The end times had come.

Or, at least, the end of the anomalous.

One by one, day by day, every anomaly in the world just… stopped being anomalous. The world shifted to a quieter, mundane place, where the main threats were politics and natural disasters, not rampaging monsters or a man who could summon swords from midair or sentient flesh.

Adjusting was hard. The Foundation now has no purpose outside of triple checking that all their artifacts and inmates were truly normal and inert; outside of tying up loose ends, shutting down front companies, trying to find something, anything to stave off the inevitable collapse.

Clef in particular took it harshly. Sure, he’d get a stipend to make sure he could live comfortably until or unless he got another job (though he’s considering just retiring, he is closer to 60 than 40); but…

This was his whole life's purpose for decades.

By now, it's only Clef and a skeleton crew of maintenance left in site 19; a sad, barren relic of what it once was. Everyone he knew scattered to the four winds, adjusting to this new life (Save for Dr. Crow; he never became human again. He died like a normal dog.)

His office wasn’t much better. Pictures, old and new, packed away. Souvenirs from traveling. The plane ticket from that one disastrous work vacation with Strelnikov. An old rifle that's a wall decoration now. A scrawled birthday card from his former assistant Agent Adam’s kid. God, he still remembers when Adams was a bright-eyed undergraduate.

Clef takes a moment to survey the barren room, the once chaotic and cluttered space now an empty void. The silence is deafening, a stark contrast to the usual buzz of activity. He runs a hand through his greying hair, the weight of nostalgia and longing nearly crushing his ribs.

The man who has killed gods, who once relished the thrill of chasing the unknown is now faced with surviving a future without the world-altering threats he had spent decades fighting. And he doesn't know what to do.