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Fragmented World
The Fragmenting World

The Fragmenting World

Our story begins in a simple world, a world filled with humans and animals, a world much like our own, but it's future however is very much different, for this world will soon come to an end. The streets are bustling with people and noise, and that noise from those people can be heard for miles and miles, but unbeknownst to them the vast majority wouldn't survive in the next couple of hours. We'll worry about those people another time however, because this story doesn't follow them nor the antics, this story follows another man's antics, a man named Lewis, your typical everyday cashier, there's absolutely nothing special about him as he's just scraping by to survive the day, and during this particular time, he's currently working at a gas station an hour away from the city. Lewis is a standard man, his looks are average, he's a white man with short brown hair, grey eyes, a slim build, and his height leaves him standing at about five foot six inches, his family is deceased and have been for some time, and currently he's arguing with a frail old woman that she had read the gas prices wrong. Lewis stood face to face with this old woman, although more accurate to say face to chest as the woman was easily six inches shorter than him and hunched over due to her underlying back problems.

Lewis Stared the woman down unyielding as she shouted, "The price of your gas was a dollar cheaper yesterday!" Lewis seemed annoyed by this remark as he knows it to be true, and even he knows that the increase in gas prices is outrageous, especially since he has to get gas regardless of price in order to make it back to his crumby apartment with paper thin walls and leaking pipes which he was fairly certain was caused by an infestation of some kind, but as this thought faded from Lewis's mind he told the woman, "Look... there's nothing I can do, it's the company's order, I'm not any happier than you are... trust me." The old woman seemed annoyed by this response as she groaned, ground her teeth, and then handed Lewis money as she said, "Forty dollars on pump three." Lewis took the money and then watched the old lady waddle to her car, satisfied that she had now been dealt with Lewis sighed and sat down behind the counter while doing as the old woman had asked by allowing her to get forty dollars' worth of gas. Lewis sat there for a few hours watching cars go by and after a while he checked the time, it was six thirty-nine in the afternoon, knowing this he stood up yawned and began talking to himself as he said, "Alright... just a few more hours and I can go home... to that shitty fucking apartment... which I'll probably get kicked out of soon... fuck." After this remark Lewis glanced back at the clock and noticed that the time now read six thirty, he stared at it for a moment and thought to himself that his eyes must've been playing tricks on him and that he should probably start switching out the old food on the shelves for the fresh stock that they had recently gotten in. Lewis fetched the box from the back and then checked the time once again while muttering that the time was six thirty-three and that he wished the day would just end already.

The box Lewis had grabbed was filled with a sort of spicy potato chip, with the slogan go hot or you're not, with some sort of smiling panda bear on it, he didn't like the bear very much and thought to himself that the mascot was creepy but didn't waste longer than two seconds on the thought before taking the old near expired bags of the chips off the shelves and dropping them on to the floor, Lewis wasn't exactly the smartest however he was aware that dumping the chips on to the floor temporarily and reusing the box he got the new stock out of was much easier than using two boxes. However, this didn't go according to his plan, as he leaned down to the box he had just brought out filled with all those new creepy panda snacks the box was gone, not only the box, but all the old creepy panda snacks to, shocked by the sudden disappearance of both the old and new snacks Lewis muttered to himself, "Seriously? What kinda shit day is this? A box full of snacks and a shelf full just disappeared, at this rate I'm gonna lose my job." Though this was not the case, for the snacks with the creepy mascot didn't just disappear, and Lewis soon noticed this when he looked at the shelf and seen that all the snacks he knocked on to the floor were all perfectly on the shelf as if he hadn't touched them. Not knowing what to do think or say Lewis just rubbed his eyes and said, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna sleep on the desk, I'm obviously exhausted, if the manager wants to fire me then he might as well." Reaching for his seat he then notices the time once again, it now reading six thirty-one, astonished by this he mutters to himself that he must be losing his mind, that or he forgot how to tell time, which after working this boring job for a couple of years he wouldn't doubt the first of those two possibilities. Still muttering to himself Lewis laid his head down and begins to sleep, time ticking by once again, and again, and again, all while he is obliviously sleeping it away, hours pass by although at the same time it's only those same ten minutes that are ticking by seemingly endlessly. Lewis still unaware if this fact wakes up and stares at the time once again, seeing that it reads six thirty-nine, not amused by this he puts his face in to his palms for a moment while saying, "I feel like I've been asleep for hours... how can it be that only a measly eight minutes have passed by?" And as if answering his own question, he removed his hands from his face and then watched the clock go from six thirty-nine back to six thirty.

