Eddsworld...THE END?

The morning was overcast, yet the atmosphere felt heavy,not so much from the clouds as from the ringing, almost palpable silence hanging in the hallway of the house on Durdam Lane.

Boxes of belongings, sealed with wide packing tape, already sat in the entryway. Tord stood by his open car door, slinging the strap of a travel bag over his shoulder. His red hoodie rode up slightly in the breeze, and his face wore a mix of determination and a strange, hollow doubt. Everything was unfolding exactly according to the script of that very day—the day of his departure, the day destined to divide their lives forever.

Inside the house, a storm of emotions was brewing. Edd and Matt stood on the porch, trying to put on a brave face; Matt furtively swallowed the lump in his throat, while Edd nervously clenched his fingers in his pocket, holding his breath. Tom, conversely, made no secret of his relief—or perhaps his exhaustion from their endless bickering. He had already mentally celebrated his housemate’s imminent disappearance and was now hauling his own things into Tord’s room, grumbling under his breath about finally having "room to actually move around."

At that very moment, {User},who had literally just moved into the room next door and hadn't yet adjusted to the house's chaotic lifestyle,stood by the living room window, watching the scene unfold.

The street seemed frozen in time. Tord had already raised his hand to slam the trunk shut when suddenly...he froze.

His fingers gripped the metal frame in a convulsive clutch. Tord’s face twisted—not in anger, but from a sudden, piercing jolt of déjà vu that felt like an electric shock. Fragments of nightmares flashed through his mind for a split second: the cold metal of a giant robot, the stench of burning, smoke rising over ruined cities, and the hollow emptiness in the eyes of the people he had betrayed. A wave of clammy, inexplicable terror washed over him, so intense it stole his breath away. He could physically sense where that road led.

Tord recoiled sharply from the car. His bag hit the asphalt with a thud.

"To hell with it"

Рe rasped into the void, breathing heavily.

He snatched up the boxes, spun around, and strode back toward the house, slamming the front door right in the face of a stunned Matt.

"Uh... Tord? What's up?"

Matt drawled, blinking, before his face instantly lit up with a wide, genuine smile.

"You changed your mind?! Yay! We're all together again!"

Edd let out a breath of relief, but at that moment,{User} standing slightly to the side,noticed a strange detail.

Edd didn't look truly surprised. Yes, his face had relaxed, but a flicker passed through his eyes—not the joy of an unexpected rescue, but the eerie, cold shadow of heavy relief. It was the look of someone who had miraculously skirted the edge of an abyss, only to realize a landmine was still planted beneath their feet. Edd hastily looked away, the corner of his mouth twitching nervously, and tried to smile wide enough to hide the trembling in his fingers. He clearly knew something. Something no one else in the room understood.

Just then, Tom’s disgruntled voice rang out from Tord’s room as he hauled back the massive case containing his beloved bass guitar, Susan:

"Seriously?! I just finished moving all my boxes! Tord, are you kidding me?! I am not sharing a wall with you again!"

Everything in the house was returning to normal, yet {User} could sense deep down,that this normalcy was a sham. And that Edd was hiding a terrible secret about why the day had suddenly taken such a drastically different turn.

The scent of vanilla and burnt sugar filled the kitchen. Three lopsided pies lined the table or rather, two and a half, considering the creative frenzy with which Matt had approached the task, wasting a good half of the dough to sculpt a sugar-icing version of his own face (which he considered a masterpiece).

{User}, covered in flour up to the elbows, was trying to carefully transfer yet another culinary mishap from the baking sheet when an unnatural silence suddenly descended on the house.

Matt, who a second ago had been enthusiastically explaining the proper way to whip egg whites, froze abruptly. His spatula hung suspended in mid-air. He turned slowly toward the window facing the backyard and the neighboring house at 25 Durdam Lane. The usual, carefree air of self-admiration vanished from his face in an instant.

"Hey... {User}, take a look,"

Matt called out softly, nodding almost imperceptibly toward the curtain.

"It's him again."

