Create
Chapter One — Create
Amara was bored.
Not the ordinary kind of bored where you scroll through your phone for five minutes and suddenly find something interesting.
This was the kind of boredom that made the walls of her room feel closer than they actually were.
She had already watched videos, checked her messages, opened and closed the same three apps, and stared at her unfinished design projects without the slightest desire to touch them.
Her phone lay beside her on the bed.
She picked it up again.
Nothing.
She sighed and dropped it back onto the mattress.
Then the screen lit up.
Amara frowned.
There was a new app on her phone.
She was certain she hadn’t downloaded it.
The icon was almost completely black. In the center was a tiny white letter:
S
She stared at it.
“Okay...”
She tapped the icon.
The app opened instantly.
There was no logo animation. No loading screen. No explanation.
Just three buttons against a black background.
CREATE
DELETE
DO NOT OPEN
Amara blinked.
“That’s not suspicious at all.”
She laughed to herself.
There was something strangely tempting about the first option.
She tapped CREATE.
The screen went black.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then a sentence appeared.
Create what you wish existed.
A blank text box appeared beneath it.
Amara thought for a moment.
She could have typed anything.
A new phone.
Money.
A dream house.
A perfect vacation.
Instead, she typed the first thing that came into her head.
A place where I can make anything I imagine.
She pressed ENTER.
The screen froze.
Then the words appeared:
CREATION COMPLETE.
Amara frowned.
“That was it?”
The phone vibrated.
A soft sound came from somewhere behind her.
She turned.
Her bedroom looked exactly the same.
Except for one thing.
There was a door in the wall.
Amara stared at it.
She had lived in this room long enough to know every corner.
There had never been a door there.
She slowly got off the bed.
The door was tall and completely ordinary except for the faint glow around its edges.
A small sign hung from it.
She stepped closer.
The sign read:
AMARA VALE
She laughed nervously.
“Very funny.”
She reached for the handle.
Her phone vibrated again.
She looked down.
A countdown had appeared.
10:00
09:59
09:58
Beneath it were two options:
OPEN THE DOOR
CHANGE THE CREATION
Amara looked at the door.
Then back at the phone.
She knew she should probably choose the sensible option.
She opened the door.
The moment she stepped through, the world changed.
She found herself standing inside an enormous creative studio.
Massive screens covered the walls.
One displayed a video-editing timeline.
Another showed a three-dimensional design.
Another displayed photographs of places she had never seen.
The room seemed to stretch farther than the walls should have allowed.
At the center was a large desk.
On it sat a computer.
Amara approached it cautiously.
The monitor turned on before she touched the mouse.
A single folder appeared.
THINGS YOU HAVEN’T CREATED YET
She clicked it.
Three folders appeared.
PROJECT_01
PROJECT_02
PROJECT_03
Amara opened the first.
A document appeared.
CLIENT: UNKNOWN BUDGET: ₦0 DEADLINE: TONIGHT
BRIEF:
Create something so good that people wonder why it didn’t already exist.
Amara stared at the screen.
“Seriously?”
She almost laughed.
There was no client.
No budget.
No explanation.
And somehow, she was expected to create something nobody had thought of before.
She placed her hands on the keyboard.
Then she stopped.
What if she didn’t make a poster?
What if she didn’t make a video?
What if she created something completely different?
She closed her eyes.
“I want it to feel like a memory from a place I’ve never been.”
The screen changed.
“I want people to feel curious before they understand what they’re looking at.”
The interface disappeared.
A single sentence appeared:
DON’T DESIGN THE THING.
DESIGN THE FEELING.
Amara opened her eyes.
She smiled.
“Okay.”
She typed one word.
BEGIN.
A tiny point of light appeared on the screen.
It moved slowly.
The point became a line.
The line became a doorway.
The doorway became a city.
And the city began responding to her movements.
When she moved the cursor slowly, the city became peaceful.
When she moved quickly, everything became chaotic.
When she stopped moving...
Everything stopped.
Amara stared at the screen.
For the first time since the strange app appeared, she wasn’t bored.
She was fascinated.
Then the computer displayed:
PROJECT COMPLETE.
She smiled.
Until another message appeared.
VIEWER: 1
Amara’s smile disappeared.
She looked around the studio.
There was nobody there.
The computer displayed another line.
LOCATION: YOUR ROOM
She stared at it.
“What?”
The screen went black.
Then a message appeared:
DON’T WORRY. IT WAS YOU.
Amara frowned.
