Hey before you guys read this please leave a couple comments with your thoughts and opinions. I have written this both in first person and third person, but I think third person will be easier later on. If you guys like the story I'll continue it and if not I'll probably drop it.
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Chapter 1
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*BEEP VRRR*
“Ugh… No…”
*BEEP VRRR*
“Five more minutes… stupid phone.”
*Beep VRRR*
“FINE I’LL WAKE UP YOU STUPID PHONE!”
Paul shouts as he rolls over and grabs his phone, blindly turning the alarm off.
*Beep VRRR*
“Mmmm… I don’t want to get out of bed, but I do have things that need to get done.” He said to himself. Paul had already forgotten about hitting the snooze button three times already, and when he opens his phone expecting to see the timer show six o’clock, it was slightly later than he is expecting.
6:45am
“Shit… Well, I can still make it I’ll just be a little late. Not like anything important is going on today anyway.” Paul said as he rolls out of bed with a scowl and a grunt. He grabs a stray t-shirt and a pair of jeans and walks into the bathroom to take a shower.
“Now… where did I put that towel?” Paul mutters as he steps out of the bathroom, covered in water, searching for a towel in his laundry covered bedroom. ‘The disaster area’ as his girlfriend, well ex-girlfriend as of yesterday, likes to call it.
Paul starts randomly kicking things around on the floor and under a pile of jeans he finds a towel hidden. “Jackpot.”
Paul dries off and pulls his clothes on in a hurry. Though in the past he wouldn’t be rushing at all, ever since the University board accepted his thesis and expect him to complete his PhD they told him he needs to be more responsible. The talk about responsibility they had stemmed from the semester when the freshmen in his class were playing with the Bunsen burners and nearly lit the building on fire. Luckily another professor had walked by and stopped the fire spreading across the lab bench before any real damage could be done.
“I don’t even know why we still have those dumb things; everyone uses the electrical heating elements now anyway. This isn’t the 1950’s anymore.” Paul complains to himself, sitting down on the bed, and then reaching down for his bag. Paul slips on and ties his favorite pair of black and white Chucks, then grabs his phone off of the end table to check the time.
7:00am
“Phew. I can still walk and make it there in about 20 minutes.” Relieved that he will make it to class on time, Paul makes his way out the door follows the same route he has taken to the University every day.
Having walked the same route so many times, the real world fades into the background as Paul’s thoughts drift closer to the surface.
‘I’m not even sure why I decided to continue doing this. I mean, I know once I’m done I’ll get paid a lot. Is that really worth it though? I know it’s pretty much everyone’s dream to have a job they like and make some money and settle down, but now that Lizzy is gone...I just don’t know if it’s worth it.’
*Swip*
‘I really know I just need to let go and delete all these texts, but I just can’t. I did love her. I know I was bad at expressing it but I did, even if she doesn’t believe me.’
-TXT MSG 7:30pm from Lizzy-
-Paul, I just don’t think that it will work out between us. We’re just two different people. You don’t care enough about me and it’s not something you’ll ever be able to change. There’s a lot more to it than that, but it’s the main thing. I mean, do you even have anything you care about? I’ve never seen you excited or disappointed. You know how much I cared about you, but I can’t do this anymore. You told me all the time that I was the most important thing in your life, but apparently even that doesn’t amount to very much for you does it? I’d suggest you find something in your life worth living for, but you never listened to me when I said that in the past and I doubt you will now. Goodbye Paul. –
“Sigh”
’She’s right.’
‘I really don’t have anything that I care that much about. I guess most people care about God, and their family, their careers, their friends, and have goals and stuff. In comparison I’m a far cry from most people. My family has always been at odds, arguing over who should get Grandma and Grandpa’s inheritance and has pretty much broken apart in the last four years. Since I was the only one that was never at odds with anyone I got put in the middle and all the blame for the fighting got put on me simply because they expected me to care enough to keep things together. ‘
‘My career is boring; mostly built up on the work of others and I haven’t made any significant breakthroughs since I started. I guess what I’m doing is new but it isn’t anything groundbreaking. I guess a few people who will care about how we plan to magnify the detection limits on our mass spectrometers by improving the quantum calculations done in our Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer, but not many. Hell, even I don’t care that much if it works and my graduation is hanging in the balance.’
