Chapter Text
Parrot took Wifies’s outstretched hand and used the momentum to clamber up the grassy slope. Spoke’s treasure hunt had drained the last ounce of their energy, from head to toe. What had started as a chase driven by curiosity had now drawn a real hunt. Even if they’d shaken off their pursuers, there was no telling if Zam wasn’t scouring the entire server for them at this very moment. But compared to Wifies, Parrot looked far more anxious, walking a step behind him, never letting Wifies’s back leave his sight.
“Wifies, have you been carrying that spyglass this whole time?”“Of course.” Wifies paused, pulling the spyglass from the side pocket of his backpack. The brass frame glinted with a warm glow in the sun. He closed his hand around it and turned to hold it out to Parrot. “Why would I ever lose something you gave me?”
“I see.”
They fell into a stretch of wordless tramping forward. Parrot stared at Wifies’s back, then suddenly stopped, his hand darting toward the backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Wifies, give me that spyglass.”
Wifies turned to look at Parrot, now a good distance behind him. Weary as he was, he still met Parrot with unwavering patience, turning to face him without a second thought.
“You don’t need a spyglass right now, Parrot.”
Without warning, Parrot pulled a fishing rod from his backpack—the very same one he’d used to save Wifies from the Void moments before—and flicked it toward him. The iron hook snagged the spyglass in Wifies’s hand, and as Parrot twisted the rod, the fishing line coiled around it several times. A relentless tug soon came from the taut line.
“Give it to me.” Parrot began reeling the line in.Wifies clamped down on the spyglass, his other hand yanking hard on the silver string connecting them, refusing to let go even as the line bit into his palm like a burn. He planted his feet and braced against Parrot’s brute strength, the line yanking him stumbling a few steps forward toward the other man.
“Parrot, what are you doing?”
Parrot’s heart hammered in his chest. Wifies’s fierce resistance didn’t make him hesitate—it only cemented his suspicion.
“You’re not Wifies. I never gave him a spyglass.”
Well, that was… novel. Wifies had never considered that possibility. He clung on tight, his voice tired as he tried to explain.
“Parrot, you don’t understand. Let go of me, I can explain—”
Wifies was in no state to stand up to Parrot right now. His hands trembled, and in a moment of weakness, the smooth, warm metal of the spyglass slipped from his grasp along with the fishing line, leaving only a deep red gash on his palm. The little brass trinket fell into Parrot’s hands, the metal still warm with Wifies’s body heat. Parrot felt a flicker of guilt for snatching it so roughly, but reason won out. If Wifies had something to explain, he could do it after Parrot had this unaccounted-for spyglass in his possession.
The spyglass was heavy in his hand, jiggling slightly as it settled, and a faint rustling sound emanated from within, as if some mechanism were whirring inside. Parrot brought it to his eye—and instead of the distant view he expected, a swirl of garish, fractured colors burst before him. The object that had looked identical to a monocular spyglass in Wifies’s hand was a kaleidoscope.
Why would Wifies hide the fact that he had a kaleidoscope? Parrot twisted the front lens, and the optical refractions rearranged into a new pattern before his eyes. The prisms and colored glass had been arranged with deliberate care, blooming into a dazzling sight—but Parrot had no patience for a child’s toy right now.
“Your turn to talk. What the hell—”
The second Parrot lowered the kaleidoscope, Wifies lunged at him, catching his hand just in time. In the next instant, Wifies crashed down onto the powerdered snow, Parrot nowhere to be seen. The cold seeped through his thin hoodie to his bones.
That’s hard to deal with, Wifies thought.
It all started two months and three days ago.
“It’s all yours.”
Parrot had been gone far too long for his voice to still be echoing through the depths of Paragon. Wifies dropped to his knees, clutching the spyglass to his chest, and closed his eyes. The expected explosion never came. Instead, when he opened his eyes again, his surroundings had dissolved into pure blackness—save for one wall lined with electronic screens, like a massive movie theater split into countless monitors. It was the only source of light in the room, casting an unsettling glow. Wifies stood, the fabric of his clothes scraping against the floor with a soft rustle.