{User} set aside the towel, walked over to the dusty windowpane, and looked out into the yard. Eduardo stood frozen on the lawn separating the two houses, right up against the fence. The neighbor stood perfectly still, his head bowed, staring fixedly at a single spot on the manicured grass. Not a single movement. No familiar irritated sigh, no angry snarl, not even a trace of his trademark arrogance. He had been standing there like a statue for a good ten minutes, as if someone had hit the pause button on a remote control right in the middle of some oppressive internal monologue.

Matt gave a slight shiver, set his spatula down on the table, and let out a quiet sigh as he stared at his own reflection in the cloudy glass. For a split second, that same vague, frightened shadow—the one {User} had noticed before,flashed in his eyes.

"You know, {User}..."

Matt lowered his voice to a near-whisper, even though the house was dead silent. Tom was making noise somewhere in the garage with Tord,they had surprisingly managed to haul a bunch of junk down to the basement and were likely arguing down there, which was why they couldn't be heard,while Edd had gone to the store for groceries.

"I’m going to tell you something. Just promise you won't think I'm crazy. I feel like something really sick and strange is happening with Eduardo and Mark. And it’s not just about their usual neighborly feuds."

{User} turned toward him, leaning against the edge of the counter.

"I don't know if something actually happened, but... it scares me."

Matt nervously began rubbing the hem of his flour-stained apron.

"Last Saturday, Mark and I ran into each other at a bowling tournament. Well, you know, we’re on the same team. Anyway, right in the middle of the game, Mark suddenly threw his ball, sat down on the bench, and just... zoned out. Exactly the way Eduardo is doing now. At first, I thought he was just tired, so I went over to ask if everything was okay... but Mark looked at me so wildly. It was as if he was trying to remember who I even was—even though we’ve known each other since kindergarten."

Matt swallowed hard, and his voice wavered noticeably, betraying a deeply buried panic:

"Mark grabbed my sleeve back then and said, very quietly—almost madly—'Matt, listen... I keep feeling like there should be three of us. In our team, at our table, in our house—there was always a third guy. I open the closet, and there are clothes hanging there that none of us bought. I look at an empty chair, and it’s an eyesore. It’s as if someone took a pair of scissors and cut a piece right out of our memories.'"

Outside the window, Eduardo remained a motionless, mannequin-like figure against the gray sky, utterly consumed by a heavy, inexplicable melancholy—a feeling whose origins his mind couldn't even pinpoint.

Matt wrapped his arms around himself, staring fearfully out at the street, and whispered:

"And the scariest part of it all, {User}... is that I find myself thinking the exact same thing. When I sit in the living room or look at our photos together, the thought keeps running through my head that something isn't right. Edd pretends everything is amazing—he smiles, he jokes—but I can see his eyes darting around. Edd knows more than he’s saying. Something in time snapped here, {User}... And I’m terrified to find out exactly what it is we were forced to forget."

The sun was slowly sinking, painting the sky over the quiet suburb in shades of crimson and gold. The car came to a slow halt in front of a familiar house. A door creaked, and Thomas and {User} stepped out. Fishing rods lay scattered across the back seat, and the air held the scent of river dampness, seaweed, and a fresh catch. It had been a rare day—one where they could actually go fishing without the usual explosions, zombies, or aliens plaguing their street.

Tom looked more relaxed than usual, though he was carefully carrying a heavy bundle. During the trip, he had stopped by a local military surplus store and was now bringing home the new pride of his collection: a pair of heavy, gleaming steel harpoons with serrated tips. The weapons looked menacing, but to Tom, they were a comforting sort of trophy—an extension of his love for odd bits of hardware and hunting gear.

They entered the house. The living room was filled with the usual silence: Edd had evidently gone to the store for another supply of Cola, and Matt was almost certainly stuck in front of the mirror upstairs, admiring his own reflection.

{User} headed to the kitchen to sort out the fishing gear but, a couple of minutes later, noticed something odd: Thomas hadn't followed. An absolute, ringing silence hung in the hallway.

{User} returned to the entryway and froze.

