Death of a Universe (or Postcards From the Edge of the Cosmos)

Imagine you’ve been waiting all your life for signs of life–a message from another civilization–and when you finally get it, it’s a message of doom.

“The universe is dead. Death is coming upon you.” That was the message we got.

Apparently the universe died long time ago. We just haven’t realized it yet.

We learnt this one day while we were listening for alien messages. At first we were so excited. Finally! The proof we’ve always been looking for: Life in another part of the universe! But soon the truth came out. The home galaxy of these unknown aliens was collapsing on itself. It wasn’t dying. It was disappearing.

The alien message explained it all. What dark matter was and how it had been literally eating the universe around us. That the galaxy we were looking at had been devoured more than 10 billion years ago. And that the whole cosmos was been consumed all around us.

The sky was getting darker. Our new friends were long dead. And soon so would we.