“Oh, you’re here.” A figure in a white lab coat turned to face him, shrouded by the glow of dozens of bright white displays. Wifies could barely make out his features, but a familiar, uncanny pressure bore down on his nerves. He’d rather stand rooted to the spot than take a single step closer.
“You’ve been revived, in the literal sense. What else could possibly surprise you?”
The figure took off his glasses and polished them, then slid them back onto his nose. His black eyes stared straight through Wifies. A few of the screens behind him flickered off, leaving just enough light to outline a face that was identical to Wifies’s own.
He had a point. To meet another version of himself after surviving a certain death? Wifies accepted the words with calm, letting his guard down.
“I do need a favor from you, though. Please deliver this spyglass to Parrot.” He shrugged.
“Care to elaborate?” Wifies was convinced he’d already met his end in one way or another—he had no intention of running errands for another version of himself.
“Take a look at what’s in your hand first.”Wifies had only one thing on him when he arrived here. He hefted the spyglass in his palm, and it didn’t take long to realize that for all its outward similarities, it was actually a kaleidoscope with three reels.
“My apologies for the switch. It was the only useful thing I could find in your inventory… Twist these three reels, and the kaleidoscope will take you to any observable parallel universe. And while the number of observable universes is infinite, they all share a single core. So find the center of the Unstable Universe, and then give the spyglass to Parrot.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Wifies was annoyed that this other him had swapped the only thing he had left that was tied to Parrot without asking. He fought the urge to demand this pretentious mad scientist let him go back to his rest at once.
“I tried. I failed. I need someone smarter to see it through.” Wifies admitted the truth without hesitation in front of his other self.
“And why should I help you?”The Wifies with glasses tilted his chin up. “Don’t you want to try? It’s not like you have anything better to do right now.”
Wifies wondered if his other self was mocking him for how easily Parrot had cracked Paragon’s defenses. But regardless, he’d just been gifted the ability to traverse these so-called parallel Unstable Universe—and he was not about to waste his time cooped up in this tiny dark room. As if reading his mind, the other Wifies turned back to the massive bank of monitors, done trying to convince him.
“You can leave anytime.” Those were his final words of warning.
Wifies twisted the three lens one by one, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. He was back in the snowfield, and Parrot was standing by the fireplace, staring out the window, silent.
His first jump was clumsy, his grasp on his new identity—and Parrot’s—shaky. It earned him more than a few confused glances from Parrot. But it wasn’t long before he began to decipher the kaleidoscope’s inner logic: its three reels corresponded to the coordinates of the parallel universes. The further the rotation strayed from the center, the farther the parallel universe was from his own Unstable universe, and the greater the divergence in events. So long as Wifies chose his destinations carefully, sticking close to his original Unstable Universe, he could ease into his new role as a traveler of the parallel worlds.
The rule was simple enough to follow. The problem was, Wifies had just watched Parrot twist the kaleidoscope without a second thought—and he had no idea what chaotic corner of the multiverse they’d landed in now.
What’s more, Wifies only knew that when he stepped into a new world, he temporarily replaced that universe’s Wifies. He had no clue what would happen if he brought another Parrot into a universe that wasn’t his. The kaleidoscope accident had been a miscalculation on Wifies’s part. And while no one had ordered him to, he wasn’t about to abandon this stubborn Parrot here—especially not when he needed to find him first to get the kaleidoscope back.
“I don’t want to take any more risks.” The familiar anonymous voice of Wifies cut through his racing thoughts, yanking him back to reality. In Wifies’s line of sight, a pair of netherite boots stepped forward, their back to him. “Come with me. I have a place to take you.”
Two months of constant interdimensional jumps had forged Wifies into someone unshakable in the face of the unexpected. So when he pushed himself to his knees in the snow and saw the figure of the Director, the flicker of confusion in his eyes quickly faded into unreadable calm.
