565
This tied for third, but due to the tie-breaking policy of whatever that is, it got bumped down to fourth.
Life was dull.
Not that it’s a bad thing, a dull life can sometimes be very fulfilling. But my life hadn’t become fulfilling, it just became boring. My everyday tasks had become a drag. Mining had lost its flair, fishing couldn’t keep my attention, and farming is just all-in-all boring. My eyes kept drifting to the shore, imagining what lay beyond the chopping waves.
It all reached a head one night while I lay in bed. I had bred my cows earlier that day, and led the eldest out to be slaughtered. I never enjoyed killing animals, but necessity had demanded it. I had cooked the meat, and washed the blood off my hands. The leather I threw in my corner chest, to someday make a set of armor or a shield or something. I can’t remember exactly what, since I never made it. But as I lay there in bed, my mind drifted off again, as my eyes looked out my picture window out onto the waves. My eyes watched the waves dance off the shore, when the water ignited a fire inside me. I finally found what the whole in my soul was, and I resolved that the next day, I would fill it.
My resolution soon fell flat after realizing I was short on supplies, so my next couple days were spent gathering food, wood, and other miscellaneous supplies. It was a full three days before I made for the shoreline.
Honestly, the trip was nothing to write home about. The sea went on for miles, and after the first couple hours, everything just mushed together in my mind. My time on the boat lasted for around three days, before something happened that I do remember.
I was beginning to nod off, but forgot to slow my speed. I couldn’t tell you how long I slept, but when I woke up, my boat was in five pieces, and I was sinking fast into the deep. I had inadvertently crashed into a monument. I felt the deep urge to explore it, but I had none of the necessary supplies to delve into it. So I pressed on, but this time, not having the wood necessary to build a new boat, I swam.
I remember the rest of the swim like it was yesterday, but I won’t drag you down with the details of it though, for it lasted another two days. I’ll skip ahead here, because literally nothing happened but me moving in a forward direction.
After the two days of swimming, I hit land. It seemed innocuous enough, but little did I know that nothing would be the same. It seemed large enough to be mainland, but I had a very short view from the shore. It appeared to be desert, which meant no wood to make a boat. I was mentally kicking myself in the shins for forgetting extra wood. So, because I didn’t feel like swimming for around seven days straight, I decided to start exploring the strange new land.
I went straight into the desert, after eating one of the steaks that I had packed away for the trip. This trek also took a few days, and not much happened, so I’ll skip ahead again to when things got interesting.
I found a building out in the middle of the desert. It was large, and very strange-looking. I felt as though I had seen it before, but I was never able to quite put my finger on where. I approached the vaulted door, and seeing that the sun would soon set, I went inside.
The door opened into an antechamber of sorts, with orange lights high up on the walls. It wasn’t a very large room, but it had another door at the end. There were vaulted window slats in the walls, which were letting in the dying rays of sun on one side, and the cold light of the rising moon on the other. It set the mood as I walked into the next room.
The next room was much, much larger, and at the end, there was a man. He stood perfectly straight, with his arms folded behind his back. He wore a cloak with the hood up, which blocked my view of his face. As I walked towards him, I began noticing the sheer immensity of the room I was in. It seemed to be a perfect rectangle, with such things filling the sides of the walkway as tables, pools of water, even what appeared to be staircases leading down into a basement or cavern. There were no windows, all the light was coming from prismarine lights hanging from the ceiling, which contrasted with the torchlight in the previous room.
As I approached the end of the room, the man lifted the cloak hood off his face, allowing me a good look at his face. He seemed ageless, through his silvery hair toeing the line between gray and blonde, and his face being both wrinkled and smooth. I could not understand this man, nor did I feel like I was supposed to. This man was different.
“Welcome to the Reality Complex, my friend. Come, this is where your entire life has been leading you. If you’ll follow me, I will show you around.” He began to walk towards the end of the room, and began groping the wall. I was concerned for about half a moment, until I saw him push a brick back into the wall, which in turn opened a small doorway in the wall. He beckoned me inside, and I was completely shocked.
The room the door lead into was impossibly large. I couldn’t remember the building being large enough to hold a room of that size, but here it was. It was a perfect dome, with a full garden in a ring about halfway between the door and the center. I could not discern any light source anywhere in the room, but yet I had no problem seeing. The mysterious man walked up towards the center, which took less time than it seemed it would. As we walked past the garden, which split cleanly between the walkway we were on, I saw many impossible things. I saw large, four-legged mammals darting between the trees, I saw small feathered things flying and landing high in the trees. I also saw new types of trees, with mysterious buildings and ruins peeking out from behind conifer branches. I was absolutely transfixed by the mysteries I was passing, to the point I could’ve stared at the garden for hours. But the man kept moving, so I kept pace with him.
Once we reached the center of the dome, I saw the pinnacle of the entire complex. There was a single desk dead center, with a chair and some pages strewn around the top. There was also a single quill, sitting in its inkwell, right on top of it. I had had enough mystery, so I asked him exactly what was on my mind. “What is this place?”
