I... don't know how much you'll remember... but I think you deserve to know what happened.
Or maybe I just want something for you to remember me by.
["Eternal Memories" begins playing.]
Anyway... best to start from the campsite where Geno left us. It was afternoon when the two of us set out.
It'd be a day or two's hike to the impact crater, so we weren't in any hurry.
We made camp again once it got too dark to see.
The next morning we woke to dark clouds overhead.
My first thought was that we hadn't escaped the lighting storms after all, but then we realized what it really was.
It started snowing, real snow, not debris or ash from some far-off destruction.
Suddenly it hit me that if I had been counting the days right, it was almost what would've been... Christmas Eve.
It snowed on as we walked, with the world hidden under a white blanket, everything almost felt... normal again.
I stopped in a mechanics garage to tune myself up and when I came back out, you were doing snow angels outside.
It was the first time I'd smiled to myself since, well, since... before all this began.
["Standing at the Edge" begins playing.]
At the end of the day, a ridge rose up on the horizon.
As we got closer, we realized it was the edge of the impact crater. I never thought it would be this big.
We climbed up to the top of the ridge, and saw the devastation inside. There was nothing left but overturned earth as far as the eye could see.
Aside from one tiny black dot that I could just barely make out, far ahead. That had to be the meteor.
We carefully made our way down from the ridge, into the crater. It was too dark to see at that point, so we camped underneath the overhang that night.
In the morning, we started off again. We couldn't see the meteor anymore from down here.
So we had to just walk straight forward and hope we'd eventually get there.
[The music stops.]
We walked in silence.
Something about this place made casual conversation impossible.
Sky was clear but it was cold enough that yesterday's snow still covered the ground.
Our Geiger counters were blinking with steadily increasing radiation levels so we were confident we were going the right way.
And then the black dot was back on the horizon.
["Approaching the Meteor" begins playing.]
As it got bigger, I realized that it was pure black, like that super black paint only that one guy can use.
Pure black and perfectly round.
I thought it was just an optical illusion until we got close enough to see that there wasn't a single angle or odd length on the entire thing.
As we drew up to it, the snow melted away until we were walking on bare ground.
Our Geiger counters had given up by this point.
Wood Man: "So this is it?"
I said.
Wood Man: "This was what had made Geno lose it and need his memory extracted? Doesn't look like much to me."
I added, trying to lighten the mood.
In an unusually serious tone you reminded me.
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: "Geno said it happened when he touched it. Maybe that's what we have to do. Maybe, we can handle what he could not."
["Situational Observation" begins playing.]
I shook my head. There was no way I was risking touching that thing.
Instead we set up the equipment we brought, trying to measure what this thing was doing... and maybe figure out just what it was.
We didn't get far. Its density was off the charts, and we couldn't get a read on the chemical composition.
Anytime we tried to touch one of our instruments to it, it'd either go crazy, not react or immediately short out.
The day dragged on with no sign of progress.
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: "Still not touching it?"
Wood Man: "No way, I value my sanity."
I said it was time to leave and head back to the camp, to at least tell them what little we found.
"Maybe we could come back another time." You fought, but eventually gave in.
So we turned around and walked away until the thing was out of sight again.
I was expecting we'd have seen a crater's rim in the distance by now. There was nothing but flat ground ahead.
Then on the horizon we saw it. A black dot.
Even as I told myself it was a just a mirage, I got a sinking feeling.
As we kept going, it was impossible to ignore. The thing up ahead was the same object we'd left behind.
Somehow we must have gone in a circle.
I already suspected what was happening but I still made us turn around and walk the other way again.
Of course, the same thing happened.
No matter how far we walked or how straight we kept our path, this... thing... somehow bringing us back towards it.
We made camp in the middle of the crater that night, as far from the object as we could get.
Even though we shouldn't have been affected by the cold, I still feel the chill of the winter night creeping through me.
["Snowflakes of Finality" begins playing.]
The next morning, I woke up at the campsite to find myself alone.
I looked around and panicked for a minute until I saw you up ahead, walking away in the distance.
You had a good head start, but I caught up soon enough.
Wood Man: "Hey, where do you think you're going?"
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: "To the object, we clearly have no choice. I am going to touch it."
