The Black Horizon

A few thousand years ago I stumbled on something. I could change reality. Not change it so much, but steal it, really. Switch a piece of another universe with a piece of ours.

The world was like a jigsaw puzzle. Want to live a little longer? Just steal the Fountain of Youth. Need a different phone? Cell, smart, or the old-fashioned beeper? Thinking of upgrading your minivan? Here's something a little sleek, a low-slung sports car that hugs the road like a second skin.

What you don't see, what you can't know, is that after a while the pieces you steal stop fitting so well in this world. You have to jam them in. Sometimes a little corner sticks up. And the jigsaw puzzle, a few thousand years in, might start feeling a little… loose.

So I understand why I'm here, now. Why I'm hunted. Things always fall apart badly, when they end.

Like an ending of a puzzle with no final piece. Like an ending of a love, lost. Like an ending of all the mistakes I unknowingly made, along my way.

An ending… finally.