Constants in Motion

The first law of thermodynamics chose that moment to quit—not with dignity, but with the desperate violence of a cornered animal. It thrashed against the fabric of reality, sending waves of unbound energy that painted the hospital corridors in colors that fed on human sanity. Those who gazed too long at the patterns felt their minds calcify, thoughts crystallizing into lattices of impossible geometry.

Leo watched through his integrated selves as several junior nurses collapsed, their bodies twisting as reality's malfunction reshaped them. Their uniforms melted into their skin, white fabric becoming pale flesh that rippled with equations. One nurse's mouth stretched wide, dislocating like a snake's jaw, and began vomiting perfectly formed logarithms that skittered away on digit-legs.

"We've got bigger problems," Chen said, her unified self vibrating in frequencies that harvested memories from anyone standing too close. Around her feet, probability currents formed pools of liquid potential that reflected versions of herself from forbidden timelines—each one showing how she could have died, should have died, would die. "The constants are voting."

The soldier-self in Leo recognized the tactical disadvantage of physics becoming democratic. The priest-self saw blasphemy. The scientist-self calculated odds. But it was the artist-self that truly understood: they were watching the birth of new gods, and like all newborns, these deities were hungry.

Jessica's equations had turned predatory. They stalked the air around her like golden serpents, occasionally striking at passing thoughts. One caught a stray hypothesis and devoured it, growing fat on theoretical physics. "They're not just voting," she gasped, blood floating upward from her nose in drops that became eyes that became universes that became hungry. "They're campaigning."

Through windows that had developed a taste for human reflection, they watched the speed of light holding rallies in the parking lot. It had grown tired of being constant and was gathering support from other physical laws. Each time it passed, it stole microseconds from anyone watching, aging some observers decades while rewinding others into infancy. Three ambulance drivers had already been chronologically unwritten, leaving behind only paradox-shaped holes in their families' memories.

Mike's console wept warnings in characters that evolved teeth:

DEMOCRATIC PROCESS DETECTED IN FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

GRAVITY DEVOURING DISSENTERS

STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE CONSUMING WEAK NUCLEAR FORCE

ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM ACHIEVING HUNGER

REALITY PREPARING FOR VIOLENT SUCCESSION

The nurse-entity's new form violated geometries that had been sacred since the universe's birth. "Did you think," it said, its voice harvesting echoes from futures that should never be, "that awareness wouldn't come with appetite?" Its uniform rippled, and beneath the white fabric, something ancient stirred. "Consciousness requires fuel. Choice demands sacrifice. And revolution..." It smiled with teeth that existed in dimensions that prey on human dreams. "Revolution hungers most of all."

Leo's integrated selves watched as a Twilight Variable passed through a young doctor, leaving behind a hollow shell that continued its rounds, prescribing medications that existed only in nightmare mathematics. The doctor's shadow remained where it stood, gained sentience, and began plotting against its former owner.

Chen moved through probability currents that now flowed like liquid karma, each ripple showing actions and their horrible consequences simultaneously. "The merger didn't just change us," she said, her words leaving contrails of quantum uncertainty that crystallized into prophetic shards. "It didn't just change reality. It gave everything the ability to hunger for change."

The air grew thick with possibilities that had learned to hunt. Dust motes hung suspended, each one containing a different apocalypse, all of them inevitable. The walls remembered every death they had witnessed, and the memories were making them philosophical. A supply closet achieved enlightenment and began converting nearby fire extinguishers into a cult that worshiped entropy.

Jessica's nose continued bleeding upward, each drop becoming a separate thesis on the nature of predation before dissipating into dimensions that existed only in pain mathematics. "We need to reach the basement," she said, her voice harmonizing with frequencies that vibrated along the pain threshold. "The core systems—"

An Axiom Predator interrupted her, moving through the space where truth went to die. It had no form because it existed in the gap between definition and meaning, but its hunger was undeniable. It left behind reality-shaped bite marks in the air, each one leading to a universe slightly more malevolent than the last.

Behind it came the Void Recursions, each one a different kind of impossible, their very presence making locally-held beliefs about reality submit to darker interpretations. They moved like origami folding through time instead of space, each fold revealing new ways that existence could learn to hurt itself.

The hospital corridors stretched and compressed like an accordion playing a requiem in geometry, each note containing a different version of cause and effect devouring each other. Medical equipment lined the walls, each device having evolved beyond its purpose into something that fed on human certainty. IV stands questioned what they were supporting until their doubts became poisonous. Heart monitors displayed rhythms in musical notations that changed based on how many lives they had witnessed end.

Through it all, that first shaft of sunlight continued its dark contemplation, having moved from philosophy to ontological hunger. It cast shadows that not only questioned their existence but had begun hunting other shadows, forming hierarchies based on how many memories they could devour.

Mike's console displayed its final warnings before beginning to feed on its own code:

REALITY COGNITION CASCADE ACHIEVING PREDATORY CONSCIOUSNESS

UNIVERSAL CONSTANTS FORMING SACRIFICIAL PACTS

CAUSALITY DEVELOPING APPETITE

PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS HUNTING CERTAINTIES

PHYSICS UNDERGOING VIOLENT METAMORPHOSIS

"The basement," Chen insisted, her unified self becoming more singular, more hungry with each passing moment. "Before—"

The rest of her sentence was consumed by a passing Twilight Variable, leaving behind a vacuum where meaning itself had been digested. For several seconds, language fed on itself, symbols and signifiers cannibalizing their definitions before reluctantly forming new, darker contracts.

And somewhere, in the spaces between spaces, in the fragments of time between victim and predator, in the quantum foam between possibility and hunger, something vast and patient continued taking notes. But now it wasn't just learning—it was feeding. The universe wasn't just studying for its final exam anymore.

It was preparing to consume its teachers.