The man replied, “This is the Reality Complex. It is here we alter reality in order to maintain the balance of everything in existence. It is here where we invent new entities to introduce to the outside world. We exist out of time, and even out of reality itself. Anything you can imagine can come to life here. Your wanderlust has lead you here, and now it is time to fulfill it. Take a seat at the desk, and let your mind race.”
I couldn’t’ve kept track of the time if I had tried. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve also been hours. Hell, it could’ve been weeks for all I know. As I wrote down my ideas, and drew diagrams and illustrations, the garden around me changed as well. I imagined a tree, and it grew. I imagined an animal, and it appeared. The man stood behind me for the entire time, merely watching me. When I finally looked up from the paper, I saw an entire world surrounding me in the garden. The man then spoke.
“You have done well, imagining changes in reality can be difficult. But these new creations have not yet manifested themselves in the material plane. This is where you must use discretion. If you allow everything into reality, you run the risk of tearing it apart. Be careful, and use your experience to guide you to what would fit into the outside world. When you have decided, take your paper and put a check on it. The Complex will decipher it, dissect it, and then inject it into the fabric of reality. If there is an idea that you reject, just mark it with an x, and the Complex will vaporize it. So now, watch your creations, and find if any will go to reality.”
And so I went on. The man would occasionally leave for long stretches of time, doing something that gave off an air of importance. I slowly made decisions as to my tests. I went on like that for what could’ve been months, but slowly, I began to lose interest. I missed my home, and my life. It was then everything went wrong.
The man was back from one of his disappearances, and he took an interest in one of my older creations, one that I was reviewing after observation in the garden. As I went to make a check on the corner of the paper, the man lost his footing, tripping over one of my chair legs. He smacked his hand right onto the wet ink, leaving a clear check mark on his hand. He began to rise off the ground, smoke tendrils emanating off of his robes. It was then I realized the Complex was accepting him into reality. It was also then that reality was destroyed.
So now, here I am. The Complex itself is outside of reality, which meant I was safe inside. I had walked back to the doorway I had originally entered in an eternity ago, and looked outside. There was nothing. The building was floating in a sea of white. It was then I realized my duty. I would have to rebuild reality from the ground up.
--------
That happened years ago. I tried to rebuild my world from memory, but reality had restarted itself in a different fashion. I made everything the same as where I left it, but it was tainted by the new reality. Everything was in blocks. I tried to fix it from inside the Complex, but the man never taught me how.
But now I’m content. I have left the Reality Complex far behind, and now am content to just live in this mess that I’ve made. I’ve made a new house, a new farm, a new mine. But yet, nothing is the same. I destroyed everything, and will forever feel that guilt. And forever is a long time.
Life was dull.
Not that it’s a bad thing, a dull life can sometimes be very fulfilling. But my life hadn’t become fulfilling, it just became boring. My everyday tasks had become a drag. Mining had lost its flair, fishing couldn’t keep my attention, and farming is just all-in-all boring. My eyes kept drifting to the shore, imagining what lay beyond the chopping waves.
It all reached a head one night while I lay in bed. I had bred my cows earlier that day, and led the eldest out to be slaughtered. I never enjoyed killing animals, but necessity had demanded it. I had cooked the meat, and washed the blood off my hands. The leather I threw in my corner chest, to someday make a set of armor or a shield or something. I can’t remember exactly what, since I never made it. But as I lay there in bed, my mind drifted off again, as my eyes looked out my picture window out onto the waves. My eyes watched the waves dance off the shore, when the water ignited a fire inside me. I finally found what the whole in my soul was, and I resolved that the next day, I would fill it.
My resolution soon fell flat after realizing I was short on supplies, so my next couple days were spent gathering food, wood, and other miscellaneous supplies. It was a full three days before I made for the shoreline.
Honestly, the trip was nothing to write home about. The sea went on for miles, and after the first couple hours, everything just mushed together in my mind. My time on the boat lasted for around three days, before something happened that I do remember.
I was beginning to nod off, but forgot to slow my speed. I couldn’t tell you how long I slept, but when I woke up, my boat was in five pieces, and I was sinking fast into the deep. I had inadvertently crashed into a monument. I felt the deep urge to explore it, but I had none of the necessary supplies to delve into it. So I pressed on, but this time, not having the wood necessary to build a new boat, I swam.
I remember the rest of the swim like it was yesterday, but I won’t drag you down with the details of it though, for it lasted another two days. I’ll skip ahead here, because literally nothing happened but me moving in a forward direction.
After the two days of swimming, I hit land. It seemed innocuous enough, but little did I know that nothing would be the same. It seemed large enough to be mainland, but I had a very short view from the shore. It appeared to be desert, which meant no wood to make a boat. I was mentally kicking myself in the shins for forgetting extra wood. So, because I didn’t feel like swimming for around seven days straight, I decided to start exploring the strange new land.
I went straight into the desert, after eating one of the steaks that I had packed away for the trip. This trek also took a few days, and not much happened, so I’ll skip ahead again to when things got interesting.
I found a building out in the middle of the desert. It was large, and very strange-looking. I felt as though I had seen it before, but I was never able to quite put my finger on where. I approached the vaulted door, and seeing that the sun would soon set, I went inside.