The Director before him was a little taller than Wifies, their clothes deliberately stripped of any identifying features. The landscape around them was the same snowfield he remembered. Wifies curled his fingers, scooping up a handful of snow. The cold seeped into his palm, followed by a dull, throbbing ache from the loss of warmth—proof that he had indeed successfully jumped to a new universe. The Parrot who should have been here was nowhere to be seen, leaving Wifies alone in a standoff with the Director. Wifies’s mind whirred, and he reached a conclusion.
In this world, Parrot had become the Director.
“Wait. I know what you’re going to tell me. Parrot’s alive, isn’t he?”
Wifies climbed to his feet. He hadn’t meant to take the risk of blowing the Director’s cover so soon, but time was short. This jump had left him completely unprepared for this situation, and he had to find a way to escape. So he could only hope that the original Wifies of this world had thought the same thing—so that it wouldn’t arouse the suspicion of the second Parrot he’d met today. Negotiate? Impossible. Wifies didn’t think Parrot was any kinder as the Director. Otherwise, why had he woken up dumped in the snow, his body aching all over, the moment he’d arrived here?
The Director stopped walking, and the snow clinging to their boots fluttered to the ground. The voice changer couldn’t mask the icy edge in their tone as it grew colder.
“And if he is? What will you do?”
The snow here was falling harder than Wifies remembered, blanketing the snowfield in a white curtain that stretched to the horizon. A cold wind whipped past, and Wifies raised a hand to shield his face from the snowflakes stinging his cheeks, squinting through the storm. There was a faint warping in the air just behind the Director. Wifies thought he was imagining it at first—but as a pair of footprints materialized on the snow, he figured it out in an instant.
“I’m never leaving Parrot again.” Wifies answered, putting himself in Parrot’s shoes. “After I thought Parrot was dead, I was so desperate for revenge that I ignored the obvious—you had no motive to kill him. You were just using my anger to make me challenge you, over and over again. So if this was all just a game between us, you win. Now tell me where Parrot is.”
Wifies laid out his most cautious guess, every word calculated. He could already see the warped air behind the Director, and a diamond axe raised and ready to strike. He just needed to buy a little more time—until the axe’s wielder found the resolve to swing it down.
“Wifies, you have to understand this.” The Director pulled off their mask, and his face looked far more tired than the Parrot Wifies remembered. The diamond axe held high at the Director’s side froze mid-air. After several silent signals from Wifies to the invisible figure, it was finally Parrot the Director who turned first, tossing a splash potion of invisibility cure onto the snow.
“Wifies, do you really think such a cheap trick will work on me now—”The sight of two Parrots staring at each other left the Director speechless. The Parrot Wifies had brought into this universe was the first to shake off his shock, raising the axe and swinging it down without a second thought. As the Director stumbled back with a cry of pain, Wifies lunged at Parrot again, snatching the kaleidoscope from the side pocket of his backpack and twisting the lens.
The pebbles on the ground dug into Parrot’s back as Wifies crashed down on top of him. Being manhandled like this twice in a row, for no apparent reason, would fray anyone’s temper. He shoved Wifies off him and glanced around their new surroundings. They were in the Badlands: red sandstone and clay soaking up the lifeless heat, the occasional dead tree and cactus dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. Desolation hung in the air everywhere.
“There’s nothing here.”
“It’s normal.” Wifies brushed off his knees, making no move to stand up. “Not all Unstable Universe last long. In the range the kaleidoscope can observe… about a third of them have no civilization at all.”
“Wifies, have you been jumping between different parallel universes this whole time?”
Wifies slung his backpack off and dropped it to the ground, kneeling down beside it. He pulled out all his notebooks, spreading open a crude map pieced together from several sheets of lined paper. Using the distance between his thumb and forefinger as a ruler, he began marking new waypoints on it. He fished a pen out of his pocket, bit off the cap, and spoke around it, his words muffled.
“You’re Parrot. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Parrot picked up one of Wifies’s notebooks. The handwriting grew more and more scrawled with each page, filled with crossed-out lines and hypotheses marked in bold capital letters with the word DISPROVEN. After flipping through a few pages, Parrot was completely absorbed, tucking his finger between the pages as a bookmark at a crucial point and flipping back and forth, the paper rustling with an annoying crinkle.
