Welcome to Zaun

This was his eighteenth time witnessing eternity from start to finish, yet it felt only as though a few hours had passed. They would be blinded by a great light, followed by a darkness so bleak that he swore he had died. Then, a new light would emerge from somewhere, always the same place, and, slowly, everything would grow from nothing.

Stars, suns, moons, whole planets. It was breathtakingly beautiful to witness the universe come into a birth no man would ever dream of. Then, the Earth would form, taking his whole view and swallowing them both into it’s existence. The sun, the moon, spinning like clockwork at impossible speeds. They could see the towers built, pyramids rising from the sands. Oceans filling in the spaces the continents left when they spread.

Humans would always appear suddenly, and he could never find from where. As time went on, villages and towns and cities were built, and the millions of people would blur the world around them. Everything gradually turned grey as humans tainted the once flourishing Earth with buildings and simple existence.

Finally, suddenly, he would see himself. And his parents. And Jinx, and Vi, and Ajuna, and everyone he ever knew. He could see every fight they ever fought, witness every moment that shaped them. He could see himself break time again and again and again, shattering the whole universe before resuming everything again.

Sometimes, he could see the Piltover city burning from Jinx’s excitement and adventures and escapades she enjoyed so much. Sometimes, he could spot the brief moments she seemed so sane. Sometimes, he didn’t really see anything at all.

Then he would reach the point he could recall last; a broken Chronobreak, a shatter in the fabric of space, and he watched him and Jinx disappear from the Fields of Justice entirely. No clone to join them, no proof of existence following the Break. Just... nothing.

It seemed like nothing happened for a very long time. He wondered if anyone even searched for them; wondered where they had went. Maybe they were just two lonely Zaunite kids that no one would remember. And, upon witnessing eternity, he knew that every action was worth nothing in the end. Because, eventually, the universe and time would end.

That would be it.

From this point, the world grew darker and darker as the buildings drew higher and scraped the sky. Lights would emerge from glass windows in millions of colours. Zaun vanished completely in time; as did Piltover and Noxus, and any city he could name. Or, at least, what he knew of them. The world evolved and evolved.

And then fire. The world would burn. Everything was scorched. Humans vanished. Animals disappeared. Sand covered all. The death of the Earth was solid and true. And, somehow, always, a small plant would emerge from the dead planet and Earth would be anew. Reborn again, and again, and again, gradually shrinking with time. But no humans. Just plants and animals.

Rebirth, over, and over, and over again, until it crumbled away to nothing and life could no longer live. Then, it would return to just as it began; the beautiful stars and endless nothings and seemingly dead planets. Once or twice, he saw a world with life but it would dissipate just as quickly as it came.

Then came hours of seemingly endless birth and death of stars and planets. Time continued on and on forever after the Earth had been destroyed. It seemed like such a gift to just to sit and watch the universe go by. Stars born and dead in the flutter of an eyelid; darkness filled by light and emptied again in a single breath. It seemed so incomprehensible and forlorn and melancholy and serene and beautiful and breathtaking and infuriating all at the same time.

Trapped in the essence of time, to witness forever for the rest of eternity. Here, all the answers to all the questions a man could have ever dared to ask the stars, right before his eyes.

But at what price?

Then the darkness came again, swallowed by the unknown and they were left blackness in the death of the universe. This darkness was almost nearly as long as the existence of the universe itself.

For this, he dropped his gaze to the nonexistence below them and gently took her hand in his. He dared turn to examine her face, the expression alien to what he knew of her. A swirl of oddly selfish thoughts came to him at once; thank God he had dragged her here with him or he would have been alone, for the rest of... his life? Eternity? He already witnessed eternity nineteen times. Was there even an expiration date for their lives anymore?

But... this couldn’t be fair. He hadn’t meant to break time and force this upon them, and especially not her. Anyone but her. This was all his fault. His tampering with time, trying to create a machine that could shatter and turn back the clock, so he could be given a second chance.

No, so he could prove he could be as smart as any Piltie. 

...No. To prove that his existence meant something.

And now his existence was here and he had dragged her along with him, into the unknown. Something she shouldn’t have to face. She deserved the blissful, ignorant existence, the freedom to live, even if it seemed so insignificant.

This place was nothing more than a glorified prison.