The door opened into an antechamber of sorts, with orange lights high up on the walls. It wasn’t a very large room, but it had another door at the end. There were vaulted window slats in the walls, which were letting in the dying rays of sun on one side, and the cold light of the rising moon on the other. It set the mood as I walked into the next room.
The next room was much, much larger, and at the end, there was a man. He stood perfectly straight, with his arms folded behind his back. He wore a cloak with the hood up, which blocked my view of his face. As I walked towards him, I began noticing the sheer immensity of the room I was in. It seemed to be a perfect rectangle, with such things filling the sides of the walkway as tables, pools of water, even what appeared to be staircases leading down into a basement or cavern. There were no windows, all the light was coming from prismarine lights hanging from the ceiling, which contrasted with the torchlight in the previous room.
As I approached the end of the room, the man lifted the cloak hood off his face, allowing me a good look at his face. He seemed ageless, through his silvery hair toeing the line between gray and blonde, and his face being both wrinkled and smooth. I could not understand this man, nor did I feel like I was supposed to. This man was different.
“Welcome to the Reality Complex, my friend. Come, this is where your entire life has been leading you. If you’ll follow me, I will show you around.” He began to walk towards the end of the room, and began groping the wall. I was concerned for about half a moment, until I saw him push a brick back into the wall, which in turn opened a small doorway in the wall. He beckoned me inside, and I was completely shocked.
The room the door lead into was impossibly large. I couldn’t remember the building being large enough to hold a room of that size, but here it was. It was a perfect dome, with a full garden in a ring about halfway between the door and the center. I could not discern any light source anywhere in the room, but yet I had no problem seeing. The mysterious man walked up towards the center, which took less time than it seemed it would. As we walked past the garden, which split cleanly between the walkway we were on, I saw many impossible things. I saw large, four-legged mammals darting between the trees, I saw small feathered things flying and landing high in the trees. I also saw new types of trees, with mysterious buildings and ruins peeking out from behind conifer branches. I was absolutely transfixed by the mysteries I was passing, to the point I could’ve stared at the garden for hours. But the man kept moving, so I kept pace with him.
Once we reached the center of the dome, I saw the pinnacle of the entire complex. There was a single desk dead center, with a chair and some pages strewn around the top. There was also a single quill, sitting in its inkwell, right on top of it. I had had enough mystery, so I asked him exactly what was on my mind. “What is this place?”
The man replied, “This is the Reality Complex. It is here we alter reality in order to maintain the balance of everything in existence. It is here where we invent new entities to introduce to the outside world. We exist out of time, and even out of reality itself. Anything you can imagine can come to life here. Your wanderlust has lead you here, and now it is time to fulfill it. Take a seat at the desk, and let your mind race.”
I couldn’t’ve kept track of the time if I had tried. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve also been hours. Hell, it could’ve been weeks for all I know. As I wrote down my ideas, and drew diagrams and illustrations, the garden around me changed as well. I imagined a tree, and it grew. I imagined an animal, and it appeared. The man stood behind me for the entire time, merely watching me. When I finally looked up from the paper, I saw an entire world surrounding me in the garden. The man then spoke.
“You have done well, imagining changes in reality can be difficult. But these new creations have not yet manifested themselves in the material plane. This is where you must use discretion. If you allow everything into reality, you run the risk of tearing it apart. Be careful, and use your experience to guide you to what would fit into the outside world. When you have decided, take your paper and put a check on it. The Complex will decipher it, dissect it, and then inject it into the fabric of reality. If there is an idea that you reject, just mark it with an x, and the Complex will vaporize it. So now, watch your creations, and find if any will go to reality.”
And so I went on. The man would occasionally leave for long stretches of time, doing something that gave off an air of importance. I slowly made decisions as to my tests. I went on like that for what could’ve been months, but slowly, I began to lose interest. I missed my home, and my life. It was then everything went wrong.
The man was back from one of his disappearances, and he took an interest in one of my older creations, one that I was reviewing after observation in the garden. As I went to make a check on the corner of the paper, the man lost his footing, tripping over one of my chair legs. He smacked his hand right onto the wet ink, leaving a clear check mark on his hand. He began to rise off the ground, smoke tendrils emanating off of his robes. It was then I realized the Complex was accepting him into reality. It was also then that reality was destroyed.
So now, here I am. The Complex itself is outside of reality, which meant I was safe inside. I had walked back to the doorway I had originally entered in an eternity ago, and looked outside. There was nothing. The building was floating in a sea of white. It was then I realized my duty. I would have to rebuild reality from the ground up.
--------
That happened years ago. I tried to rebuild my world from memory, but reality had restarted itself in a different fashion. I made everything the same as where I left it, but it was tainted by the new reality. Everything was in blocks. I tried to fix it from inside the Complex, but the man never taught me how.
But now I’m content. I have left the Reality Complex far behind, and now am content to just live in this mess that I’ve made. I’ve made a new house, a new farm, a new mine. But yet, nothing is the same. I destroyed everything, and will forever feel that guilt. And forever is a long time.
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