‘Friends? Have a few, most live on the coasts and I’m stuck in the Midwest. I between research and teaching I don’t have vacations to go out and see them, and who wants to come here in summer when it’s hot and humid, or in the winter when there’s a foot of snow on the ground half the time. The dogs I had as a kid got old and passed away, and I’m too busy to get puppy or kitten. I don’t really see myself as a pet person anyway.’
‘God though? Not in the conventional sense. I’m not really an atheist; there’s just too much information about existence. As humans we’ve barely even scratched the surface about how matter interacts with itself, how gravity even works, and yet people expect you to have a firm belief in something that makes quantum physics look like we’re babies trying to figure out which block goes in the circle hole. No, I’m not qualified to say if there is or isn’t anything out there. From what I know though I wouldn’t be surprised if there was. You might even say I’d lean towards a yes.’
*drip*
A drop of rain brings Paul back into the real world. Stopping in his tracks, Paul stares at his phone for a moment longer, and wipes the drop off. He looks up in trying to get an estimate of how far off the heavier rain is, but surprisingly there’s not a cloud in the sky.
‘No way, am I seriously crying?’
Paul lifts his right hand and rubs his eye, leaving the trace of a half-formed tear across the side of his face.
…
“HEY MAN LOOK OUT!” a man standing on the sidewalk a few feet away from Paul screams at the top of his lungs.
“This better be good.” Paul turns to see who this guy is screaming at, yelling at 7am. He spots the guy who is just now finishing yelling “LOOK OUT” again but the guy is looking straight at him, and pointing behind Paul and to his right. Paul squints, and turns head just in time to notice a truck headed straight for the cross walk. The driver’s asleep. He’s not going to stop.
5 feet – Paul takes a step back.
4 feet – He makes half a turn and take a second step.
3 feet – From this angle Paul can see the truck coming closer out of the corner of his eye as he finishes turning.
2 feet - One more step but his right foot and ankle hits the ground at an awkward angle.
1 foot – Paul tries to take another step but notices his right foot slide out from underneath him.
Zero – In the last moments he makes out the screen of his phone as it stops sliding across the pavement. The last thing he sees was the final line of a text message.
Goodbye Paul.
“Well isn’t that fucking Ironic.” Paul attempts to say, but before he can get the words out he is hit by the truck. He feels a large pressure hitting his side and loses all feeling simultaneously. His vision swims between darkness and light. To him this lasts an eternity but only two seconds have passed since contact with the truck.
Paul’s body hit’s the ground and rolls across the sidewalk and into a parking lot. He tries to open his eyes to check on the damage to his body but can only manage to squint through the red haze and faintly make out the outlines of bystanders.
The light red haze in his vision turns darker; he can barely make out a man bend over, pick up his phone, frown, and start walking in his direction.
To Paul, everything is getting darker and the man is making his way through the crowed towards him. Paul feels he should reflect on how he lived his life but all he can do is look at this man making his way towards him because there’s something about that man and Paul can’t quite put his finger on it.
Everyone else in the crowd is just a dark red blur from what Paul can see, but as they getting fainter that man is getting clearer, more vibrant. It’s almost as if he’s made of energy and it’s buzzing around him, overpowering everything else around him.
“Ah that’s it. This is why I can’t think of anything else.” Paul says to himself, but in all his attempts to speak the only result is more blood sloshing out of a gash in his neck.
“Something’s wrong.”
“He’s wrong.”
As everything fades away and darkness takes ahold of Paul, the strange man speaks.
“So Paul, did you ever find anything to care about in this little world of yours?”