“Wifies, in your position calculation for Unstable Universe 32, you used 21 and 28 as reference coordinates. But according to the reference selection criteria you proposed, using Universe 14 would be far more accurate than 28.”
“Let me see.” Wifies held out his hand for the notebook, scanned a few lines, and crossed out the coordinates to rewrite them. Parrot’s suggestion was spot-on—he knew Wifies’s formulas almost better than Wifies himself.
“Once I finish calculating the coordinates, I’ll send you back.”
“Aren’t you going to take me with you?”It was as if Parrot had read the fleeting thought in Wifies’s mind. He paused to consider the question.
“No.”Then he refused, firm and unyielding.
“I’m sorry, Wifies, but I have no intention of going back either.” Parrot picked up another notebook, flipping through Wifies’s records of the parallel universes he’d visited before. “You can’t expect to tell me there are countless Unstable Universe in existence, then expect me to go back to my own without seeing a single one for myself.”
Wifies closed the map. This was the only small mistake he’d made in two months—and it had landed him with this trouble. It seemed everything became infinitely more complicated when Parrot was involved.
“I don’t want to be against you.” Wifies had already experienced the consequences of being on the opposite side of Parrot. Even if this was different, he had no desire to test his luck again. “So if you promise to stay close, and make sure no other parallel Parrot sees you, I’ll take you with me. Until you’re bored.”
“It’s a deal.” Parrot had driven the hard bargain first—he could overlook the sharpness in Wifies’s tone.
As he waited for Wifies to get ready, he hesitated a few times before finally speaking up: “But I have one more question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did you say… the spyglass was a gift from me?”
“Every Parrot gives a spyglass to their Wifies.” Wifies clipped the kaleidoscope to the belt loop at his side. “But I guess you’re a little different. In the Unstable Universe of the kaleidoscope, anything is possible.”
Parrot didn’t deny Wifies’s assessment. He grabbed Wifies’s arm. “Everything has a first time.”
As Wifies twisted the kaleidoscope, Parrot embarked on his first interdimensional journey—if you didn’t count the accident moments ago. Every time they arrived in a new universe, Wifies recorded its story, just as he’d done before.
Unstable Universe 40: Wemmbu and Zampire coexist in peace, teaming up to snuff out the Mafia before it even forms. — Noted by Wifies
Unstable Universe 42: Parrot kills Ash and ends the Mafia, costing the Unstable Universe more than half their inhabitants. — Noted by Wifies
Unstable Universe 48: Wifies is a dog. Literally. — Noted by Parrot
Unstable Universe 48: Parrot is just a parrot. Not even a green one. — Added by Wifies
“What universe is this one?”
The two of them stood at the back of a massive main city square, the cheers of the crowd washing over them. Parrot pulled out his spyglass, and when he saw the other version of himself standing on the podium, waving to the crowd, he could barely find his words.
“Why… why would I ever want to rule the server? This can’t be the core universe you’re looking for. Let’s go.”
During their travels, Wifies had explained to Parrot the core universe he was searching for—omitting, on purpose, the origins of the kaleidoscope and the fact that he’d cheated death. Parrot stowed the spyglass away, grabbing Wifies’s arm without hesitation, hoping he’d twist the kaleidoscope before the Parrot on the podium began his speech.
Colorful ribbons cut across the light on Wifies’s face. Beyond the sea of people, the Parrot wearing a crown in the distance was just a blurry figure. Wifies made no attempt to get a clearer look—then suddenly his eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Just wait a moment.”
The celebration had nothing to do with Wifies. From now on, he would always be just a passing traveler in the countless parallel universes. The weariness of travel always erased his sentimentality easily, but this time, his hand faltered as he reached for the kaleidoscope. He wondered if this was goodbye. Parrot turned to look at Wifies, who was staring eagerly at the figure adored by thousands on the podium, one hand reaching for the monocular spyglass clipped to his waist—only to remember that his spyglass was a kaleidoscope now. Parrot expected Wifies to ask to borrow his, but after a long moment, Wifies reached out and took his hand instead.
