They found him the wrong way.
Not through hunger.
Not through absence.
Not through unanswered questions.
They found him through fear.
The civilization of Kharavel was dying—not from war, not from collapse, but from knowledge acquired too quickly.
They had entered the Age Without Safeguards unprepared.
Their scientists had pierced layers of reality once buffered by optimization. Their philosophers had unearthed contradictions that shattered belief systems overnight. Their leaders tried to stabilize what could no longer be made consistent.
Every answer produced three more questions.
Every solution opened a deeper wound.
And someone remembered an old pattern.
A rumor without origin.
An anomaly that once stood between meaning and madness.
---
They built a signal.
Not technological.
Not metaphysical.
Narrative.
They constructed a myth—deliberately incomplete—designed to attract whatever had once been removed from relevance.
A story about an eternal observer.
A watcher who asked so others could endure the answers.
They did not know his name.
But the shape was close enough.
---
Aethon felt it like a weight placed gently against his awareness.
Seris noticed immediately.
"That's not hunger," they said.
"That's desperation."
"Yes," Aethon replied.
He did not turn toward it.
---
On Kharavel, the signal intensified.
Their skies darkened—not physically, but symbolically. Public discourse collapsed into apocalyptic expectation. Entire populations waited—not for salvation, but permission to stop thinking.
Aethon watched.
And did nothing.
---
"They're asking for you," Seris said, voice tight.
"They believe you can stabilize them."
"They believe incorrectly," Aethon replied.
"But you could," Seris insisted.
"You've done less for more."
Aethon finally looked toward Kharavel.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"And that is why I won't."
---
The Pre-Causal Structures observed the signal with alarm.
This was not curiosity.
This was dependency formation.
If Aethon responded, the Age Without Safeguards would end—not by force, but by surrender.
> Intervention probability rising,
one Structure calculated.
> Observer response pending,
another noted.
They waited.
So did the universe.
---
On Kharavel, panic became ritual.
Children were taught the incomplete myth.
Adults spoke his absence like a prayer.
Scholars abandoned inquiry, choosing hope over understanding.
They stopped asking why.
They only asked when.
---
Seris clenched their hands.
"This is cruel," they said.
"They're breaking."
"Yes," Aethon replied.
"And they will either rebuild… or remain broken."
He did not say with or without me.
He did not need to.
---
Aethon remembered another civilization.
Long before containment.
Before erasure.
Before the universe learned fear.
A species that had begged him to answer questions they were not ready to live with.
He had answered then.
They had worshiped him.
And they had stopped becoming anything else.
---
"I am not a safeguard," Aethon said softly.
"I am what exists when safeguards fail."
Seris looked away.
---
The signal from Kharavel reached its peak.
For a brief moment, their myth became so coherent that it almost counted as belief.
Almost.
Aethon felt the pull.
And severed it.
Not violently.
Not deliberately.
He simply did not respond.
---
On Kharavel, something shattered.
Not infrastructure.
Expectation.
The sky did not open.
The anomaly did not arrive.
The watcher did not answer.
Riots broke out.
Faith systems imploded.
Several cities destroyed themselves trying to force meaning into existence.
The universe did not intervene.
Neither did Aethon.
---
The Pre-Causal Structures recorded the outcome.
> Observer non-response logged.
Civilization stability: critical.
One Structure hesitated.
> Was this… optimal?
No answer followed.
---
Seris finally spoke again.
"They'll curse you."
"Yes," Aethon agreed.
"They'll die."
"Some of them."
"They needed you."
Aethon closed his eyes.
"No," he said.
"They wanted relief."
---
Time passed.
Pain did its work.
Kharavel did not end.
It thinned.
The ones who survived were not the most devout, nor the most brilliant.
They were the ones who abandoned the myth.
Who accepted that no one was coming.
And began asking smaller questions.
Answerable ones.
---
Generations later, Kharavel stabilized.
Weaker.
Slower.
Less certain.
But autonomous.
They never forgot the story of the watcher.
But it became a warning, not a hope.
---
Seris watched the outcome settle.
"You changed the rules," they said.
"No," Aethon replied.
"I obeyed them."
---
Far beyond, the Pre-Causal Structures updated their internal models.
Aethon was not a solution.
He was not a tool.
He was not reliable.
That made him safe.
And dangerous.
---
Seris turned to him.
"How many more will ask?"
"Many," Aethon said.
"And I will refuse most of them."
"Then why do you stay?"
Aethon looked out at the unprotected stars.
"Because one day," he said,
"someone will ask not for answers… but for permission to keep questioning."
He paused.
"That," he added,
"I will not refuse."
---
Somewhere, far away, a civilization began to collapse—
Not from fear.
From curiosity pursued too recklessly.
And another, quieter one, began to grow—
Not fast.
But honestly.
Aethon felt both.
And remained still.
---
The Age Without Safeguards continued.
Not kinder.
Not fairer.
But real.
---