Dr. Entropy Finalis watched the universe end through a cup of coffee that would never finish cooling.
The readings were unambiguous. After decades of warnings from theoretical physicists, it had finally happened—somewhere in the Boötes Supervoid, a quantum field had tunneled to a lower energy state. The bubble of true vacuum was expanding at the speed of light, devouring reality itself, replacing the physics that allowed matter and energy to exist with something fundamentally incompatible with structure.
"How long?" asked her colleague, Dr. Cosmos Lastlight, though they both knew the answer.
"Seven hours until it reaches Earth," Entropy replied, her voice steady despite the magnitude of what she was saying. "Give or take a few minutes depending on local spacetime curvature."
Around them, the Existential Observatory hummed with activity as scientists worldwide connected to witness the end of everything. There was no panic—what was the point? You couldn't outrun the speed of light. You couldn't hide from the fundamental restructuring of reality itself.
"It's beautiful, in a way," said Dr. Nova Termina, the Observatory's director, gazing at the false-color images of the advancing wall of nothing. "The universe is transitioning to its true ground state. We've been living in a metastable false vacuum for 13.8 billion years, and now the bill comes due."
Entropy had spent her career studying vacuum decay, the theoretical doomsday scenario that made all other existential threats seem quaint. Now, watching it unfold in real-time, she felt an odd mixture of vindication and cosmic vertigo. Everything—every atom, every thought, every possibility—would simply cease to be when the bubble reached them.
"Should we tell them?" Cosmos gestured toward the world beyond their mountain sanctuary. "The general population?"
"The governments are deciding that now," Nova said. "Though what difference does it make? You can't prepare for nonexistence."
They watched the data streams as the bubble consumed galaxy after galaxy. The light from those deaths wouldn't reach Earth for millions of years, but the gravitational waves told the story in real-time. Entire civilizations, countless worlds, infinite stories—all edited out of existence as if they'd never been.
"I've been thinking," Entropy said, surprising herself with the calmness of her voice. "About what this means philosophically. If the universe can simply... stop... then what was the point?"
"Maybe that is the point," offered Dr. Quark Epilogue, who'd been quietly calculating at his workstation. "A universe that can end is a universe where things matter precisely because they're temporary. Every moment becomes infinitely precious when moments are finite."
The hours passed strangely. Some scientists frantically collected final data, determined to learn everything possible before learning became impossible. Others sat in quiet contemplation. A few played cards. Dr. Photon Sunset had brought out a violin and was playing Bach—notes that would never finish resonating before space itself forgot how to carry waves.
"You know what's strange?" Cosmos said as the fourth hour passed. "I'm not afraid. I thought I would be, but... it's like watching the tide come in. Natural. Inevitable."
Entropy nodded. She'd expected terror, rage, desperate bargaining with uncaring physics. Instead, there was a peculiar peace in knowing that this wasn't personal. The universe wasn't ending because of anything humanity had done. It was simply the nature of false vacuums to eventually collapse.
"The bubble has reached Andromeda," Nova announced. "Two hours remaining."
They opened the observatory dome, looking up at stars that didn't know they were already dead. The night sky appeared normal—it would until the very end. The true vacuum bubble was invisible until it arrived, reality looking perfectly normal right up until it wasn't.
"I've been married for thirty years," Quark said suddenly. "My husband thinks I'm at a conference. Should I call him?"
"What would you say?" Photon asked gently. "'Darling, the universe is ending in ninety minutes'?"
"Maybe just 'I love you,'" Quark replied.
One by one, the scientists made their calls. Not explanations—those were impossible—but simple connections. Final words that weren't acknowledged as final. Love expressed while expression was still possible.
Entropy called her daughter, a struggling artist in New York. "Mom, it's 3 AM," her daughter complained sleepily.
"I know, sweetheart. I just wanted to hear your voice. To tell you I'm proud of you."
"Are you okay? You sound weird."
"I'm perfect," Entropy said, and meant it. "Go back to sleep. Dream something beautiful."
The final hour arrived with the bubble reaching the edge of the solar system. The outer planets vanished from gravitational detection—not destroyed, but edited out of existence so thoroughly that they had never been.
"Sixty minutes," Nova announced unnecessarily. They could all read the displays.
The observatory fell silent except for Photon's violin. He'd switched to something original—a composition that would never be finished, never be remembered, but was hauntingly beautiful in its incompleteness.
"What do you think it will feel like?" Cosmos asked. "The transition?"
"We won't feel it," Entropy said. "One moment we'll exist, the next we won't. No pain, no experience. Just... not."
"The ultimate mercy," Quark added. "A universe kind enough to end painlessly."
They watched Jupiter disappear from existence. Then Mars. The Moon. Each cessation marked by gravitational sensors that would themselves cease moments later.
"Ten seconds," Nova said.
Entropy looked around the room at her colleagues, her friends, fellow witnesses to the end of everything. She thought about all the papers she'd never write, the grandchildren she'd never meet, the heat death of the universe they'd now never see.
She thought about coffee that would never finish cooling.
"Five seconds."
Photon's violin sang its last notes. Cosmos reached for Quark's hand. Nova smiled at something only she could see.
"It was a good universe," Entropy said.
"The best," someone agreed.
The bubble arrived at precisely the calculated time, punctual as physics itself. Between one nanosecond and the next, the false vacuum collapsed to true. The laws that permitted atoms ceased. The forces that allowed thought ended. Space itself forgot how to exist.
Dr. Entropy Finalis had a final moment of cosmic clarity—understanding that existence itself had been a gift, a temporary arrangement of quantum fields that had somehow produced love and loss, Bach and heartbreak, curiosity and contentment. For 13.8 billion years, the universe had been a vast, beautiful mistake.
And then, with neither bang nor whimper, it wasn't.
In the true vacuum that remained, there was no space, no time, no matter, no energy. No record that anything had ever been different. The quantum fields rested in their genuine ground state, perfectly stable, perfectly sterile, perfectly eternal.
Where once a universe had thrived, now there was only the peace of absolute nothing—not empty space, but the absence of space itself. Not darkness, but the impossibility of light. Not silence, but the non-existence of sound.
The experiment was over. The fluctuation had been corrected. And in that perfect, terrible stillness, nothing remembered that everything had once danced.