The world was a white void. There was no horizon, no wind, and no sound. In the center of this nothingness stood a single, iron lamp on a pedestal.

I light the lamp every morning.

I do this because I remember a girl named Clara. Or rather, I remember the *idea* of a girl named Clara. I remember a feeling of warmth, a scent of rain on hot pavement, and a voice that sounded like a cello. I believe that as long as the lamp is lit, the memory of Clara exists. I believe that the light is the only thing preventing the void from erasing the last trace of her existence from the universe.

The Old Man who preceded me told me that the lamp keeps the world from collapsing. He told me that outside the light, there is a Great Void that consumes everything. He told me that I am the Guardian of Existence. He spoke of the "Great Balance," a cosmic necessity that required a single consciousness to maintain the light.

But I have lived here for a thousand years, and the lamp has never changed. The light doesn't reach any far-off shore. It only illuminates a circle of white sand around the pedestal. I have walked to the edge of that circle a million times, and every time, I find only more white.

One day, I stopped lighting the lamp. I waited for the collapse. I waited for the Void to swallow me, for the screams of a dying universe to fill the silence. I wanted to see the end. I wanted to know if there was anything beyond the light, or if the light was the only thing that ever existed.

Nothing happened.

The darkness was just as quiet as the light. I sat in the blackness for an eternity, and I realized that there was no world to save. There was no Clara. There was only me, and the choice to light a lamp in a void. The "Guardian" was just a title given to a prisoner of his own imagination.

I stood up and struck the match. Not because it mattered. Not because it saved anyone. But because the act of lighting the lamp was the only thing that made me feel like I existed. I chose the light, not as a savior, but as a habit. I chose to create a meaning where there was none.

*** OTMES_v2_Code: [M1:5.0, M4:7.0, N1:0.8, N2:0.2, K1:0.5, K2:0.5, TI:32.1, theta:14.0]