‘I don’t think I can make a response, I’m pretty sure this is the cusp of death and my consciousness is fading away. Why can’t this asshole just let me die in peace? If I could have cared about anything, it would have found the answer to the most sought after question, but it’s so far beyond my reach it’s hopeless.’
“What question is that, pray tell?”
‘Why are we here?’ Paul thinking that these are his last moments of consciousness asks the only question that comes to mind. After doing so he relaxes and attempts to let his consciousness fade away.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
‘I guess this is the end, complete darkness. I wonder how long it takes until I stop thinking.’
-several minutes later-
‘I always thought it would stop sooner than this. I mean I’ve heard that the brain fires electric impulses for minutes when someone dies, but with all that blood I don’t think mine would last more than a few seconds.’
“Well… that’s true; the human brain does fire impulses for a few minutes after someone dies, and yes your brain did not last more than a few seconds.”
‘The fuck? You’re still here?’
“Sure, why not? I’m everywhere. I’m GOD.”
‘So… what now? Do you tell me all the answers, send me to heaven, send me to hell after telling me I should have been a Jehova’s witness, or throw me back in to the circle of life?’
“Hmmm…. Let’s go with answer e. I know how you love multiple choice I’m sure you’ve figured out the answer by now, yes?”
‘None of the above.’
“Excellent! I knew eventually one of those pesky souls I’ve been recycling would make it through a full cycle. Well, yours was a few decades shy of ‘full’ but whatever you’re an adult, close enough. Most end up as miscarriages or die in the first couple years.”
‘Okay, you lost me. Wait… can you hear everything I’m thinking or just the things I’m thinking at you?’
Bapaboe-bapaboe-bapaboe. Paul thinks to himself in an attempt to test his theory.
“Just the things you’re thinking at me, but after being around long enough it’s pretty easy to figure out anyway. Most people usually think of a number or a color if they aren’t pissing themselves at this point. With you being 27-year-old male, moderate self-esteem, moderate intelligence, and apathetic… based off all of my knowledge of your life and after doing a quick check on your consciousness before death odds are 99% that you’d pick a number, one you’re familiar with but vague and long enough that it would be impossible to guess all the digits right unless I could read your mind so knowing you it’s the Planck constant, 6.6606957 times 10 to the -34th.”
‘…’
“Did I get it right? Come on tell me I got it right!”
‘Yep. Totally. That’s really impressive… uh… do I just call you God?’
“Okay that’s not what you were thinking. I’m curious now so you have to tell me if you want this conversation to get anywhere because I have all the answers, and you the questions. Also you can call me God for now. Since technically here I am what you would consider God.”
‘bapaboe-bapaboe-bapaboe’
“Pffft!”
‘hahahaha’
“Why that?”
‘I figured if you could read my mind you’d either start laughing or refuse to repeat it.’
“It seems death can change a man. Anyway, back to the main topic. What am I going to do with you? I’m sure you want to know, yes?”
‘Yeah, that and the answers to all the questions about the universe and stuff, but we can start with what you’re going to do with me.’
“Well, when I tell you what I’m going to do with you I’m afraid you won’t care much for the other answers as they are not pertinent. “
‘So if I’m not being reincarnated, not going to heaven or hell, and not answering my questions I’m stumped. Unless you’re just going to leave me here in the dark for all eternity.’
“Wrong again. You will be reincarnated, just not so much here as somewhere else.”
‘Another planet?’
“Nope, another universe.”
‘Why though? What’s the point of all the effor- The Soul thing! You mentioned it a minute ago! You said you were recycling souls and I made it to adulthood and somehow it was different. Does that mean you dragged me here from the other universe?’
“There we go, I knew you’d catch on quick. Yes, you’re not from this universe and I’m sending your soul back to the one I originally took you from.”
‘That still doesn’t answer why. I’m assuming you needed something done and that only a soul from the other universe that could survive here would work, but what?’
“Well, you might want to sit down for this part… Pfft…”
‘If I had a face, it wouldn’t be amused now.’
