Archive of Our Own

You are in a subway station. There are three people who arrived with you. To board the train and find your ending, you are given a set of questions to answer. Are you ready?

START ▶

[ENTER YOUR NAME]

I. WRITER

Q1: There is a girl in front of a computer. The clock reads 00:00. What is she doing?

• She is typing away on a keyboard.
• She is trying to form words.
• She is trying to form a world.
• She is trying to save her world.

Q2: She thinks of love like this…

• The consequence of passion. The after; the reckoning; the great cataclysm. The downfall of Babylon. The force it took to rebuild it.
• A punishment driven for the arrogant. The world inside humanity born from hubris.
• The tenderness we need to live.
• The acceptance of the self. A hug from her own arms, encircling her body whole, because she is made of so much love that it’s spilling over. Someone needs to sweep what overflows—but nobody can carry it. Nobody can take her love and the weight of it. Nobody can embrace it and understand it.

Q3: Pick a quote from a poem.

• We touch each other briefly and depart. As if memory wasn’t a wound to bear. — Katherine Larson
• But love is impossible and it goes on despite the impossible. You’re the muscle I cut from the bone and still the bone remembers, still it wants (so much, it wants) the flesh back, the real thing, if only to rail against it, if only to argue and fight, if only to miss a solve-able absence. — Ada Limón
• They would love to see me dead, to say: He belongs to us, he is ours. For twenty years I have heard their footsteps on the walls of the night. They open no door, yet here they are now. I see three of them: a poet, a killer, and a reader of books. — Mahmoud Darwish

Q4: She has to assign an essay topic. Which one will she choose?

• Art is selfish. Discuss.
• Can a world exist for only one person?
• How much love can a human heart hold?
• Art cannot exist without love. Both are selfish acts. Discuss.
• Can a person (who played god and killed god and became god for the sake of a sole existence) become a living metaphor for love?

Q5: She has now closed the computer. The clock no longer works. Did she finish what she intended to end?

• Uncertain. The ending is not up to her.
• Yes.
• She’s not sure.
• To agree is to birth suffering. A cycle starts. The lamp light hugs her figure. She doesn’t know how to say sorry.

You have finished the first stop. Hold on tight. The train has made a detour. We are now journeying into space…

II. PROTAGONIST

Q1: I am not yet here. Why is that?

• I am not real.
• I am not real yet.
• I am someone else’s reality.

Q2:  Pick the food that tastes like love.

• A home-made curry dish for dinner, one I cooked in a shared kitchen, with the voices of the other people in the house surrounding it.
• A chicken meal I do not particularly like from a fast food chain to take home. It rocks continuously on the bus ride from where it sits on my lap, but it’s my sister’s favorite, so I want to hurry home. It’s night, she must be hungry. The dining table must feel lonely.
• Grilled barbecue over the breeze of the ocean. I am enveloped by the fog. I feel far away from what I should be.
• A small birthday cake. I’ve seen it for what is seems like a thousand lifetimes now.

Q3: I have to destroy something. This is non-negotiable. I have no choice. What does my hand reach for to ruin first?

• The closest thing.
• The hand of my enemy.
• My own hand.
• All I’ve been made to do was destroy; so, perhaps, everything.

Q4: I have to save something. This is non-negotiable. I have no choice. What does my hand reach for to hold first?

• The closest thing.
• The hand of my companion.
• My own hand…?
• I do not speak salvation; but, perhaps, the life of a reader.

Q5: I have arrived. But where?

• Carriage 3707.
• Carriage 3707, for the seventy-third time.
• A small home. My family is downstairs.
• Space. I’m looking for a star.
• Myself; finally.

You’ve made it into the last stop. The train has departed the vast space of stars. Remember, this is where we get off.

III. READER

Q1: You are getting ready for school. Your uniform is hanging outside your closet, pressed perfectly. Your nameplate sits above the breast pocket. What does it say?

• You are Kim Dokja.
• You are an only child.
• You are a reader.
• Does it make any difference?

Q2: Look in the mirror. Quickly. What do you see?

• Your face, pale. Your age indicates you should be wearing your middle school uniform, but instead, you are in a hospital gown.
• Your mother. She is telling you to read something again, and again, and again. Everything blurs.
• Yourself.
• Yourself, again. This should not come as a surprise. You’re not whole.
• Yourself, again. Younger and trapped and dreaming.
• The mirror breaks.

Q3: What is your favorite color?

• Black.
• The white of a touchscreen.
• Black. Really. You mean it. It’s a cool color.
• None of the above are colors.
• Whatever color snow is; whatever color dreams are; whatever color a never-ending story takes the form of.

Q4: You’ve died. Where are you buried?

• Underneath a pine tree, at the backyard of your house. Your mother waters it everyday. You cannot tell her nothing exists underneath; you are no longer there.
• You are cremated; scattered along the sea. Somehow, this doesn’t suit you.
• What remains of you is in a library. Someone will flip through your pages and find your story worth living for.
• You are not buried anywhere. The body of a star dies and finds its grave to be a ressurection.

Q5: There are three ways to survive in a ruined world. Do you still remember them?

• You’ve forgotten a few.
• But, at least, you know one thing for certain:
• You who are reading these words will survive.

ERROR!

We are sorry for the inconvenience. It seems not everyone managed to get off. Lean back. This time, you have entered an omniscient point of view.

IV. HEAVENLY BODY

Q1: The world has been saved. This is the end, yet there is something missing. What do you think the passengers that left will do?

• Take in the new world. It’s the first days of peace.
• Live together in a big house.
• Laugh.
• Find you.
• Destroy the world.
• Regress.
• Do everything again.

Q2: Your previous choices are invalid. Listen: I lied to you. This is not the end. There is something missing. What do you think the writer and the protagonist will do?

• Everything.
• Everything.
• Everything.
• Everything.

Q3: Someone has left you a note. It says: “I know you still exist. Stay still. I will keep looking for you.” Decipher it.

• They must need you for something; otherwise, what’s the point of looking?
• You do not want to decipher it. He should go back.
• You do not want to decipher it. This was the only way.
• You do not want to decipher it. They cannot love you.

Q4: Someone has left a message for you. Complete their message. It starts with:

You once told me you’ll be my very first reader. Don’t forget your promise; I know how to hold a grudge. Did you know, that in order to write, you have to read over and over again? I read books and finish them and pick them up again. Rinse and repeat. It doesn’t matter if they suck. But one of them ended with an afterword that said—“Everything ends and everything collapses. What revives the fallen is the resistance of the heart. The strength of love to go back to the beginning, and make the same choices knowing the same ruin awaits you at the end.” I don’t want to say it reminds me of you. So, don’t worry about it. I know more than anyone that…

• Our ending is inevitable.
• But one day, when you and I end, I hope we revisit ourselves, and resist.
• Tell me to repeat you.
• Tell me to pick you up again.

Q5: Will you wake up? (optional)

[ENTER ANSWER]

The train has finished all its stops and detours. Please stand by.

Your results are being calculated.

…

……

Kim Dokja, your ending is:

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