‘Damn it,’ Yirella snapped. ‘That memory route left you open. Sorry, my fault. Dellian, focus, please. Focus on me.’
He smiled weakly at her as the greyness grew around them.
‘I love you, Dellian. Do you remember that?’
‘Of course I do.’
They kissed as the greyness eclipsed the universe. And they fell . . .
. . . into the orbital arena. A place he adored – such a simple place, a padded cylinder seventy metres long with a diameter of a hundred. Above him, drifting through the air, were thirty hurdles: hazard-orange polyhedrons – as familiar as star formations in the night. Oh, the games they’d played in here. The fun; the wins and losses. And early on he’d broken every rule to attack another boy who was going to hurt Yirella . . .
‘Oh, yes,’ he exhaled. And when he looked at Yirella, she was sharing the thrill of all those memories that came swirling out of their shared youth.
Then she let go.
‘No,’ he exclaimed.
Still smiling, she fell away from him. The arena wall behind her attenuated, showing him Juloss far below. It was under attack. Thousands of big Olyix Resolution ships raced in towards it, glowing hazy amber as they cut through the upper atmosphere at terrific velocity. Mushroom clouds seethed upwards from the surface as cities and estates were obliterated.
‘No!’ he yelled. ‘This is not what happened. The Olyix are our friends. They didn’t do this.’
‘I’ve got the flagball,’ Yirella shouted back joyfully. ‘I’m going for the goal hoop.’
Dellian squinted, seeing her in a protective bodysuit, grinning wildly as she clutched the flashing flagball. The opposing team’s goal hoop hung in space, halfway towards the burning planet. The speed she was travelling was frightening.
‘Careful,’ he said.
She laughed delightedly, on course to score the winning goal.
He didn’t see the number eight player streaking towards her. Except it wasn’t the number eight any more, it was an Olyix huntsphere accelerating hard, targeting systems aligning on Yirella’s lanky body as she flew effortlessly towards the goal hoop.
‘No!’ Dellian cried. His armour suit powered him towards the huntsphere. He struck it hard, knocking it off course. His talon-tipped gauntlets scrabbled against the shiny sphere, scoring long marks in the tough shell. Then it began to flex, with bulges pushing up – as if whatever it contained was trying to reach out and wrestle with him. He strengthened his hold, attempting to crush it in his arms. The sphere responded by softening against his chest, letting him merge inwards. He would fit it perfectly, he knew.
Ahead of them, Juloss split open, revealing the end of the universe, where the silver remnants of stars formed elegant rivers of twilight and fell into the nothingness at the heart. Beside it, a golden light was shining, calling him onward.
Yirella landed on the surface of the huntsphere, legs apart, ebony skin alive with scarlet hieroglyphs. ‘This is going to hurt,’ she said sternly.
‘What? Yi, don’t—’ Somehow Dellian was looking down on himself, the huntsphere, with Yirella balancing perfectly on him, reaching down. Her hand punctured the shell, and the pain was incredible. His scream made the dying universe tremble.
The damage she’d caused had opened up long cracks in the sphere. She tore at them, prising up jagged sections and sending them spinning off into the void. He began to struggle, writhing frantically to escape her merciless fingers.
‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘Don’t fight this, Del. I’m stripping out the neurovirus.’
‘What?’ He was sobbing now, the pain was so intense, burning along every nerve to punish his quaking brain.
‘I love you, Del, you know that. Nothing can take that out of you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then say it!’ she demanded.
‘I love you.’
Her hands ripped apart the last of the huntsphere shell to reveal his Olyix quint body.
‘I can’t be that,’ he wailed.
‘I love you, Del. Forever. No matter where that takes us.’
‘Help me,’ he pleaded.
The end of the universe was curving around them, its final fragments forming a fetid vortex that was pulling them down into the death of eternity and the golden god at its side – the one waiting for them. Yirella’s hands sliced into the quint flesh.
Dellian felt fingers closing around his arm. She pulled. Quint flesh stretched like slippery rubber, clinging to him, merging to give him strength. Now he was struggling against it, the foreign thoughts of devotion to the God at the End of Time tearing free in agonizing ruptures.
‘Yirella! Don’t let go.’
The universe rushed to extinction, the vortex walls spinning past in a lethal whirl of nightmares and demons.
‘Please,’ he begged.
Yirella tugged hard, crying out wordlessly at the terrible exertion. Slowly, with stringy alien goop clutching at every centimetre of his skin, she pulled him out of the quint body. He came free with an excruciating tear. The extinct universe vanished.
Dellian juddered wildly. Bright light flared around him. Everything hurt – but nothing like as bad as it had mere instants before. He was waving his limbs around – proper human limbs – though they were wrapped in wires and fibres as if someone had scooped him up in a net. His short hair was on fire as something pulled every last follicle out of his scalp.
His flailing stopped as he ran out of strength, and he flopped down onto the bed. There was no air in his lungs, and his chest heaved desperately, trying to get a breath down his throat. The surroundings swam dizzyingly in and out of view. People in medical robes