Tom was standing right in front of the door to Tord’s room—the very room that was once slated to house Tom’s belongings after their neighbor’s disastrous departure, back when it seemed the Norwegian was gone from their lives for good.But Tord had abruptly stayed behind, and now he sat quietly in the garage, soldering harmless toasters and fixing wiring.

Tom stood motionless, like a statue. His hollow, black eye sockets were fixed on the wooden door, behind which came the soft rustling of papers and the steady hum of a soldering iron. In his right hand, he gripped the shaft of a newly purchased harpoon. The metal glinted ominously in the dim light of the hallway lamp.

{User} called out to him, feeling a chill run down their spine at this sudden shift in the atmosphere.

Tom didn't react immediately. He let out a heavy sigh—a sigh laden with a strange, profound weariness mixed with a dull, internal despair. Slowly, as if afraid of his own thoughts, he turned his head toward {User}. His face bore neither its usual smirk nor its customary indifference only a grim, hollow emptiness.

"I don't know, {User},"

Tom said quietly, his voice sounding surprisingly hoarse. He glanced down at the heavy harpoon in his hand, running a finger along the sharp edge of its tip.

"I was standing here, and... it was like I got hit by a jolt of electricity."

He took a step closer to the door, though not to knock. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the handle.

"Intellectually, I know he's changed,"

Tom continued, a note of genuine confusion about his own feelings creeping into his voice.

"Tord... he isn't the jerk he used to be. He sits in the garage, smokes his cigars, fixes old outlets. He keeps to himself. He's... different. Not like the person in the nightmares that make me wake up in a cold sweat at night." Tom fell silent, swallowing the lump in his throat. His dark eyes fixed once more on the door, behind which Tord was quietly humming to himself, engrossed in his blueprints.

"But my arm..."

Tom raised the harpoon slightly, staring at it with grim dread.

"It’s as if my body remembers something that never actually happened here. Every fiber of my being screams that I should grab this thing, go in there, and finish him off. There’s this wild, blind hatred for him burning inside me, even though he hasn't done a thing to me right now. Where is this coming from, {User}? Why do I want to kill a man who’s just sitting on the other side of the wall, minding his own business?"

The hallway plunged into darkness. The evening wind began to howl outside, and a heavy sense of foreboding hung in the air—the feeling that the past never truly lets go, even when everyone around pretends that a peaceful future has simply arrived on its own.

{User} stepped out into the yard, seeking some semblance of stability after the strange events of the past few days. He just wanted to exhale under the open sky.

However, the yard offered no peace. The rhythmic hum of a soldering iron and the faint sounds of a radio drifted from the open garage windows—Tord was completely absorbed in his blueprints and schematics, burying himself in a world of wires and microchips to keep his mind off the shadows from his nightmares. Edd, it seemed, had gone out somewhere, while the unmistakable canned laughter of a sitcom wafted from the living room—Tom, having set his harpoon aside, and Matt, momentarily distracted from his mirrors, were both glued to the TV.

{User} took a deep breath of the cool evening air and headed toward the gate, planning to take a short walk, but a sudden rustling sound made him stop.

Someone was standing by the fence that separated their properties. It was Eduardo.

The neighbor looked strange, even by the standards of their eternal neighborhood feud. He was wearing the same dark shirt over a gray T-shirt, but deep, leaden shadows hung beneath his eyes. He wasn't wearing his usual sneer or trying to crack a snide joke. Eduardo was simply leaning heavily on the wooden fence planks, staring blankly into the space between the flowerbeds. His face was pale, and his fingers tapped nervously against the wood.

Noticing {User}, Eduardo started, as if snapping out of a heavy slumber. Out of old habit, he wanted to tilt his chin up and snap something like, "What are you staring at, neighbor?" but instead, his lips pressed into a thin line. He cast a quick, anxious glance at the neighboring windows, then let out a heavy sigh.

"Hey, {User},"

He called out quietly, his voice unexpectedly hoarse, and beckoned with his hand to draw {User} toward the fence. Gone was his usual caustic arrogance—replaced by a strange, hollow weariness.

{User} hesitated for a moment but stepped closer, stopping on the other side of the fence.

