"The Empire's midday sun has been barely above the horizon for a while, and every time it sets we are unaware if it is going to be the last time"
The Human Empire is akin to an old man on his deathbed, with not much time left but a lot of stories to tell. When humanity saw the river bank on the other side and awaited to perceive the Truth and treasure that have convinced them to cross the river, the boat broke down, or perhaps it was broken since the beginning and even a sturdy boat isn't meant to cross the turbulent waters of outer space. The tides brought man back to their origins and now the boat was too torn-down and the waters too wide and deep.
The Great Expansion has won against the shackles of gravitational force and the elements keeping the structures of galaxies and the universe's throbbing veins have grown weak and faint. Henceforth, distances between star systems in the universe have grown infinitely large and no amount of fuel could ever propel rockets into the unknown.
To any intelligent being living in this age, they might as well be alone in the universe but was that always the case ? The Empire's tree has long since met its demise yet its tree trunks still exhibit its long history. In certain planets, space-scrapers and other such structures meant to last the eternity remained empty and lifeless and intelligent machines are waiting for the commands of owners that don't exist anymore, for all eternity.
While history buries the Empire in the heavy soils of time, let us look at its closing act.
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Planet Monos, meaning alone, as the residents have unanimously decided to call it, to it being the only planet orbiting its star, lacking even a satellite.
These residents, the Moniacs, are best described in 3 words: very unambitious, quite hedonistic and maybe a bit mundane.
The Moniacs don't want to do anything great, they are born to wait for their eventual death and the sight of the empty sky doesn't evoke ambition to do anything at all.
When they're born, they discover machines and structures they haven't built themselves and metal creatures that provide them with food and drink. They wake up, they eat, they get drunk, they play games like cards and they engage in their carnal desires.
From birth to death, everything they do is simply to satisfy their primordial instincts and they have no writing system, an archaic spoken language and one could wonder whether they can even be classified as intelligent creatures.
Seldom, a resident inexplicably enters The Machine, a steel apparatus resembling an enclosed bed that was also already there when they got here. When one enters the machine and presses on the big red button, they simply die, effectively euthanasia. It has become quite a taboo topic among the natives and if they had an expansive vocabulary able to describe concepts such as mental health they'd be able to explain it.
Usually, before a person makes the decision to enter "The Machine", trends such as them refusing to engage in carnal activities, to play or to drink are quite noticeable and in the worst cases, they refuse to eat and satisfy their primary needs. It is too unfortunate the Moniacs don't have the vocabulary required to emotionally support another individual and concepts like "empathy" and "sympathy" are only vaguely spoken of in their mother tongue.
Nonetheless, even with a very limited lexicon, the people can form rather complex thoughts and understand how and why they're feeling this way.
"Why am I alive?" "Why am I like this?" "What is our purpose?"
The keyword is 'purpose'. Back in the times of ignorance, humans might have not explored the galaxy yet but they found their purpose in the form of contributing to greater society, in making money, completing one's formal education, in living a healthy and happy life and enriching one's wisdom.
In times of galactic expansion, some of those goals and ambitions remain but humans also now wonder of the beyond, they make it their life purpose to spread humane values and civilization to uncharted places, having the conviction to go on life-long trips to barren planets and dangerous destinations.
But on the planet Monos, the concept of purpose has been erased. One might want to mate with that person they find attractive or win tonight's game of cards, but that's as far as purpose goes for them. In fact, for creatures living this way, intelligence might be more of a curse than a blessing.
Unknowingly to Monos and the Moniacs, headed their way at near light-speed was an object that would, depending on the person you ask, either be a great calamity or a long-awaited end to a miserable existence.
In both the times of ignorance and during the galactic age, this object would be identified as the devourer of matter and light, the great annihilator and the endgame of all matter, the infamous black hole.
Due to it's immense speed, the black hole would reach Monos in mere hours and the planet might be torn by the immense gravitational force of it before it even reaches it. Whether the Moniacs knew or didn't know about its arrival wouldn't change much of their pointless existence.
And not changing much it did, as the black hole passed through the star system and tore apart the red dwarf star and its lonely planet, Monos along with its inhabitants and the only live remains of the Human Empire.
The tree was thus eaten by fungi.
The old man gone to sleep.
The leaves of the tree free of their eternal hibernation.
And so the Human Empire was gone.
Yet the river is still intact.