Page 228 of The End of the World As We Know It
Next thing he knows, he’s outside in the moonlight. Running through the park. The trees, the natural splendor, all of it bucking and churning, glistening with the recent rain, spotlit by a giant moon that’s almost as bright as the sun.
“No,” he keeps repeating. “No, no, no. Stop this!”
A door, he understands with sudden and horrible clarity.That’s my only way out of here. There must be a door formesomewhere, too. Otherwise—
A massive line of trees snaps and buckles. Fall into what appears to be a widening mouth in the ground somewhere behind him.
“NO!” he shouts, running deeper into the park. Uphill. Using other trees to propel him as fast as he can move through darkness and unsteady terrain.
Hard to breathe. Throat tight and swollen. He has to spit to keep his mouth from filling up with salty mucous.
And that mystery noise. So loud out here in the parklands. Soloud he can make out defining details within it. Beeping. Wheezing. So loud he can finally hear where it’s coming from.
It’s coming from the moon. That awful, unnaturally bright moon.
At last, he comes upon a granite cliffside. He scrambles up as high as he can, shirt pulling out of his pants, clothes smearing with mud, until he finds a stable-feeling nook that can hold him.
He looks down at the parklands.
About two football fields away, there’s a jagged slash running through all he can see. On the opposite side of that slash…
He gasps, horrified.
Nothing.
No trees. No earth. No stars. Unquestionable, capital-NNothingness. Pure. Awful in its lack. Reverent in its completeness.
Just the night, that’s all! It’s just dark over there! I’ve survived. I’VE SURVIVED.
“Why exactly are you running?”
His head whips up and to the right.
Tom Bombadil—the not–Tom Bombadil—sits astride a fly the size of a Shetland pony hovering in the night air. Its wings whir. Its many eyes observe Ezra with disinterest. Ezra notices its round, loathsome body is covered in black crow feathers. Tom strokes the fly’s head.
“I told you,” Bombadil continues. “You can’t fight this. It’s beyond your control and you’re just making it harder on yourself. There’s been a revision. A rewrite. You simply didn’t make the cut. It’s nothing personal.”
“None of that makes any sense!” Ezra is gasping. “This isn’t right!”
“Look up at the moon if you really want answers, friend.”
Those excruciating noises. Beeping. Coughing. Screaming. Wailing.
Ezra makes sure tonotlook. He keeps his eyes on Tom. Awful Tom. His yellow trench coat like a smear of irradiated French’s mustard against the night.
“Where’s my door?” Ezra moans. “Please?! Don’t I get one, too?”
“Not everyone gets a door. Not everyone’s canonical.”
The sky begins to change colors. Checkerboard patterns of bright, impossible neon.
Down below, untouched by the bright, the splintering, shattering Nothingness creeps closer.
Bombadil continues, arms spreading wide.
“Not every tower stands! Most crumble unnoticed! There’s no shame in being erased! There’s no shame in being Another Corpse! Anonymous Creation! Accidental Character!”
The earth bucks harder and harder. Rocks separate from their granite perch and skitter down the cliff.
