Vignettes from a Multiverse

The red lettering appeared without warning: Permutation 18763 – Reproduction Failure. 

Grivix sighed heavily. “That's it then. We tried them all. There's no hope.”

From across the cluttered lab, Benthel clucked their stern but kind disagreement.

“We two are last of our species, yes, and we've proven there can be no more of us... But there's still hope.”

 

Grivix had learned not to doubt their mentor's wisdom, but this...

“How? How can you still believe? After all these years, just us in here...”

Grivix trailed off.

 

Benthel gestured to a screen they'd been staring at – pictures of the night sky, from the Ancient Records, lost to living memory millennia ago and now little more than a digital legend. A myth from before the surface had been abandoned.

 

“It's a huge universe,” they whispered reverently. 

“For all of us who got it wrong, someone out there is doing it right.”