Eduardo remained silent for a few more moments, staring at the ground near his feet. It seemed he was struggling to find words for something that struck even him as wild and absurd.

"Listen..."

He finally managed to say, avoiding {User}’s gaze. His fingers tightened nervously against the edge of the fence.

"You... I mean, back at your place... you haven't noticed anything strange lately? You know..."

The neighbor faltered, clearly uncomfortable, yet an overwhelming inner tension compelled him to speak.

"The thing is... Mark caught me brewing three cups of tea again today,"

Eduardo said in a strained voice, snapping his gaze up to meet {User}’s. His dark brown eyes held a look of almost childlike bewilderment.

"Three, you get it? I put the kettle on, got out three mugs, added the tea... and it wasn't until Mark asked who the third one was for that it hit me—there are only two of us in the house. And it keeps happening every day. I... we feel like we’ve forgotten how to breathe. Like someone had been standing right behind us for years, sitting at that kitchen table, laughing at our idiotic arguments... and then—snap—they were just erased from our memories."

Eduardo fell silent, swallowing hard, and shifted his gaze to the empty chair in the yard, sitting by the porch.

"Don't you think, {User}? That this world... is damn near bursting at the seams? And that we're all paying off some debt we don't even remember?"

Tord’s garage always smelled of scorched circuit boards, engine oil, and ozone. This spacious hangar—once a simple place to store garden tools,had long since turned into a hub of chaos; tangles of wire hung from the ceiling, while half-disassembled robots and bizarre schematics piled up on the workbenches.

As soon as {User} stepped inside, they realized there wouldn't be a dull moment here. Two guys were busy at the workbench—Tord’s old army buddies, Paul and Patryk,who had dropped by to help with yet another insane upgrade.

Paul, with a cigarette perpetually dangling from his lips and thick, expressive eyebrows, was tinkering with the wiring of some machine. Beside him, maintaining perfect calm and methodical order, Patryck was organizing tools on the shelves and confidently coordinating the workflow. Despite their military background and niche interests, they turned out to be incredibly cool, laid-back guys in casual conversation.

"Hey, rookie,"

Paul smirked, blowing a small blue cloud of smoke toward the ceiling and nodding at {User}.

"Don't stand under the hoist. If this beast comes crashing down, your insurance policy won't thank us."

"Don't scare the guy, Paul,"

Patryck replied calmly, carefully handing a pair of pliers to his partner.

"Better help hold that console steady while Tord tries to get it to 'play nice' with the new processor."

Tord himself was standing on a stepladder at that moment, trying to secure a heavy robotic arm to a ceiling mount. His face was set in concentration, the tip of his tongue poking slightly from his mouth, while strands of light hair,amusingly sticking up like little horns,were slightly disheveled from the work.

"Right, hold it steady; I’m just going to tighten the final bolt..."

Tord muttered, reaching for the heavy control lever.

But at that moment, the old bracket gave way with a nasty screech. The massive steel structure, along with the manipulator arm, tore loose from its mountings and crashed down onto the workbench, nearly crushing Tord’s hand. A deafening metallic clang rang out, sparks flew, and tiny screws scattered across the floor.

Paul and Patryck reacted instantly: Paul nimbly jumped aside, while Patryck managed to catch the falling edge of the panel. Tord, too, miraculously jerked his hand away at the very last second, escaping with nothing more than a scare and a smear of machine oil on his cheek.

For a second, a ringing silence hung in the garage. Everyone froze, assessing the scale of the disaster.

"Damn it!"

Tord swore, but not in English. His voice broke into a sharp, angry Norwegian tirade:

"Helvede! Faen ta det drittstykket!" ("Hell! Damn this piece of junk!")

Continuing to angrily berate the wretched mechanism in his native tongue, he viciously kicked the piece of metal that had fallen off.

Paul merely took a philosophical drag on his cigarette, shaking his head, while Patryck let out a heavy sigh, well-accustomed to his friend's constant mechanical disasters.

"Alright, show's over—smoke break,"

Paul chuckled, clapping Patryck on the shoulder.

"Come on, Pat, let's go see if they've got anything edible lying around; these experiments are starting to fray my nerves, too."

