
And with that, he too was absorbed into the abyss.No corpse, no grave—only a faint laugh, like a broken radio still spitting nonsense.
And so, Nothingness devoured all.Yet at the very edge of the devouring, one absurd echo remained:
—A human, who at the moment of total erasure, still insisted on telling a joke.