Lewis stared at the time once again and then carefully watched the time tick by once again minute by minute, the clock once again reading six thirty-nine, Lewis watching anxiously, and then quickly switching back to six thirty, Lewis remembering the potato chips from earlier decided to experiment with this newfound discovery. Standing from his chair and approaching the shelves he began throwing all the products on to the floor, he did this for nine minutes and then returned to his chair, carefully observing both his surroundings and the clock and as he suspected once the clock reset, all the products that scattered the floor returned to the shelf, as if he never threw them around the gas station. Lewis looked around panicked as he said, "I'm in a time loop? I'm stuck living the same ten minutes the rest of my life! What happens if I die? Will the loop end? Or does the loop continue even after I die? Maybe everyone else is living this loop to. No that's not how it works in the movies. Wait... time doesn't reset on me... but it does on everything else... I'll have to experiment with it a little more... but what to do now... no point staying here... guess I'll head back home." Walking outside Lewis thought to himself about all the possibilities with this newfound phenomenon that may very well revolve around him, feeling both extremely stressed and special he looked at his truck and thought to himself about driving it back to the city but before acting on this thought he had another thought, he imagined himself driving home in his truck, and then it suddenly vanishing out from underneath him, he dreaded the thought of rolling down the road, scraping his entire body like some sort of human skipping stone acrost it and losing a chunk or two of skin in the process, all because he was a little careless and in an unnecessary rush as he did have all the time in the world, and so being the smart man he was he moved the car roughly ten feet forward and sat inside just waiting to see what would happen, and as he expected, after ten minutes he fell on his ass and the car appeared behind him in the exact spot it just was.

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Disappointed by this discovery Lewis began his trek back to the city, ever so slowly but making progress one step at a time, with his bright side of this situation being that his phone is on three percent, and constantly resetting back to that point every ten minutes, or so he thought, as it would appear the objects in his possession did not reset along with everything else. Lewis displeased with this fact could do nothing however, and so after four long tedious hours, or more accurately, seven minutes according to his phone which is now on one percent due to his periodic checking of the time, and during his trek he also noticed various cracks in the sky. The cracks appeared to be glowing a mysterious blue and white glow that phased in and out of the crack at random intervals spanning from one second to three seconds, and they looked as if they were both coming towards him and expanding outwards, he couldn't quite figure it out nor did he care to learn the secrets behind these three dimensional cracks, although he did have a sneaking suspicion that those cracks were linked to the time and how it was constantly being reset. Now about a mile away from the city Lewis just stood there and stared in awe at the sight before him, the city was destroyed, the buildings were in ruins, the three-dimensional cracks went in and out of the buildings, the people were nowhere in sight, the noises the people made that could be heard for miles, couldn't even be faintly heard throughout the entire city. Lewis not willing to turn back took a deep breath and then ventured into the city while saying, "I'm sure I won't regret this at all in the very near future."

Lewis looked around for a short while, and within a few short moments of searching he found a three-dimensional crack that was close enough for him to reach, and so after muttering a few things about how crazy it would be if he touched it, he reached his hand out towards it. The crack, upon being touched expanded, while touching it a warm feeling lingered throughout his body, it comforted him to some extent, as much as he could be comforted that is, especially since he's standing in a destroyed city with no idea what could've done such a thing. Lewis stood there for a short while racking his brain before reaching for his phone, upon seeing it his face lit up, his jaw dropped and he shouted, "The time! It moved!" Excited as he could be staring at the time which now read six forty-two, he gave the crack one last glance, and then continued searching through the rubble of this newly dystopian city, although sadly his curiosity was cut short when a blue human with a three-dimensional crack on his face and through his stomach approached him with hammer, Lewis stared at this man for a moment as it approached him, Lewis not knowing what to make of it decided to ask "Hey... are you alright? You have some of those... cracks all over you." However, the blue man didn't stop to give a reply, instead he rose his arm and bashed Lewis's head in with his hammer, causing Lewis to fall to the ground in a bloody stupor, Lewis laying on the ground holding his head as blood flowed down his face then began to crawl away as he begged, "P-please... please stop... you're gonna kill me." While Lewis crawled away, or at the very least tried, since the blue man had other plans for him as he proceeded to get on Lewis's back and repeatedly bash his head in until bits and pieces of his skull and blood decorated the ground around them, the blue man then let out a loud ear-piercing screech as if some sort of declaration of victory over its new prey.

Though this is not the end of our story, as Lewis found himself back at the crack quickly removing his hand from it screaming as though he has just been murdered, looking around frantically in a panic he holds his head while breathing heavily and thinking to himself about what that thing could've been, because something that ruthless... couldn't have been a man. Lewis, still in shock about what just happened then looked at the crack, and then noticed a much larger crack that was sitting atop of the tallest still standing building, and for whatever reason his brain which had just been violently bashed in, had come up with some sort of idea that the cracks may be more important than he had initially thought, and so he has made it his goal to get to that crack which more than doubled the size of the top of the building it was resting on. Lewis, feeling more determined than he ever has in is life took a deep breath and then said, "Today is gonna be one hell of a day... I already died once, and it's probably bound to happen again."

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