pls explain me the ending

[Arthur Morgan]

i dont get it

[i5-11400]

I think it's like everyone gave up their physical existence and all became part of a cosmic existence

[Krodge]

"Light" alien came down from space and a crazy lady fell in love with it and helped it to end the world and turn everyone else into light.

[Honesty]

"During their work, Kate and Stephen encounter a strange pattern of lights in the night sky which they believe is an unknown form of life. They observe the pattern infecting and sometimes killing other lifeforms such as birds and cows, before spreading to humans. Kate concludes that the pattern is attempting to communicate with humans, ignorant to the harm that it is causing them. She locks herself in the observatory and spends the vast majority of the story attempting to communicate with it. During this time, Stephen becomes convinced that the pattern is a deadly threat capable of destroying the human race.

Most of the valley's inhabitants begin to succumb to symptoms of unexplained hemorrhaging; pressure in the brain that is normally consistent with a brain tumor, as the doctor notes in a left-behind recording. Other people disappear, leaving behind a room full of odd specks of light and the lingering scent of unidentifiable ash. Convinced that this is connected to the pattern and that it will spread beyond the village if not contained, Stephen urges the local government to quarantine the area, blocking the roads and cutting the telephone lines. The locals are told that it is due to an outbreak of Spanish flu, though many are skeptical of this and become even more so when the corpses of the dead begin to disappear into thin air.

As the town's population rapidly dwindles, Stephen realizes that the quarantine has failed and that the 'pattern', or 'it' as it is often referred to, has learned to adapt. He believes that it has learned to travel not just through direct human contact, but through the telephone lines, radio waves, and television sets. In light of this, he desperately insists to the local government that they must gas the valley.

In the second to last chapter of the game, the player is led to a bunker where Stephen Appleton waited out the nerve gas bombings with the intention of killing himself once he ensured that every other infected person in the valley is dead. When he is unable to reach anyone at all outside the valley via telephone, he realizes that he has failed and that the pattern has spread, presumably to the entire planet. The pattern comes for him and he confronts it. He tells it that he has decided to set fire to himself, having doused himself in petrol, to prevent being taken by it. However, before he can do so he sees the image of Kate in the pattern of light and stands in awe, reaching out to her. The scene fades out as Stephen's lighter slips out of his hand and hits the ground, igniting the petrol.

In the final part of the game the player is transported to the inside of the observatory's locked entrance gate. The player makes their way up the hill to the top-most observatory and upon entering sees the human light shape of Kate inside in the darkness making the last of the recordings heard. She states that she is the last one left, and it is revealed that she did achieve communication with 'the pattern'. Kate explains that when she told the pattern that what it did to everyone in the valley - the people, the birds, the insects, the cows - was wrong, it countered that it was not wrong, because now everyone that wanted to be together was together, and that everyone had found their counterpart and was no longer alone. Kate explains how she finally understands and says that she has accepted her fate, and that she and 'the pattern' will soon join the others. She states that humanity can finally 'slip away, unafraid'. Kate turns and appears to reach out to the pattern coming down from above as it reaches out to meet her, her last words being her belief that the pattern was her own counterpart."

- via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody%27s_Gone_to_the_Rapture

[Pastor of Muppets]

And so who is the player character, if everyone on earth has been raptured or whatever? While I played, I was expecting to find out--in typical cheesy sci-fi manner--that I was Kate, who had lost her memory and was reliving her story through the light balls and recordings. But it turned out even worse than that, as I ended up having no idea who I was. Maybe I need to watch the beginning again?

[darien_ward]

I think the player character is just... the player. We just walk around the area and unfold the story. Like a reader reading a book.