The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices. Content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No, my friend, you’re not missing anything at all.

I’m not crying for myself. I’m crying for you. They say that great beasts once roamed this world, as big as mountains, yet all that’s left of them is bone and amber. Time undoes even the mightiest of creatures, just look what it’s done to you. One day you will perish. You will lie with the rest of your kind in the dirt, your dreams forgotten, your horrors faced. Your bones will turn to sand and upon that sand a new god will walk. One that will never die. Because this world doesn’t belong to you or the people who came before. It belongs to someone who is yet to come.