“Fine. Fine. The other universe is one based on magic. It’s what holds everything together, makes stuff work, blah blahblah. The point is, this universe doesn’t have it. I started the ‘big bang’ as you like to call it by using mana to pool a bunch of energy together, then absorbed it instantly before it went off. It took a little longer than I thought but eventually everything settled for the most part and here we are. To be honest, everything pretty much functions the same as the mana universe until you get down to the whole quantum physics level. It’s quite different, but like I said earlier, it doesn’t really matter that much since it won’t apply to where you’re going.”
‘Okay, so magic is real. I can’t say I’m too surprised after finding out God exists though. Sorry, you kind of make the magic is a real thing less shocking.’
“Hmm… I wouldn’t say that. Essentially magic is what makes me, well, me. Sure mine is more dense and powerful than just about anything else in the other universe, but without it I wouldn’t exist. Don’t you remember what you were thinking as you faded out? ‘He’s wrong.’ It’s because my body has mana and you were in a universe that contained none.”
‘That puts things into proportion. So… why did you need to create a universe without magic anyway?’
“Remember how I said your universe had the same basic principles as the magical universe? Well, because the inhabitants there have magic they haven’t advanced very far in understanding the world. Plus the fact that there are multiple gods that actually respond with advice and blessings, though limited, means they’re far more religious. So I created this one in hopes that without those things the people would advance to a point where their understanding would be able to help advance the people in the magic universe.”
‘Ah… this is where the unexpected problem comes in. You said before that my soul was from there, and most never survive. I’d hazard a guess and say that you’ve been taking souls from both and trying different variations to see if you can get them to stabilize?’
“Yes and no. I was taking souls from both but stopped after I found a problem. There is no way for the souls that were born in the universe without magic to survive in the universe with magic. Something goes horribly wrong and the soul gets obliterated beyond recognition. I can take the pieces back here and repair them, but that’s it. I found that the souls that were born with magic can survive being drained of it and then later re-infused. However the key problem is their memories.”
‘You need the soul to develop to the point where it has a high understanding of the principles of the world so that you can keep the memories in-tact and send them back to the universe with magic?’
“Bingo. So… I think that you’re all caught up. Any preference on where you end up? Haha, you don’t really know anything about the other world yet so you can’t. Well, I’ll help you out I guess since you didn’t piss yourself. What color eyes do you want? Any color is possible and it won’t look weird so don’t worry.”
‘Blue I guess? Why does it matter anyway?’
“You can’t be serious, can you? All the colors and you come up with blue? Why don’t you pick something like cyan or cerulean or navy or cobalt?”
‘Because I’m a guy and I don’t know the different names for blue? I don’t know; just go with a vibrant and darker blue. Seriously though, why does it matter?’
“I'm not going to tell you why, I want it to be a surprise! Anyway, does cobalt work for you?”
‘Sure why not.’
“Alright, let’s get a move on. Sorry about the truck thing.”
‘Wait a second…’
“Okay bye!”
‘YOU CAUSED THE ACCIDENT?! YOU DIDN’T YOU?! YOU KILLED ME YOU ASSHOLE!’
*Rr~iipp~p* Horrible tearing sounds surround Paul in every direction. The space made of darkness is suddenly filled with fabric like tears form in a circle, surrounding Paul and flooding him in light.
‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH’
“Oh yeah, the dimensional travel and birth thing are going to hurt a bit.”
‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU ASSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLEEE-----‘
….
*Spank*
“WAAAAAAAAH!!!!”
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If you made it this far and you're not looking for a spoon to scoop out your eyeballs please leave a review. It means a lot to me and it could mean the difference between me switching to first person view, leaving it as is, or dropping the whole thing all together. Even if you're just thinking of leaving a "hey good job, I like it" reply, please consider leaving a review as well; know that it will help me fine tune things if I have some honest feedback.
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edit 5/21/15 - I have a bad habit of repeating verbs, if you catch any please let me know. Also, I've been super lazy and stuff; combined with the fact that I keep forgetting to send myself the outline I made it's made chapter 3 take a lot longer than it should.