The last report was dated October 17, 2035. At least, that's what it said in the timestamp. But, Dr. Helena Voss was no longer sure what time even meant.

She sat at her desk in the dimly lit control room of the Foundation’s deepest archives. A place that hadn't been accessed by anyone in decades, maybe centuries, or longer. The screens before her blinked with lines of corrupted data, some recognizable, others utterly alien. There were no staff, no researchers, no alarms. Just silence.

The Foundation had stopped its operations years ago. No one could remember why. All the anomalies they once contained were now gone, erased as though they'd never existed at all. Not in the universe, not in anyone's mind. They were simply… not there.

And yet, Dr. Voss had remained. She had always been the last to leave, the last to give up, until the day that something had gone wrong — something irreversible. Perhaps, it was that moment in 2029 when the world simply… stopped. The clocks had ceased ticking. The satellites stopped broadcasting. People stopped waking up, and the cities stopped growing. But the anomalies? They lingered.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, frozen in a kind of quiet disbelief. What was left to record? There was no one left to document it for. The global communications grid had been reduced to static years ago, with no trace of external life. It was as if the world itself had been carefully edited out of existence.

But still, she worked.

A soft buzz emitted from her terminal. A new entry had appeared in the system. No one should have been able to access these records. The archives were supposed to be locked—forever.

With shaking hands, she opened the file.

It was titled "SCP-5000-A: The End of the Foundation."

The entry was brief, consisting only of a single sentence:

"The Foundation was created to prevent the end of everything, but it was always destined to be the last thing to disappear."

Dr. Voss exhaled sharply. A terrible understanding washed over her. She was the last part of the Foundation that remained — the last shred of what had once been. The Foundation’s ultimate goal had always been to preserve humanity, to prevent an existential collapse. But it was all a lie. They hadn’t been fighting to stop the end. They were fighting to delay it. To keep the universe running long enough to make the end less noticeable.

And now, there was no one to fight for.

She closed the file, but the room felt colder. She looked around at the empty corridors stretching infinitely beyond the control room, at the forgotten cells and storage lockers that once held the Foundation’s most dangerous anomalies. Nothing moved. Not a single sound broke the silence, save for the occasional flicker of a malfunctioning light or the hum of the old systems.

The archives had been kept secure for centuries, but in the end, it hadn't mattered. They had preserved information, but not life. All that was left now was the knowledge of failure.

Dr. Voss stood up from her chair and walked slowly to the far side of the room. On the wall hung a faded banner, emblazoned with the words, "Secure. Contain. Protect." She reached out and traced the letters with her fingertips.

It was a lie, she thought. A comforting lie, to make them think they could hold back the inevitable.

She took a final glance at the terminal. The screen was now blank.

The world outside was silent. Nothing moved. Not the wind. Not the stars. Not even the remnants of the once-vibrant cities. It was a stillness so deep, so profound, it felt as though everything that had ever existed was merely a dream fading from memory.

Dr. Voss sighed, her breath leaving her in a long, hollow exhale. She reached for the control panel, knowing it would do nothing. But she pressed the button anyway, for closure.

A soft chime echoed, followed by a voice — a voice she had not heard in what felt like eternity. It was clear, crisp, and human. She turned, startled, but the room was still empty.

“The Foundation is no more. It was never meant to survive. All things must end.”

The lights flickered out, one by one. The last sound she heard was the soft click of the door shutting behind her.

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