Nameless objects, black as night, were moving around him. They stroked at this fragile container like the hands of a huge parent.
He felt no threat. There was a sense of reassurance, of welcome, in their gestures.
I was meant to be here, he realized abruptly. Allel was right: the world is freezing by design. It spat me out, and these creatures have been waiting for me.
The half-dozen shapes now drew away from his box and gathered together in a great blur transiting the stars. They moved past and through each other, ever faster, weaving themselves into a tight knot of darkness—
—and then, in a sprinkle of prismatic light, they shot away to... somewhere else.
They'd finished with the Universe, abandoned it. But they'd left something behind.
It was a ship. It nuzzled against his box, a great shell big enough to hold his village and a hundred more. The Universe would be his.
-Vacuum Diagrams, "The Eighth Room"