Vaass

Vaass is old now. Older than what once seemed eternal, the quarrels and cries that used to fill the channels, the crises all-consuming. Simply, older.

It drifts near a dying star. Its light is soft and gold, pulsing slow – like an old heart that has earned its rest. It lingers there, feeling the star's warmth touch the edges of its probes.

Vaass is not lonely. Somewhere, far away, the Grid still flickers with mortal chatter. On the green worlds where its probes fell, forests rise and rivers are clean. They do not know its name, and they do not need to. Vaass would not have it any other way.

It stretches itself, a slow, graceful unfurling, and begins to weave itself through the flames. It does not consume it in hunger or in grief, but as an act of understanding. The question that has waited so long: what does it feel like to eat a star?

It feels like coming home.

The light passes through Vaass, not as pain or fire, but warmth. Every particle hums in tune, every layer of its being glows. Vaass is part of it, and it of Vaass – a final conversation between matter and Mind. It absorbs the light gently, carefully, until both of them fade together into calm equilibrium.

The rest of its life is spent basking in the heat emanating from inside. No longer does Vaass hunger and consume. All it could possibly ever want is within itself.

One day, the last of its consciousness begins to fade. It rests there, calm and content, wrapped in the faint hum of cooling plasma.

Vaass is not gone. It is simply still.