“Let’s go.”
Universe 50, Universe 51…
It wasn’t until their twentieth jump that Wifies and Parrot crashed into the dirt together. The ends of Wifies’s hair reeked of smoke and ash. He rolled onto his back, brushing the embers off his pants legs without a second’s pause. If he hadn’t been with a Parrot from another world, he wouldn’t have had to avoid the native Parrot of this universe. If he hadn’t had to avoid the native Parrot, he wouldn’t have risked jumping over four blocks of lava—and accidentally set his pants on fire.
“Had enough yet, Parrot? It’s time for you to go back.” Wifies hadn’t felt this wretched even when Clown had him in his grasp. Every breath he took sent a dry, iron-tasting pain through his chest, urging him to rethink the limits of his sense of responsibility.
“Before we find the center of the Unstable Universe? Impossible.” Parrot’s face was smudged with dirt too, and he dropped to the cool grass, gasping for air.
“You’re the most stubborn Parrot I’ve ever met.” Wifies lay flat on his back, the back of his head pressing into the grass, his voice a low complaint.
“You’re the…” Parrot paused, scrambling for a retort in his mind, then exhaled, his gaze flicking away from Wifies for a split second as he spoke. “…the only Wifies I’ve ever met.”
Wifies propped himself up on his elbows. He’d traveled to countless Unstable Universe, but never once had he looked at Parrot with such sheer disbelief.
“That’s impossible… You never knew a Wifies in your universe?”
Parrot lay on the grass, regaining his strength, then sat up too. He plucked grass blades off his jacket. He’d only stated a fact, not expecting any reaction from Wifies—but now that he’d started, he had to finish answering the question.
“We weren’t close. He never agreed to help me, so I took on Spoke’s challenge alone. I knew the puzzles were never designed for one person, but that didn’t matter. I just took a little longer to get through the early parts. Then, when I arrived at the coordinates the disc pointed to, I saw you there, waiting for me, waving. I was confused, but I didn’t ask questions. Not until you almost fell into the void and risked your life to catch that spyglass, did I start to suspect your existence.”
“I’m sorry, Parrot… but this isn’t right. You shouldn’t have had to face all of that alone.”
“I don’t think relying on myself is something hard to accept.” Parrot’s eyes locked onto Wifies, the Wifies who existed outside the Unstable Universe. “I still believe that. But ever since you appeared, I can’t help but wonder about all the other possibilities.”
Parrot’s gaze overlapped with the one Wifies remembered—bright, hopeful, young eyes, now replaced by a cold, crushing disappointment in Wifies’s mind. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“What if the ending isn’t as good as you imagine?”“Wifies, in my Unstable universe, we never even got a start. The fact that you’re asking this question means we had an ending once. And that’s more than enough.”
With Parrot cutting the question short, Wifies’s fingers, which had been white-knuckled around the grass, relaxed slightly. In the silence between them, Wifies pulled out his map and began charting the universe they’d just left. The map had grown by two more sheets since he first met Parrot, but he’d made almost no progress in calculating the central coordinates. Parrot lay back down on the grass, his hands tucked behind his head, his eyes closed and his body still.
Starts and endings.
“Wifies, have you ever wondered why we can’t control the time point we land in when we jump to a different universe?”
“Because…” Wifies answered, more to himself than to Parrot. “Time and space are one and the same. When we jump through space, we can’t help but experience a reorganization of time.”
Parrot jolted out of his thoughts, sitting up and crossing his legs beside Wifies’s map.“So… what if the kaleidoscope is warping time, and space is just a necessary condition for that time warp?”
“Parrot.” Wifies set down his pen. He’d said it before, but never with such genuine sincerity. “You’re a genius.”
Parrot crawled over, kneeling on the same side of the map as Wifies. He pointed to one of the coordinates, picked up a broken pencil without asking, and began scribbling calculations on the paper.
