I walked through a corridor.

Beneath me, the floor sank and rose again. The silver tiles tided the walls like a stream. The wall on the left was blood-red in color. It felt warm. The wall on the right was silvery blue in color. It felt cold. Above my head, red vines and blue webs wrestled and twisted till they became serpents. They followed the pathway. Swarms of red and blue serpents joined them.

The serpents became abstracted to such an extent, that I could not distinguish them from a real one. It seemed surreal.

When I entered the next room, a single eye stared at me.

It was a basic human eye, with brown pigmentation in the eye’s iris. It stood a few feet back from the center of the room. Left of the giant eye, I saw a projection, of bombs exploding about the planet. The whole landscape was decimated, building after building, city block after city block. In the next scenario, a scientific facility stood awhile, before exploding. The explosive wave was portrayed on the astronomical scale, before everything crumbled inward, leaving a dark horizon behind.

‘Maybe I should have stayed at home and watched Final Dungeon 1,’ I thought.

Right of the eye, an apple fell to the ground.

A book took birth from the apple. A tree took birth from the book. This tree revealed a family. Branches grew out. In each branch, a movie played. When the movie led to a desirable end, the branch broke into more branches. When the movie led to an undesirable end, an apple formed. The tree grew and grew. The apples multiplied a hundredfold. The resolution of the holographic projection expanded to show apple after apple forming.

It zoomed out, revealing a massive tree. I wondered if I would see one of the bleached heart trees from Game of Thrones next. The massive tree transformed into a small tree, with only a few apples. The son ate the hanging apple to grow his apple. The father ate the apple. The mother ate the apple. The daughter ate the apple. They each furthered their branches, growing. Aging.

At the end of the representation, all apples fell to the ground. The stage cleared. A new apple fell. A new book appeared.

Above the giant eye, there was a single, super-continent. The map’s name was [Super-continent: Panacea]. Panacea is the same name as with Earth’s super-continent,’ I thought. Boundaries ran along the super-continent. However, there was no label for any of the outlined areas. Instead, an arrow projected from the super-continent, to the redressed position of an almost squared shaped continent labeled Fermi. The Arvald nation was denoted on continent Fermi, with the note: [You are here.]

Beneath the eye, there was a simple quote:

Museum inscription

"We see the universe the way it is, because we exist."

When I looked carefully, I found the eye to be made of multiple smaller eyes, of monotonous colors.

System Notification

Congratulations! You have witnessed Babel, the human god.

===

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

- Fides increased by 0.3 for 2 hours, irrespective of ratio.

Fides

0.52

I could care less. "God is dead," I said.

A high-pitch ping wobbled into existence, like the notification sound of a 2021 Signal app. Signal was a popular and open-source messaging app. I looked behind. I saw a clown – a jester. The jolly jester had just materialized into existence, in front of the corridor with the silver tiles. The jester wore a mustache. He adjusted his mask-shaped glasses with his right thumb. A pen was in his right hand. A paintbrush was in the other. The jester saluted the eye.

I exited the room.

I came across a state of a man surrounded by many statues, men and women. The statues were made of brown-colored marbles. They glistened, under the light that shone above. Some statues wore cloth like ancient priests. Some had swords at their hands. For his part, the man had taken his eyes out. Blood bled from his eye sockets. His hands were in the process of stretching out his eyeballs.

I confirmed my assessment upon identifying the crowd well.

Saints, cronies, tyrants, bespectacled teachers ad murderers all jeered and mocked him. The man had no reason to not be vain. He could be a saint, a tyrant, a crony, a bespectacled teacher or a murderer. It did not matter, the same as each new day gave you a chance to be cautious or brave, cowardly or rash.

I followed through to the next room, and the next statue. There was a sword stuck in a stone. ‘Okay, that is the legend of King Arthur,’ I thought. The sword was made of basic steel – stainless steel, I presumed for practical purposes. I could not guess why the sword was there at all.

I went to the room after that. I saw the statue of a winged woman, with a sword in her hand, ready to strike. She faced to the right. There was an entrance there. Curious, I went to the right. I saw another statue of another woman, with a sword in her hand. She was exactly like the first woman. ‘Why the symmetry?’

I looked at her breasts. For the woman was completely naked, I looked at her lower erogeneous zone. There was nothing there. They had missed out on the details.

That was censorship for you.

I tapped the description that popped up.

Lucifer

A figure of the bible, said to lead homosapiens astray. This individual has no sex. [+]

I reread the description again. Did it mean Lucifer did not have sex with people? Or was it that he had no sexual organ? I confirmed with the first statue. This one denoted [Lucifer] as well.

I figured the art section had given me enough carrots for the day.

Lucifer was a figure of the bible. He was said to have led homosapiens astray. Lucifer had no sex. Lucifer was known as a fallen angel. He was said to possess a good intellect and obeyed many virtues of the paradigm of his times.

There were options to preview the statue in the gendered form. For that, there were the option of hero Arvald, the Fourth and the hero Blaise Haze.

That would Arvald, the gallant paladin. Who was Blaise Haze and what was her job? I changed the preview. This time, it was different. Both Arvald and Blaise had cloth on. Arvald had some knightly attire on, not too light, not too heavy. It was brown in color, anymore. Blaise wore a blazer on a pleated skirt.

I was not sure what the connection was between choosing a knight and a woman – a student? - for this conflict. I pressed on. I exited the art section.

As with all good things, there was a canteen at the end of the art section of the Royal Lucretius’s museum. I greeted the woman at the counter and asked for a sandwich. It was a bummer that the white ghost with shark teeth was restricted to its own holographic space-time region. I ate my food – the sandwich had bacon slices, with cheese and tomato.

It tasted good.

I walked about the enclosure I found myself – it was still indoors. As I surveyed the walls and attractions, like tree decorations and sculptures, I found a newsstand. [Let us not condescend to create the same society that oppresses freedom of thought] was the message at the newsstand’s forefront.

I finished my sandwich and threw the wrapper in the dustbin. I could see the words 'human facial recognition'. I reached forward to grab an article.