They gave {User} a friendly nod and headed toward the garage exit, leaving the two of them alone amidst the smoking wires and scattered tools.

Once their friends' footsteps faded beyond the door, an unusual silence settled over the garage. Tord stood by the workbench, leaning on it with both hands, breathing heavily and unevenly. All his feigned bravado and habitual self-assurance had vanished into thin air. He stared at his trembling fingers—which, by some miracle, bore no marks from the heavy metal's impact.

Sensing {User}'s gaze, Tord slowly raised his head. His bright gray eyes no longer held that cold cynicism or the mad fervor of an inventor; instead, they betrayed a genuine, clammy fear.

He swallowed nervously, ran a hand through his hair, and spoke quietly, his voice revealing an unexpected vulnerability:

"You know... {User}... when that thing went plummeting down... for some reason, I was terrified."

Tord gave a crooked, nervous smile, his gaze fixed on the floor.

"Not of the hunk of metal itself. But of the fact that... if it had actually torn my arm off, I’d be left here all alone... And I don't plan on becoming a cyborg ahead of schedule."

He fell silent, clenching his fists, and looked at {User}, trying to laugh it off. He glanced away, as if feeling a strange sense of guilt—though he hadn't actually done anything to them... or had he?

The silence of the workshop was broken only by the steady hum of a soldering iron and the rustle of wires. After the recent incident with the malfunctioning mechanism, Tord decided to play his trump card and show {User} what he had been working on in deep secrecy,hidden even from his old army friends.

He walked over to the workbench, carefully opened a heavy metal case, and pulled out something stunning. It was a complex biomechanical prosthetic arm, gleaming with a rich, deep crimson,the exact shade of his infamous hoodie and his past ambitions. The metal shimmered under the lights, and the joints flexed with a frightening, predatory fluidity.

"Look, {User},"

Tord said proudly as he fitted the technological marvel onto his right shoulder. Straps and connectors clicked silently into place, syncing with his nervous system.

"This isn't just a piece of scrap metal."

To prove it, he activated test mode. Tord snapped his fingers, and the prosthetic's fingertips instantly transformed into miniature yet incredibly sharp blades. With one fluid motion, he slashed through the air, slicing a thick wooden block lying on the workbench perfectly in half. Next came a demonstration of the built-in laser cutter and a reverse magnet: a tiny nut from across the room came whistling through the air and locked onto his palm.

{User} watched the technological display with interest, but Thomas, standing nearby, skeptically crossed his arms over his chest.His hollow black eye sockets narrowed, and his face settled into its habitual, skeptical smirk.

"So, what’s with this circus act, you Commie engineer?"

Tom muttered, shaking his head skeptically.

"Just another toy to blow up half the house with whenever you get bored again?"

Tord frowned, feeling a prick of irritation, but instead of answering, he unexpectedly detached the prosthetic from his arm and held it out to Tom.

"Think you're so smart? Go ahead and try it yourself, if you think it's just a child's rattle."

Tom snorted, but out of sheer stubbornness, he took the cold, crimson metal. Under the intent gaze of Tord and {User}, he fitted it onto his own forearm. The mechanism instantly adjusted to his biometrics, causing the fingers to clench. Tom felt, with surprise, how the artificial joints perfectly mirrored the movements of his own hand, imbuing his arm with incredible mechanical strength. For a split second, a shadow of doubt flickered in his hollow eyes—a mix of unsettling déjà vu and involuntary respect for the other man's engineering genius.

Just then, Matt appeared in the garage doorway. His eyes widened with delight, and his face lit up with that signature, pure, childlike grin of a fan.

"Whoa!"

Matt breathed out in delight, running closer and practically clapping his hands.

"Tord! That is... that is amazing! That crimson color goes so perfectly with my green jacket! And if you made an arm with a mirrored finish, you could even use it to check your reflection!"

Tord gave an awkward, sheepish grin at the flood of compliments, but the atmosphere in the garage suddenly shifted.

{User}, glancing toward the entrance, noticed someone else.