Wood Man: "You can't! Geno touching it didn't get us anywhere, why would you risk your sanity for nothing?"
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: "There is a 97.1% chance we'll be stuck here forever if I do not."
As we argued, we must've been walking faster that we realized.
Because suddenly I noticed the object was now just a couple dozen yards away from us.
It sat there like it was mocking us.
Wood Man: "Alright, fine."
I said.
Wood Man: "But at least look at Geno's memory first so you know what you're getting into."
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: "This is acceptable."
So there in that thing's shadow, you took out Geno's memory drive and-
["Losing Control" begins playing.]
Joke-Explainer™ 7000: *gasp*
It's hard to describe. The moment you connected to the drive your eyes started flashing a hundred different colors.
You staggered back as if hit by something. It looked like you were mouthing words but only gasps of air were coming out.
And then you started moving. Like you were being pulled straight towards the object.
I knew I had to do something. I tried to get in your way.
But you were moving forward with a force even I couldn't stop.
Almost like the thing had caught you on a fishing line and was slowly but surely dragging you in.
I looked behind me. It was just a couple feet away now.
I didn't have any time left to think so I did the only thing that I thought I could.
I reached for your emergency shutoff switch... and pulled it.
In a flash, your eyes went blank.
And you dropped senseless to the ground.
It was an awful thing to see but, at least you weren't moving towards that thing anymore.
I knew I had to get you up again as soon as possible but I couldn't risk you going back to how you just were.
So I grabbed your laptop from our campsite and hooked it up into your memory banks.
I wanted to make sure you wouldn't remember what you'd just seen but all your data was in a format I didn't recognize.
So I had to make my best guess. I think it was just the last couple of days. I hope it was.
But as the data disappeared from your memory I felt a static shock from the laptop.
["Empty Space" begins playing.]
I thought it was nothing at first but then I started to feel... funny... lightheaded at first, and then like I was looking down at my body from out of it and then...
Darkness. I was staring at the pitch-black sea of deep space.
In the distance there was a sun, and near it... a blue speck that I know... was Earth. The speck was growing, getting closer.
It was headed right for me but I couldn't move.
It came closer and closer, moving faster, becoming all I could see until I was passing through clouds and headed right for impact.
And then I went through it... or... it... went through me.
And it was past me, orbiting into the distance again, leaving me untouched.
After a while I noticed something in the corner of my vision.
Like a ripple in space, it hadn't been there before. It was like it'd been left behind by the planet, something on it.
The ripple was shrinking, disappearing by the second. I thought it was about to vanish but right before it shrank out of existence there was a flash.
A single pinpoint of light so bright it should've blinded me.
And then, when that was gone, a dark circle.
But not dark like the regular void of space.
True darkness. A perfect black spear hanging in space.
Small enough that no planet's telescope would detect it until it was too late.
And then it wasn't hanging there anymore.
It was moving, and I was moving with it.
I knew what we were following already, and I knew that eventually... we'd catch up.
That was when I came back to myself. Only a moment of real time had passed.
I wasn't touching the laptop anymore which must have been why I broke free from the vision.
I realized that what I saw must've been just a piece of what you experienced. No wonder it had overloaded your systems.
But now, I know... not what that thing is, but... what to do about it.
I... can't be sure if I'm right about what caused that ripple but it proves that both me and this "not-a-meteor" have a thing in common.
We don't belong here.
["Don't Ever Forget...!" begins playing.]
And that brings me to now, making this recording.
I thought you deserved to know what happened, in case I deleted further back than I meant to.
And you also deserve to know what's going to happen between now and... when you wake up.
I'm going back to the object and... I'm going to lay my hand on it.
I have a feeling what will happen for me will be different than what had happened to anyone else.
If it works... the thing will be gone.
And that should be no more lighting storms... no more unnatural disasters... and a chance to rebuild from this apocalypse.
You might call it a Christmas miracle.
But whether it works or not... you won't see me again.
I'm, uh, not used to real goodbyes. Usually I can always just say "Until next time!"
I don't think I'll be able to come back here after this.
I won't be dead... probably.
I guess it's the universe telling me that it's... time to go home. Maybe finally take care of some unfinished business.
So, uh, thanks for everything.
And don't forget about me.