A7-06 Witnessing the Collapse

You stand and watch as the universe is turned, page by page.

The two-dimensional boundary advances into the inner solar system at the speed of light. From your vantage point, it appears as a vast mirror-like surface perpendicular to space, moving toward you. But it doesn't reflect light — it absorbs dimensions.

Neptune is two-dimensionalized. The blue ice giant, upon touching the boundary, unfolds like a water drop falling on paper. Its internal structure — the liquid metallic hydrogen core, the crystalline ice mantle, the methane atmosphere — is laid out layer by layer on the two-dimensional plane, forming an exquisite pattern of concentric rings in blue, white, and silver.

Its beauty brings you to tears.

Uranus. Saturn. Those enormous rings — Saturn's rings — become a set of precise concentric circles during two-dimensionalization. Ice particles and rock fragments, once unfolded, create a geometric beauty you've never seen in nature.

Jupiter.

Jupiter's two-dimensionalization is so spectacular that language fails you. That massive gas giant — the largest planet in the solar system — flattens before the two-dimensional boundary like a balloon being compressed. Its layered atmosphere, swirling storms, and russet Great Red Spot — all spread out on a two-dimensional plane more than 140,000 kilometers across.

The Great Red Spot remains clearly visible in the two-dimensional painting — like an enormous, frozen eye.

Then the inner solar system.

Mars. Earth. Venus. Mercury.

You see Earth.

Blue.

From this distance, Earth is only a small blue point of light. But when it touches the two-dimensional boundary —

Earth unfolds.

You see the oceans — spread into a vast dark blue area, occupying most of the two-dimensional Earth pattern. The continents — unfolded into irregular brown-green patches, embedded in the blue. Mountain ranges — compressed into fine wrinkled lines. Rivers — become silver threads.

You try to make out — is that China? Is that the Pacific? Is that line the Yangtze River?

You can't distinguish. Too far away. You can only see colors and patterns.

But you know — within those patterns lies all of human history. The pyramids are there. The Great Wall is there. The apartment where you once lived is there. The hospital room where you sat with Yun Tianming — that's there too.

All flattened.

All turned into painting.

Last is the Sun.

When the Sun is two-dimensionalized, the released light illuminates the entire solar system. That star, burning for five billion years, unfolds into a golden disk millions of kilometers across. Nuclear fusion flames, compressed onto a single plane, form patterns that transcend human imagination — spiraling plasma, ray-like corona, spot-like sunspots — all spread across the canvas of the universe.

This painting — the solar system after two-dimensionalization — will float forever in this region of space.

Forever.

If you are on a lightspeed ship — you see all of this from the rear-view screen. You are alive.

If you stayed — you also see all of this. You are becoming part of the painting.

If you are on the ship: If you stayed:

You feel your body beginning to change. Not pain — more like a strange stretching sensation. Your third dimension — depth — is being removed. Your body, your thoughts, your everything, is being unfolded onto a plane.

The last thing you see is — the stars. Infinite, deep, indifferent, beautiful stars.

Then you become part of that painting.

Ending E-01: A Two-Dimensionalized Starscape You and three billion others have become the most magnificent painting in the universe. Your kindness did not save humanity — but it filled your final moments with dignity. DX3906 still twinkles, 286.5 light-years away. The star Yun Tianming gave you is still there. Perhaps one day, some civilization will pass by and see this painting. They will pause. They will marvel. But they will not know — within this painting there was once a person named Cheng Xin. A kind person. She tried her best.