Where Were You When the World Broke?

From Relamus Telvanni's Chronicle of the Withering Dawn:

It is supererogatory to annotate the history surrounding the event that removed us from Nirn. The crisis has many names, rightfully attributed and wrongfully: Landfall, the Withering Dawn, Man's Quietus, et all. The return of Anumidium to the Actual shall forever be marked in the annals of time, although it must be done with some irony; the subtraction was so complete that the date itself is lost. Thus, the need for a formal chronicling of the moment of our resplendent undoing is unnecessary. We will never forget the moment itself.

Instead, we turn to the realm of primary accounts. We all know what the Withering Dawn was but few ever talk of their experiences with it. True, few survive now who might offer such accounts but when it comes to our subject, there are few true fundamental laws that limit us. When discussing Landfall, mortality is a trifling matter. Worry not then, dear reader, about how this knowledge came to be recorded. Rather, marvel that it exists at all.

Undilarion, Altmer, of the Thalmor:

"I was at ground zero. Alinor. Within seconds, most of the city did not exist anymore. Wherever It looked, was not. It didn't just destroy, it unmade. How do you fight physical uncertainty? Can a sword dent armor that only exists when you're not looking? Is there even a way to combat an enemy that, should you acknowledge it, rejects you so utterly that it changes the fact of you? I had friends die in that battle. I know I did. Do I know who they were? Of course not. They never existed. All I know for certain is that I held my mirror so tightly that the scars on my hand might be the only real thing from that day. The only reason we were prepared at all was because of the Oracle. She knew; told us to have the sunbirds ready for Magnus. Yet, even knowing was not enough on the day when knowledge was abolished."

Speaks-For-Them, on behalf of the Hist:

"WATCHING."

Titinius Caro, Man:

"The sky darkens ever so slightly. There is the sound of a drum, so complete that I feel a vibration in my heart. Everyone hears it, everyone feels it. We hear the dreaded word. "No." Then we hear the screams. Out of all them, I find my daughter's. So stark, so completely terrified that I don't notice until the time that I've reached her that my legs are gone. There is nothing below me but boiling blood and eroding bone. I realize that I am screaming. I reach for my daughter and watch as her face melts. I feel myself becoming unbound. I stop screaming. My mouth is gone. The fabric of "Man" is unraveling. It hurts. The rejection hurts. My arm turns to mist before it can reach her. I writhe on the ground as each piece of me, each mortal modicum disappears one by one. It takes less than a minute. There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. This is the nine hundredth year."

Jyggalag, Daedra, Prince of the Now Defunct Sphere of Order:

"I will have led my forces to the very heart of the Colored Rooms, knowing the Lady of Infinite Energies to be one of the only true threats against my Endmarch. The dazzling lights of her realm will have been refracted by crystals innumerable. Atop a rainbow tower corkscrewed by grey, she will have deflected my sword by summoning Dawnbreaker. I will have gathered too much strength for the rejected Star Orphan by then, however, and blade will explode in brilliance. But the sudden draw of incalculable Chaos will have stayed my hand from further action. My forces will have fallen back and they will have fought the Brass Beast for centuries."

Divayth Fyr, Dunmer, Corprusorcerer:

“If you're asking where I was when the Numidium 'returned', you're asking the wrong question. Because the truth is that it never left. You were just too busy ignoring it. How could you not? To look at something so terrible is to invite cessation. To hear its alarum is to risk waking up from your dream. You did not ignore it out of malice; you ignored it out of survival. But if I must answer such a faulty question, you will get a question in turn: where wasn't I? I've always been listening to the Crying Tower from its first wail until it's last death rattle. During Landfall? I was at zeropoint. Staring right into its eyes. Someone had to.”

[It is at this point the author must point out to the eminent sorcerer that Anumidium still walks.]

"Ah. I guess now we know where you were when the Numidium died."