>>408
You try to put aside the sight of the ground flying by beneath you and the sound of the wind in your ears, and concentrate on what is to be done now. And yet - damn it all! - you simply cannot get that song out of your head. Indeed, the thought of punching the very idea of luck in an ambiguously vulgar manner appeals to you personally quite well, considering how fate has treated you recently.
You sing those three lines to yourself, thinking all along how much of a better singer you are than those two amateurs. Alexei hears you and smirks to himself.
>>409
The trees, the hills, the water, the sky, and the buildings - even inanimate objects like these would make better singers than that disastrous duet. Your spite and stubbornness coalesce into a cast iron mass of will. You shall do nothing until your inorganic choir sings for you the entirety of Title, one of the most challenging pieces any chorus could face.
You land by the white building uneventfully. Your companions come and go, but you pay them no mind. Hours pass. The sun sets, and you are left simply standing there in the dark, staring up at the ridge. You try to contrive the sound of the wind in the leaves into the opening line "A long, long time ago I can still remember..." but it simply isn't there.
Days pass. The sun rises, then sets, rises, sets, and so on. Sunshine, rain, hail all fall upon you unnoticed. Still, the hills will not sing for you.
Weeks pass. Animals come and go from the forest. Plants emerge from the ground and reclaim the manmade structures nearby. Still, the hills will not sing for you.
Years pass. Seedlings grow into saplings, become trees, flower, bear fruit, fall to the ground and rot away before your eyes. The wind and rain slowly wear down everything that doesn't grow back. Still, the hills will not sing for you.
Millennia pass. Occasionally the valley is swept clean by glaciers as ice ages come and go. The forests expand and retreat with the climate, a breaking wave of greenery. Newly evolved creatures you do not recognise become the norm, constantly being replaced by creatures less familiar still. The river changes path, and the ridge changes shape. Still, the hills will not sing for you.
Time passes. The sun turns red and expands into a bloated mass filling half the sky. Nothing is left but empty rocks and empty sky and you. The sun, once so bright and warm, quietly dies and shrivels up. The stars in the sky continue to burst into and out of life, until, eventually, none are left. The trees, the hills, everything has long turned to ash and dust and blown away in the wind - and then the wind, the water, the sky have silently ceased to be. You are alone, perfectly alone, in the eternal darkness. The universe has ended without you.
You feel something shake your shoulder. It has been so long since you felt anything that the sensation is a shock to you, and you aren't quite sure how to respond. The shaking comes again, and a voice - one you could swear you've heard before, though the memory has died just like everything else - calls out a word, over and over again. Eventually you realise it is your name.
You wake up. The sunlight is blinding. Ariadne is standing before you, saying "Wake up, sleepyhead! We're here. Looks like you must've fallen asleep on the way." With great effort, you get to your feet and look around.
You are standing in a grassy clearing. To the west is an abnormally immaculate white building. There are no windows, but there is a closed door. To the north is a crater, about three metres in diameter. It appears recent. You can find no other signs of battle, but there are one or two burnt scraps of paper stuck in the nearby foliage. Further to the north is a large radar dish, slowly being choked by vines. To the southwest, hidden in the trees, is that metal structure you saw earlier. It is probably one or two hundred metres away.
Aaron and Alexei appear to be preparing to leave again. Ariadne is wandering over towards the door of the building, about to knock.