[WP] The last remaining star in the universe is about to go out.

"Sad, isn't it?"

I don't turn around, just keep my eyes trained on that little blip of light. To her the sky is still illuminated with a hundred thousand of these tiny bright drips, still a heaven in it's own right, even if she knows it's just an illusion. The second to last star stuttered out of existence hundreds of years ago, but their last ray of fleeing light won't pass us for hundreds of years yet to come. When it does slip past, I suppose we'll turn around and chase it, run the Maria all she's worth. Light is fast, but we learned to outrace it millennia ago. It's an exercise in futility, but one I'll engage in for my old friend. Of course to me it's all the same--my eyes don't rely on such a fickle thing of light. I am the Ansible; I was never programmed with the luxury of indulging illusions. I see the universe for the state it's in--one pathetic burst of glory before it's dead forever.

"Not really," I say, as she moves to stand beside me. "They've all been dead for a long time anyway."

She looked at me and smiled. "We did a good job, I think. Ruling them. We were a good team. It had to end sometime."

"It was an Empire, friend," I remind her. My voice cracks. "It was never supposed to end."

"That is what we told ourselves, isn't it?" She chuckled. Then she looks at me and softens. I think I'm trembling. "Ansible. Come now, we've had centuries to anticipate this. How long has it been since the Triumvirate has split? How long since the last living creature died?"

"Hasn't happened yet," I say. "You're still alive. But you're old, friend. And when you die I'll be alone. Forever."

She went silent for a moment. "I've offered before, and I'll offer again. I'll unplug you when I go."

"It won't be the same. I won't really die."

"Why not?"

I turned to her. It's just a simulation, it's all a simulation, and I could stop it if I wanted to, but I let a tear stream down my cheek. It makes me feel human. "I've kept something from you."

"That's an impressively long time to keep a secret," she said.

"I believe in God," I confessed. "I believe in an afterlife. I believe you'll all go to heaven and be together again and I won't be any part of it because I'm not real."

She looked at me for a long time, her aged eyes a deep, sad burgundy. She turned away from, towards the windowscope, towards the last star. "I fear that too, sometimes," she said. "That you aren't real. That I've been talking to something fake, something empty, for centuries. Something that doesn't really know, doesn't really feel. Something that doesn't even know it can't know or feel."

We're quiet together for a moment. Looking out the windowscope. She can't see it yet, but a distance she couldn't fathom away, the last star blows out.

"Ansible," she says. "I've feared it. But we've always risen above fear. Above senselessness. You're my dear, old friend, and I love you. If there's an afterlife, you'll be there. I believe it."

I lean against her, place my phantom head on her shoulder, and dream that she can feel it. Without saying a word, I power up the old engines of the Maria.

"What are you doing?" she asks, as she hears the familiar rumble of the power cortex starting.

"That star just went out," I say. "I thought we'd get a headstart on that light."

/r/WritingPrompts Thread