Where does time go when I sleep? I never really know. The stars change when I wake and there are new things within my castle walls for me to explore, preserved by the emptiness of space and the impenetrable walls. I have never woken this close to the stars before, although there is a familiarity with them being close, as if I have seen them like this before, maybe even touched them. Remembering why is hard, I do not remember but I feel I should remember. I know I remember. Yes, now I remember. I once lived right next to a star. That star became my heart. It now radiates energy in it's new form as a singularity turning matter into plasma. I use what is left inside my walls when I wake to fuel the furnace, grinding it into dust and depositing it into the fallen star. There are only a few objects that have stood the test of time besides my walls. One of my favorites is a small pendant made pure gold with a portrait made of diamond shown on the front depicting a family with five members of some form of scaled animals with the two larger animals with their snouts together and the three smaller ones grouped between them. It must have been a gift of some kind to show great love between them. I have spent centuries wondering why it was left in my walls and what happened to those people. The depictions of people are the rarest that survive as by the time people come close to my walls they have abandoned the physical art of sculpting for digital works that can be created and changed on a whim. Their knowledge never survives the time of my slumbers. I wonder at times why it is that I am alone to remember and witness what was once greatness. I might not be alone. Maybe they too wonder why they are alone to wander. Eventually, there will be a time I meet another if they exist.
Centuries went by as I once again collected the items within my walls, moving it all to a storage room the size of a small moon and going through it piece by piece before sending it to its fate. This time there was very little to look upon, although there was a painting made from liquid silver and gold that looks like it was painted in a furnace with a brush that could withstand the heat and set on a plate of carbon with dots of silver as stars. It was a painting of my castle nearly ten meters to a side. My castle is depicted gloriously in its scale, a dodecahedron with the immensity of a star, painted in silver with several planets orbiting in various shape with some even having a moon. Each of the twelve sides showing an immense pentagonal opening into the interior of the castle. There, in one of the sides sat a ship made of gold. It was beautiful and was certainly going into my room of keepsakes. Sadly, the planets that were once there are long gone, likely ripped away some time in the far past by war or fate. I studied that one painting for nearly thirty years, learning every stroke and imagining the painter of unknown origins, appearance, and culture. What I learned told me they dedicated their lives to the art and this may be the culmination of their lives. It is an honor to hold this piece in my castle and in my fickle memory.
Before falling into slumber again I am going to wait, watch the galaxies I find myself so unusually close to in my waking moment. This time I may witness real living people exploring the universe before it is time to hibernate once again.
Five thousand years passed in silence when two quantum relays appeared, one from each galaxy on such a close date that I knew fate was playing in this game. Fate was playing for keeps, but who's I don't know. I do know that it would be a wast of fates' effort if I slept now.