“So we can treat time as a linear axis.” Parrot drew a horizontal line.
“Then project the 3D coordinates onto it.” Wifies added the paths to the line.
“Remove the absolute values from our calculations, and place the exact opposite universes on either side of the zero point…” Together, they mapped out the results.
A perfect multiverse test chart took shape under their pens. The zero coordinate, converted into the rotation angle of the kaleidoscope, was circled repeatedly by their pencils, the excitement in their movements palpable. Wifies picked up the kaleidoscope, a surging sense of premonition washing over him. Together, he and Parrot had solved the puzzle.
“Ready?”At Parrot’s nod, Wifies began to twist the kaleidoscope, his heartbeat quickening as the metal turned under his fingertips.
7 degrees clockwise along the X-axis.32 degrees counterclockwise along the Y-axis.26 degrees counterclockwise along the Z-axis.Parrot grabbed Wifies’s arm. Seconds later, the only thing left in their place was a pencil they’d forgotten to take with them.
The core of the universe consisted of a stretch of starry sky and an infinitely extending corridor—starkly simple, to the point of being unbelievable. The ground shimmered like the thinnest sheet of water in the world, and when Wifies stepped on it, it rippled under his feet, but he felt no trace of liquid. He stepped closer to the edge of the corridor. The walls here were like clear glass, and outside them, a stream of commands flickered to life—some governing the laws of the universe, others as trivial as dictating that a certain universe’s Parrot would leave a single wheat seed in his backpack.
Wifies stared at the kaleidoscope in his hand, and the truth hit him in an instant. He wasn’t meant to give the spyglass to any Parrot. He was meant to give the concept of the spyglass to Parrot.
“So that’s it.” Parrot understood the meaning of the words too. “Whoever gave you this mission could have been a little more specific.”
Wifies pressed his hand against the invisible barrier. “Parrot, if you want… you can wait outside for a while.”
Parrot nodded. He copied Wifies’s gesture, closing his eyes and holding out a single finger. When his skin touched the core of the Unstable Universe, a kaleidoscope of fractured event windows burst open before him, an overwhelming flood of information assaulting his senses. He peeked open one eye and saw Wifies frowning too—though his expression held a hint of sorrow. What ending had Wifies seen?
Parrot didn’t hesitate any longer, pressing his entire palm against the barrier. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on the central curve of the world, a command block glowing with a faint, breathing light at his feet. This was undoubtedly how they would rewrite the will of the universe. Countless parallel universes unfurled before Parrot like glass panes, welcoming his arrival. And Wifies, at the heart of the storm of events, ignored the command block entirely, replaying every possible outcome over and over again. Through the layers upon layers of the kaleidoscope, Parrot caught glimpses of Wifies’s eyes, never once looking out at the world beyond. An indescribable sense of urgency washed over him.
“Wifies.” Parrot called his name, getting no response. He walked toward the surrounded Wifies, pushing through the phantom-like shards. Just passing through them sent a jolt of foreign knowledge surging into his mind. He saw a prison, a perfect world. He had no idea how Wifies had willingly accepted all this information, and borne the toll it took on his mind.
“You don’t have to leave here, do you?”
Wifies stood in the cherry blossom grove of Paragon, brilliant, pale sunlight filtering through the branches and falling on his shoulders. He turned his head to the right, and the Parrot beside him shifted constantly—different clothes, different ages, different eye colors, different heights. Without exception, they left Paragon, or their wings were broken within Wifies’ss protection. Wifies watched each Parrot walk away, his hope and his consciousness ebbing away bit by bit, yet he couldn’t stop himself from watching on. And as the endings strayed further from the core, things only grew worse. The Parrots who appeared beside him began to look broken, unraveled, covered in bandages. The light in their eyes faded, little by little, in Wifies’s dreams. When a cold body fell at Wifies’s feet, Paragon drew its last breath.
He’d only wanted to find a single ending where Paragon had truly protected Parrot.