Before she could respond, another message appeared.
A FUTURE VERSION OF YOU.
The studio suddenly felt colder.
A new folder appeared on the desktop.
PROJECT_04
She clicked it.
Inside was a video file.
She opened it.
The screen showed the same studio.
The same desk.
The same computer.
And someone sitting in her chair.
Amara leaned closer.
It was her.
Or at least, someone who looked exactly like her.
The person on the screen looked older.
Different hair. Different clothes.
But the face was unmistakable.
Her future self looked directly into the camera.
Then spoke.
“If you’re watching this, don’t trust the version of me in the studio.”
The video ended.
Amara sat frozen.
She replayed it.
The same message.
Again.
She looked toward the doorway.
Nothing.
She looked back at the computer.
A sentence appeared.
PROJECT_04 IS NOT A VIDEO.
IT IS A WINDOW.
The doorway behind her began to change.
The view beyond it was no longer her bedroom.
It was the same studio.
But in that studio stood another version of Amara.
The two stared at each other through the impossible doorway.
The other Amara raised a piece of paper.
Three words were written on it:
DON’T CREATE PROJECT 05.
Amara stepped closer.
“Why?”
The other Amara slowly wrote another message.
BECAUSE PROJECT 05 CREATES YOU.
Amara stared.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
The other Amara smiled sadly.
The computer screen flickered.
A new message appeared:
PROJECT 05 ISN’T A PROJECT.
IT’S A PERSON.
Amara’s phone vibrated.
The mysterious app had opened by itself.
There were now only two buttons.
TRUST
DON’T TRUST
Beneath them was a message:
Choose who you believe.
Amara looked at the other version of herself.
Then at the computer.
Then at the doorway.
None of it made sense.
So she did something the app hadn’t expected.
She closed it.
The studio disappeared.
Amara opened her eyes.
She was back in her bedroom.
Her phone was beside her.
Her computer was off.
The mysterious app was gone.
Everything looked normal.
She sat quietly for several seconds.
“Okay.”
She laughed nervously.
“That was definitely a dream.”
She reached for her phone.
Then stopped.
There was a new photograph in her gallery.
She opened it.
Her blood ran cold.
It was a photograph of her sleeping.
Taken from the corner of her bedroom.
She checked the timestamp.
12:13 PM.
She looked at the clock.
12:12 PM.
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
One minute later, the clock changed.
12:13 PM.
The photograph changed too.
Now the picture showed her bedroom from the doorway.
Amara was standing beside her bed.
And behind her...
Someone was standing in the room.
A person wearing a dark hoodie.
Amara zoomed in.
The person’s face was hidden.
But they were holding a piece of paper.
She zoomed in again.
Three words were written on it.
YOU CHOSE B.
She stared at the message.
Then remembered.
Back in the studio, when the computer had asked how she would escape, she had chosen:
B — Ask how to get out.
Her phone vibrated.
The mysterious app was back.
One new notification appeared:
INVESTIGATION: 37% COMPLETE
Amara opened the app.
A new option had appeared:
INVESTIGATE
She tapped it.
The screen asked:
What are you investigating?
She typed:
YOU.
The screen went black.
Then a profile appeared.
USER PROFILE
NAME: AMARA VALE STATUS: CREATOR FIRST CREATION: UNKNOWN LAST CREATION: PROJECT 04 CREATOR: —
She scrolled.
At the bottom was one final line.
USER DID NOT EXIST BEFORE PROJECT 01.
Amara stopped.
She read it again.
Then again.
Her phone suddenly vibrated.
A message appeared.
You asked how to get out.
Another appeared.
But you never asked the right question.
Amara swallowed.
“What question?”
The answer appeared immediately.
WHO CREATED YOU?
A sound came from her bedroom door.
Three slow knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Amara stared at the door.
Her phone displayed:
DON’T ANSWER.
Then a voice came from the other side.
Her voice.
“Amara...”
She didn’t move.
The voice spoke again.
“Open the door.”
Amara slowly looked toward her computer.
The screen was still black.
Yet the voice was coming from it.
She stepped backward.
The bedroom door opened by itself.
The hallway beyond it was empty.
Her phone vibrated one final time.
PROJECT_05 HAS STARTED.
Amara looked at the screen.
Then toward the empty hallway.
A figure appeared at the far end.
Someone carrying a laptop.
They began walking toward her.
The phone displayed one final word:
RUN.
And for the first time, Amara realized something terrifying.
She had never been the one creating the projects.
She was one of them.
