1 It all goes dark

In a nearly empty galaxy devoid of stars long gone from the passage of time, the ruins of a civilization long dead can be found floating through the void, evidence of a once galactic empire now reduced to mere debris traveling the void, a single source of light remains, a single ship orbiting a dying black hole, Sebastian sits in the empty observatory alone, all his colleagues having long died in despair of the inevitable, the heat death of the universe, Sebastian takes a sip of his beer looking to the left to watch a countdown on the screen, "3 minuets till evaporation of entity 'TON 618' " he sighs. He's long accepted the inevitable, this is where he dies and theirs nothing he can do about it, sure he could stretch his life a few more years on reserve power and supplies, but what was the point? spend the next few years of his life waiting to die, having nothing to do? no he would rather just die quickly so he rigged the life support to turn off soon after the black hole dies, he wants to watch the spectacle first, he's seen many black holes die in his long life, mostly on the galactic net, but that had long fallen apart and he wanted to witness the end of everything before he died.

As the time ticks down he reflects on his life up till this point, it had been a few Millenia since he first came into this world, he was never a genius like others, but he was smart, and he worked hard to get to where he was, when he was 70 he figured out how to create omni nanobots, incredibly useful pieces of technology that could do essentially anything, they revolutionized the world back then, they could do anything, replace machines in factories, cure any illness so long as it was sufficiently understood, heal almost any injury less than losing your brain, and even prevent and repair DNA degeneration making humanity functionally immortal. a few hundred years later he joined a scientific expedition to the largest blackhole ever discovered to see if they could discover anything, unfortunately due to that incompetent captain never learning about time dilation and the dangers of black holes they got to close and by the time everyone else realized and managed to remove him from his duty as captain it was to late, they were now 1064 years in the future, a few years before the very black hole they orbited evaporated, how that captain ever got his job was beyond Sebastian but he chalked it up to nepotism, when everything settled in and everyone realized that the universe was literally about to end they all killed themselves in despair, all except Sebastian, he wanted to witness the end, when the last celestial body in the universe dies and everything truly falls into the hands of entropy, so he waited, and here he was, 30 seconds from the end.

He chugged down his beer, although he'd never liked the taste and he'd always preferred stronger alcohol like wine, on a scientific vessel and after all his crewmates had drowned themselves in the stronger liquors before dying he had little to chose from, he watched as the black hole finally evaporated before releasing a massive wave of energy, like one final act of defiance against the universe, the ship shook when the wave passed and alarms blared, no doubt destroying many external components in the process, and as the wave retreated into the void, Sebastian watched it leave knowing that would be the last light he ever saw, and then everything went dark, not the kind of dark your used to, now there was no light anywhere, this was true dark, and so he sat, and waited for his death, with nothing but his thoughts to comfort him as the hours passed he felt the air become heavier until he could no longer breath and he lost all feeling and control of his body, even the many machines in him could no longer keep his organic body functioning, and as he finally felt himself sinking into the abyss of death his one regret being he would never be able to read anything again.

but then nothing happened, sure he felt nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing, but why could he still think? why wasn't he "dead"?