This story leaves me with the feeling of silence and a clock ticking down towards inevitable grief. Especially sriking is the way that Hakkai passed on, his final words... I've read a few "growing old" scenarios in Saiyuki fanfics now, and you've managed to put your own special haunting quality into it that keeps the concept fresh. It always hurts. I think that in a way, this idea of The End is much more terrible to contemplate than any violent death that the characters might alternatively encounter. There is no such thing as a happy ending. The so called "happy endings" will only eventually result in death by time's decree.

Author's Response: *nods* I have to agree; in many ways, a violent end would be so very much kinder for them all. In a way, the bond between them is so utterly romantic (in both the classical and the modern sense), that to separate them slowly, leaving one to endure life as the others pass into death, seems the cruelest fate of all. I can't get past the image of Hakkai's "short life line", and the notion that all of them are on borrowed time, and Goku the debtor who will pay the final price... thank you so much for your thoughtful comments!

Wow...that was beautifully depressing. And yet, just convoluted enough to let the reader interpret it as they will. A good sort of hurt.

Author's Response: Thank you! You know, it's just a thought I can't get out of my head: Goku, outiving them all, and left to his own devices... truly, a fandom of hunger in all its many forms!