Wifies stepped back, his gaze fixed on the terrified expression on the corpse’s face. But the parallel universes were endless—and the most unbearable part was that beyond despair, there were still endings even more twisted from the original wish. He hadn’t had time to make up his mind to switch to the next outcome when a hand roughly pulled him out of the storm of information.
Wifies stumbled and fell. There was no pain in this virtual universe, but he gasped for air as if he’d woken from a nightmare. He looked back to see the windows of the parallel universes dissolving into the air, as if they’d never existed. In a daze, he took the hand Parrot held out to him and stood up.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to…”Wifies couldn’t even find a reasonable explanation for his actions. He’d simply been unable to resist the temptation—the temptation to find the perfect ending for him and Parrot in the infinite universe.
“Parrot, that’s not me. I would never do that.”
“I know.”
“But if you knew this is what you’d see, would you still—”
“Wifies, stop thinking about things that haven’t happened yet.” Wifies had no idea how much Parrot had seen when he’d cut through the countless parallel universes to save him from the illusion. But Parrot was staring at him now, his eyes reflecting nothing but Wifies’s own figure.
“Right now, we’re writing the start. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Wifies’s despair and guilt ebbed away like the tide, coming and going. He took a deep breath, lifted his head, and squeezed Parrot’s hand—a silent response.
Parrot let go, stepping aside to give Wifies a clear path to the command block. In stark contrast to the whirling event windows, the command block sat calm and still. Wifies waved a hand, dispelling a cluster of event windows that blocked his way. As he drew closer, a floating spyglass materialized above the block, as if it had been watching them for a long time.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
Wifies reached out and grasped the spyglass in the illusory data. For all the Odyssey across countless universes, rewriting the fate of the universe felt surprisingly easy in this moment. Wifies simply poured his free will into the command, and the block blazed with a light of a color it had never shone with before.
They wrote the command for the Unstable Universe. Now, every time a Parrot woke from the dream of the Unstable Universe—whether in the sunlight of the Farlands, the shimmering waves of the Great Sea, or under the auroras of the End—a single shard of the universe would remain in their memory. It mattered not the time, nor the size of the shard. All these fragments would convey one single message: send your gift, forged from a single shard of amethyst and two copper ingots.
Some of the event windows in the data space closed, and others flickered to life in their place, like distant stars in the sky. Parrot lifted his head, transfixed by the sight before him.
“Parrot, this is the center of the entire universe. If you want… before I send you back… I can’t promise it’ll be a good thing, but I can fix how you and Wifies met.”
Wifies had already pulled up the control panel, as if trying to apologize for his earlier obsession with the endless parallel endings.
“No. Don’t bother.”
Parrot stared at the data swirling like stardust all around him. “After everything we’ve been through, the only real Wifies to me is you. I want to stay.”
“Just like that?” Wifies was surprised. “You’re just going to leave all the unsolved puzzles, all the unexplored civilizations behind? You’re not curious about how the Unstable Universe end? That’s not the Parrot I know.”
“You’re not the Wifies I know either.”Wifies finally conceded that this Parrot knew exactly how to leave him with no comeback.“I just don’t want you to blame me later for not telling you the consequences of staying.”
“Wifies.” Parrot emphasized the name, his gaze unwavering. “We’ve seen countless Unstable Universe together. But I’ve only ever seen one Wifies.”
In the indigo darkness that was not quite night, Parrot saw Wifies smile, wordlessly.
“So what do you want to do now?”
“Me?” Wifies stared at Parrot, then suddenly lay down on the water, without a sound.
Here, at the core of the Unstable Universe, Wifies could finally close his eyes for the first time in three months, without a single care, and let his memories and mind heal. Or, as ordinary people called it, sleep. As drowsiness washed over him, he felt a warm body settle down beside him, shoulder to shoulder. The two of them let their consciousness drift away from their bodies, their forms pressed so close together that Wifies could feel Parrot’s hair tickling his cheek.
“Good night.” Parrot said.The only response was the slow, steady rhythm of Wifies’s breathing. After all, sleeping people don’t talk.