February 6
The End of a World

Prompt: a eulogy for an idea or inanimate object

One by one I watched, not as people took their seats but as usernames logged on. Some that I had not seen in years, others who I’d been planning with just weeks ago. I looked at the clock, 5 minutes past our declared start time which was about right for our group. With a deep breath I unmuted my mic.

Today we have all come together to recognize the end of something bigger than ourselves. We sit, stand, while driving, while working, while eating. Taking time to come together some for the first time, others for what must be the hundredth time in the presence of a world that would not have existed without the pieces, the tidbits, the lore, and most importantly the characters each and every one of us wrote. Primary, secondary, tertiary, NPC, and Antagonist. Over the time of this world we united mythos, unraveled conspiracies, designed missions and took on the role of Gods, monsters, heroes, the factors of time and seasons themselves. 

Starting with only five, each with their own plan, own arcs, on powers and ideals. Growing to near 40 named protagonist, and countless unnamed npcs the story touched on love, and trauma, growth and death. The world we built let us take on our fears from the dark, to loss. It allowed us to explore our passions like music and bartending. We came together to take on beings so fantastical that part of the adventure was the real world lore research to make the story compelling. Wendigos, Dragons, Krampus and actual forces of nature, stood against the likes of demi-gods, vampires, soldiers, and mechanics. 

Each character and arc was not just about the fight scene, the blood and gore, but about the learning, the development, and the consequences of each and every post made by any writer. An off hand comment made in 2019 coming back as core to an arc in 2022. An NPC contact used by one character included as neigh a footnote in an after action report becoming the one person who could get us out of a corner we hadn’t realized as a group we had written ourselves into.

The server itself lived, it breathed with not just every story post, but every shared meme, and selfie brought not just our characters together but brought us as writers together. Some of us who couldn’t get a single post out without a spelling mistake, writing their goodbye with pristine punctuation. Others who the server brought together in bond not just in writing but in the world itself. Some members of this family can not be here today or choose not to, as with all families you don’t go as long as we did without some drama but that does not minimize the impact they had on our lives. Even for those who did not write with them directly, the world you came to know would not have been the same without their involvement. 

The story meant to be told within the bounds of this server has come to its end, but it’s legacy will never die. For a person it has been said that you have two deaths, when you are in the grave and the last time your named. For a world like this, for a server and community like this, the first death is today when channels are locked and all thats left is to re-read the stories told. The second death will not come till the last person inspired by the story quits writing. That does not mean just those of us who actively wrote in the world, but those we told pieces of, those who joined servers that descended from the ideas of the writers of this fictional world. 

Every story I tell from now on will always be slightly different, slightly better, slightly inspired by the world we built, the stories that supported it, and the individual post which made it all possible. 

2025 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 6 - Writer's Digest