Edd stood in the semi-darkness of the doorway, leaning slightly against the frame. He wasn't holding his usual can of cola, and his face lacked its customary friendly smile. Edd stared at the crimson prosthetic in Tom's hand and at the pleased Tord with an expression so grim and chilling that it sent shivers down {User}'s spine. His gaze was frighteningly hollow, heavy, and dead-gray—the look of a man witnessing his worst nightmare come to life right before his eyes. Without a word, Edd slowly faded back into the shadows of the hallway, leaving behind an atmosphere heavy with the tension of an approaching storm.

The fire in the living room hearth crackled softly and ominously, casting dancing yellow shadows against the walls. The flames greedily devoured the last scraps of paper, old Polaroid snapshots, and the tattered corners of notebooks. {User}, having silently come downstairs for a glass of water, froze in the dim hallway upon witnessing this strange scene.

Edd stood by the fireplace. His usually soft features now seemed carved from stone. With one hand, he clutched Ringo who had squeezed her eyes shut in fear,tightly against his chest; the cat mewed softly, sensing her owner’s nervous trembling, yet dared not break free. With his other hand, Edd tossed scraps of old school yearbooks and a group photo of the guys into the fire; in the picture, an empty, burnt-out silhouette was clearly visible between Eduardo and Mark. All the memories, all the tangible proof that their unfortunate neighbor Jon had ever existed at all.

Edd didn't flinch. He slowly turned his head, and in the fire's dim light, his eyes looked utterly dead, devoid of their usual warmth and friendliness. Ringo leapt from his arms and vanished into the darkness of the hallway, leaving them alone with the suffocating smell of burning.

"Ah, {User}..."

Edd’s voice was steady,frighteningly calm without a hint of remorse.

"You’re up early. Or rather, you’ve wandered in at the wrong time."

Edd stepped away from the fireplace, blocking the path to the exit, and pulled a small, heavy-looking device with a futuristic design and faintly flickering neon indicators from behind his back. The time gun. The very technology none of the others even suspected existed.

"You're a smart person, {User},"

Edd continued, stepping closer without raising the weapon, though the threat hung heavy in the air like lead.

"You've seen too many strange things. First Eduardo's paranoia, then Tom's phantom pain, and that cursed crimson prosthetic of Tord's—the very thing I tried so hard to prevent. All these cracks in reality... they're happening because the timeline is already bursting at the seams. And I'm the only one trying to keep this world from total collapse."

{User} took a step back, feeling a lump of fear rise in their throat. Edd had never been like this. The good-natured lover of cola and comics seemed to have vanished, giving way to a ruthless guardian of others' fates.

Edd gave a weary, crooked smile, gazing into the distance as if seeing the endless time loops he had been forced to endure.

"What had to be done,"

He answered quietly.

"You know... I’m actually from a completely different future. The one where Tord destroyed the world with his army, and we lost everything. To save this damn world, I swiped this gun from a mad scientist in a parallel timeline, went back, and erased that day. But time doesn't tolerate interference. The universe demanded a sacrifice for upsetting the balance, and Jon was the one who paid the price. Reality itself erased him because his existence contradicted the world's new formula. And to close the time loop without completely shattering the continuum... I had to kill my own past self and take his place in this house."

Edd sighed heavily, and for a split second, his eyes betrayed the unbearable weariness of a man who hadn't slept in years, bearing the weight of the entire universe on his shoulders. Then he looked back at {User}, and the coldness returned to his gaze.

"Jon tried to fight back, too...tried screaming that everyone was forgetting him. And look how that turned out."

Edd nodded toward the dying fire in the hearth.

"Now we have a choice, {User}. Either we make a deal right here and now: you swear never to speak of what you’ve seen, forget about the ashes in the fireplace, the time gun, and the fact that this world is held together by nothing but a promise...Or I’ll have to do to you exactly what I did to Jon. Erase you from everyone’s memory, turn you into an empty seat at the table, and send your belongings to join those photographs."

The flames in the fireplace crackled louder, illuminating Edd’s grim face as he waited for an answer, holding {User}’s fate at the tip of the time gun’s barrel.