A/N: Thanks to Shadow Wasserson for editing help.

Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck

Rose sat alone in the dark. Distance from her aspect dimmed her visions, but the shape of the future was already seared into her brain. For so long she had searched through the possible futures, trying to find a path to victory, something, anything that she could do to avert the looming darkness. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found.

For the past year, Rose had seen the world destroyed again and again. Sometimes Jack caught up with them and obliterated the asteroid and its inhabitants before they could even reach their destination. It was, admittedly, an unlikely outcome, but a possibility nonetheless. In some, they met their end at the hands of challenges found in the new session. In many futures they found a plan or a weapon or an army to face Lord English with, but every time the plan failed, the weapon was useless and the army fell apart in the face of the demon. And every time Rose watched as he murdered them. The trolls, John, Dave, Kanaya, herself. Such was the fate of those whose enemy was strengthened by the very forces of inevitability themselves. Sometimes, they fled to their new universe, but it was never long before the demon arrived and obliterated all that it ever was past, present and future. After all her searching, Rose had found but one way to survive- surrender. An eternity of wretched servitude, to watch helplessly as the Lord of Time devoured the crumbling pillars of reality and slaughtered all who had ever lived there. That was perhaps the most horrifying fate of all.

Rose's foreknowledge had made her life a waking nightmare. Her friends' smiles brought forth ghastly images of their demise and their laughter seemed only to echo the demon's screeching cries. Her fellows sang and ate and argued playfully with one another, and Rose longed to join them, but her knowledge weighed heavily upon her and drained the levity from her spirit. And yet she tried for their sake. She worked on plans for the coming trials. She built monuments out of cans. She exchanged quips with Dave. She put on a show of normalcy so that they might live these last few months in peace, unburdened by the future. Fate would catch up to them soon enough anyway.

Only Kanaya seemed to catch glimpses of the darkness hidden behind Rose's face. Rose knew that her matesprit worried and yet was too polite to say anything about it. Rose could hardly stand the anguish that she caused her lover, but neither could she afford to give up the one thing that gave her any happiness in these last months.

The visions were returning. It was too much. Tomorrow she would try again. Play her part in this tragedy. Put on a show for the rest and preserve their innocence for one more day. Try to come to terms with her coming end. Revise her plans. She told herself that perhaps she would finally find a way out, a course around the looming disaster, but could not make herself believe that this would happen. Yes, tomorrow she would somehow make it through another day, but for now she had not the strength to fight. And so she sat alone in the bowels of the asteroid, raised the bottle to her lips, and took another drink.