this didn't take me very long and i would appreciate any comments to try and improve it.
Prologue:
Everything and nothing…yes…that was it.
Everything and nothing.
Infinite matter with no space to contain it…
And at the same time all the space one could ever need…
If I plug this into the negative contact instead would it go backwards?
No…wait. Stay focused
Organized thought was never one of my strengths.
But I have all the time in the world to remember…
Part one:
The nothingness above me was still there when I opened my eyes. Nothing unusual. Just the flat white infinity which greeted me every time I awoke. Underneath me was grass. According to the ink marked, flattened cellulose sheets which had one day fallen from the sky, grass was meant to be on the ground. Other things had fallen from the sky as well. Usually accompanied by a noise. One I never seemed to be prepared to record and study. I looked at the things which the space above me had given me. Things with strange names. Sometimes printed on them, sometimes listed in that those papers. The ones bound together with more paper. Although it was the paper within this other paper that contained information. I had a few of those clumps of paper. The one labeled “Encyclopedia” had told me once that it and all the other ones were called “Books.” I liked the Encyclopedia. It always knew what things were.
With a cursory glance at my many books, I set off towards my tree. When I first saw my tree one day. Sitting there in a bowl of soil near my workspace. I didn’t know it was a tree. All I knew was I combined water, methane, ammonia, and a shock of electricity one day and the next I had a group of little moving blobs. Visible only with the delicate lens I spent hours creating. In time I watched each one spit, combine, and change. And one day there was tree. I was quite proud of myself for having produced this tree. According to the Encyclopedia, trees like mine were what all my books were made of. When tree dropped a strange reddish sphere to the ground and more trees came from it, I sliced some up and found that with a little effort I had my own paper, but was disappointed to find that it had no words or information on it. Further research suggested that words had to be placed there separately. Having no idea what words I should put there, the blank paper was lost and forgotten.
I finally arrived at my workplace. The first of many waist-high grey cubes was dominated by the laptop. I took great care of that laptop. The Encyclopedia, dictionary, and a few other books which were refered to as “Novels” all talked about such devices. When it came from up above, accompanied by that mysterious sound, I was excited. Books had told me that these things were ways of communicating, recording, and computing. However it refused to operate as described. As I later learned it had broken. This was one of the first items I modified. With a scrap of matter I pulled from limbo, I was able to rebuild it with diagrams and instructions. After I successfully modified the laptop, I realized that the matter of my world was mine to control. I was able to make anything. I was able to have all those things that books talked about. And an eternity of research was stored within it. All the observations I made. Everything I learned.
Today I was more excited to see it than usual. I was excited to see it’s results. On the day of a conclusion I always tried to open notepad too fast, and I had to shut it back down and reboot, but I got it working at some point. With notepad up for recording results, I stopped my hand from shaking with excitement long enough to click on my control application, smiling as the lights and motors on my lab equipment lit up. With a flick of my hand I had assembled equipment that was said to be worth millions of those dollar things. The ones all those book characters needed to get things that belonged to others. I wondered why they couldn’t just make those things like I did.
I nearly passed out from excitement when I saw a positive return on my latest device. It was finally time. I was going to learn where all those people and places and the sources of all those books, pencils, cameras, key rings, bits of paper, and everything else. I was fed up with being alone on nothing, and I was going to find that world I had learned so much about. I pressed the key without even thinking. Not as dramatic as I had wanted this moment to be, but I would work with it. It didn’t matter anyways because the device was powering up. Despite being 30 feet running still seemed too slow, and I flew the whole way. The red glow was too much, even for my goggles. the giant ark straight up into nothing was mesmerizing.
Part two:
I shielded my eyes from the glow as the white empty space turned black. Everything began to shake and I fell to the ground. Even then I didn’t think once about stopping the device. Being completely alone for as long as I was does terrible things to your mind. Not even as the objects nearest to my machine began to vaporize. With barely the sense to grab my laptop and collection of books I stared. Everything I wasn’t holding was turning to ash before my eyes. Even the ash appeared to be crumbling. Still my disorganized brain could do nothing more than let me stare with a dumb smile on my face. My world was ripped away, replaced by a black void full of strange colored lights. Nothing left but a hole. Not a normal hole like one you could dig in the ground or punch in a wall, but a hole in everything. I couldn’t bring myself to move forward but I didn’t need to. The hole was pulling me in and I let it take me.
I think it took me a few days for sense to return but I at least regained the ability to move, not that it did anything as I fell down a hole without moving an inch. I heard voices in the nothing, and screams as well.
“Oh dear god…WHAT DID YOU DO!?’
“I don’t know sir”
“MY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE!”
“RUN!”
Then there was no hole, and no falling, only pain. I didn’t feel pain often, I was pretty safe back where I was. That made my entry far worse. It also made it hurt more when I sat up in a bed in a room I’d never seen before. I caught a glimpse of white walls before falling back into the bed with a shout. Then I was dead to the world once again.
I saw someone the next time I regained consciousness. Based on information regarding different genders in living beings I determined that this was in fact a female someone. The opposite of me, a male. She was covered in all white clothing, an official looking uniform of some sort. I don’t think we got off to a very good start considering she was removing the bandages which covered the left side of my body, which was quite painful. I looked down at myself and saw scorch marks covering me, feathers singed off in many places. She noticed that I was awake and tried to say something to me but the pain I felt when she removed those bandages sent me under again.
I woke up again. This time alone. Feeling numbness but no pain. I sat up a bit and looked over myself. I deduced I was out for a few days because I had far fewer burns and far more regrown feathers. Then I noticed my left arm. I don’t know if that’s accurate considering I no longer had one. My screams quickly brought another person. A male dressed in the same uniform. He had a nametag which introduced him as Dr. Lyle Kesper. A doctor. I was in a hospital being treated. He tried to calm me down, telling me that I was going to be fine. Meanwhile I was staring at the stub that remained of my left arm. Not because it was gone, but because unlike the rest of me it was still producing a massive amount of pain. Dr. Kesper was staring at it with a strange expression on his face. I hadn’t seen any other faces clearly except my own, and I didn’t quite understand his expression at first. Then I looked where he was looking. At the blueish glow consuming my left shoulder. He was wearing an expression of horror on his brownish, furred face. A similar expression to the one I had within seconds.
As other doctors rushed into the room. Appearing in all shapes and colors. People shouted. I couldn’t hear over the pounding of blood in my ears but I could watch everything as an entire new arm grew right out of the spot where I had lost the old one. In a matter of minutes I felt like I hadn’t been hurt at all. While I stared at my arm doctors scribbled down notes and jabbed me with syringes and tried to ask me questions. When they realized I wasn’t capable of answering them at the moment then had a few nurses push my gurney out the doors and down the hall. They tried to help me sit in a strange chair but stopped when they saw I could walk just fine. Then someone grabbed me by the hand and led me down the many hallways.
Part three:
The events at the hospital and the next few days went by far too fast for me to recall much of what was said or the people I met. But as I began to understand what people said to me and focused enough to look around I was overcome with a feeling of success. Sitting on the bed in a small room where I had been led, I silently cheered myself and remembered those few moments. I had found others. I was in the place where all those people and stories were, and I felt good.
