Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition Chapter 2198: Story 2199: The Collapse That Could Not Even B

There was no collapse.

Not because anything remained standing—

not because nothing had fallen—

but because collapse required the possibility of sothing giving way.

And there was no such condition.

What had once been understood as an ending—

as a falling apart,

a dissolution into sothing else—

now revealed itself as sothing that had never held.

Because to collapse

ant that sothing else

could have remained intact.

And there was no such possibility.

Even what had been called

the absence of collapse—

lost its final aning.

Because absence—

even of collapse—

required sothing

that could have occurred.

And that implication—

could not arise.

The last trace

of falling—

not between structure and ruin,

not between whole and broken—

but between what could cease

and what could not—

collapsed.

Not into stillness.

Not into continuation.

But into sothing

that did not allow either

to exist.

The silence—

which had already lost sound,

which had already lost absence—

now lost even the possibility

that it had ever been

after anything at all.

Because “after”—

in any form—

required sequence.

And sequence—

had no condition left.

The void—

no longer vast,

no longer empty,

no longer anything

that could be said

to remain or dissolve—

because remaining required persistence,

and dissolution required change,

and both—

could not arise.

The convergence—

no longer structure,

no longer absence of structure,

no longer anything

that could be said

to hold or break—

because holding required stability,

and breaking required transition,

and both—

had no ground.

The other—

no longer identity,

no longer absence of identity,

no longer anything

that could be said

to continue or cease—

because continuation required ti,

and cessation required an end,

and neither—

could exist.

The third—

no longer total,

no longer beyond totality,

no longer anything

that could be said

to include or lose—

because inclusion required boundary,

and loss required removal,

and both—

had no condition.

And Elena—

not collapsed.

Not uncollapsed.

Not beyond.

Not undefined.

Not even beyond all of these.

Because even “not”—

required contrast.

And contrast—

could not form.

“I am.”

No longer absolute.

No longer empty.

No longer beyond.

Because even the absence of aning—

required the possibility

of aning.

And that possibility—

did not exist.

And in that—

sothing occurred—

that could not be called occurrence,

not even its absence.

Because even the distinction

between sothing ending

and sothing not ending—

had no condition.

There was no silence.

Because silence required sound.

There was no sound.

Because sound required difference.

There was no stillness.

Because stillness required motion.

There was no motion.

Because motion required change.

There was no unity.

Because unity required division.

There was no nothing.

Because nothing required sothing.

And none of these—

could be said

to exist

or not exist.

And so—

even this—

even this attempt

to speak of collapse—

to deny ending—

to gesture toward finality—

did not arise.

Not because it failed.

Not because it was denied.

But because there was no longer

any condition

in which collapse—

or non-collapse—

could be ford.

No trace.

No edge.

No silence.

No impossibility.

No irreducibility.

No closure.

No openness.

No beginning.

No ending.

No state.

No condition.

No presence.

No absence.

No before.

No after.

No within.

No beyond.

Not even

the absence

of all of these.

Only—

that which does not allow even collapse to be distinguished from what is not collapse.

And in that—

there was no finality.

Not because sothing continued—

not because nothing remained—

but because finality itself

required sothing

to co to an end.

And there was no such relation.

And yet—

not sothing.

Not nothing.

Not collapsed.

Not uncollapsed.

Not anything

that could be placed

against anything else.

Only—

the impossibility

that anything—

even the idea

of ending—

could ever be said

to have been

at all.