Chapter 1 : Null
There wasn’t much to it.
This sentence was all-encompassing to koyo.
He found that as long as he used this sentence, as long as he always kept repeating it to himself, he would always be able to take control of any situation. For this sentence was parallel to itself. It was both neutral and volatile. It could swing from a negative to a positive and maintain the situation under control. Maintain the status quo. Which was ultimately what koyo always seeked out of the experience called life. Happiness, romance, drama, and gossip. Things that seemed to stir the pot and cause the social economy to go round.
He was interested in these things of course, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be at the forefront of it all. He was an observer and nothing else. He would always take on this role. For those who observed would always be there to record and analyse history. To pinpoint a single event in an infinite chain of causality.
Was there any merit to doing this?
No.
Was it noble? Would anyone thank him for taking on this role?
No, and No.
Was there any intellectual value to it that could propel humanity forward in some way?
No, of course not. If such a thing were possible, history wouldn’t repeat itself. At the end of the day, the things that kept the social economy running, kept it running precisely because humans loved to indulge in them. And so no matter how hard we tried to avoid it, all things eventually play out a certain way.
So What did he do it for then? For entertainment, of course. Or intellectual value if you wanted to be a bit formal about it. Though this intellectual value would not benefit anyone but himself. And even then, the benefits he reaped from this hobby where purely recreational. Still, as one(as many) would put it, there is no better thing to do than to watch the world burn.
6 A.M-
Koyo rolled out of bed and drowsily stumbled into his bathroom. He did the usual morning routine designed to keep one socially presentable, ate a normal breakfast that consisted of his favorite(chocolate) cereal, and then sat in his chair with his eyes closed, waiting for it to be time to leave for school. There was no particular reason to wake up so early, he just liked to take his time when performing his daily morning ritual. Maybe he wanted to savor it. To slowly process every one of the actions he performed in the morning in order to ground himself in reality once more. To pull himself away from the land of unrecallable bizarro dreams and static emotional states. Not like it mattered, really. This would be the last day this routine would be indirectly forced upon him by the government, this being his last day as a senior in highschool. There was a chance he would have to wake up at this time in the future again, but that would be a result of his own choices, thus the ritualistic aspect of the routine would be lost, or so he chose to believe.
The clock ticked seven thirty, and so koyo headed to his bus stop for one last ride(these where the exact words that were spoken in his inner monologue). He arrived at the stop and took a look around. He spotted the usual faces, mostly people he had never bothered talking to. Words from an old friend resonated in his mind: you don’t talk to people because you don’t find them interesting, but that means no one will ever take an interest in you. He couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the lack of connections he had in his neighborhood. He had always convinced himself that they really weren’t interesting people, but maybe if he had made the effort he would at least have someone who could stir some level of excitement from within him for this here legendary last day of school. All things said however, the regret he felt wasn’t overwhelming, it was just distracting, thus why it occupied his mind at the moment. A way to kill time. Wallowing in shame because he had nothing better to do.
The bus arrived and he boarded it half-heartedly, like he always had. He sat down and set his brain to neutral. Waiting for the movement of the bus to start, ready to kickstart his brain back to gear one. But, a more than usual amount of time passed and the bus wouldn’t move. This unusual event of course kickstarted his brain into gear two, then after looking around at the bus and it’s passengers, his brain jumped from gear two to gear four.
This because everyone in the bus except for him seemed to be either glitching out or slowly dissolving into simplified versions of themselves. Like textured plastic melting. He panicked, of course. But it was an active kind of panic. The type that shuts down the brain but also forces ones body into immediate action. Having consumed enough movies and shows koyo knew he had two possible routes. He could: A) slowly inspect the bus and the passengers in order to provide more descriptive details for the audience and raise the tension or B) Panic and get out of the bus quickly in order to create a sense of panic and anxiety in the audience. Koyo opted for B, not because he cared for the audience’s reaction, but because he was actually scared shittless and wanted nothing to do with the rather odd interdimensional glitching that was going on inside the bus.
And so koyo frantically ran out of the bus as fast as he could, opting to look straight ahead. As if averting his gaze from this bizarre occurrence would somehow keep him out of it. Of course, if you know how these things play out, you also know that wouldn’t be the case at all. I mean, why even include this weird scene if it won’t pan out into anything. Unfortunately for koyo, we have to follow the rules here, and so when koyo hurriedly stepped off the bus he was immediately met with a dark silhouette standing right in front of him.
“[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][[]]][][[]][[]][][][][][][][][][]\\\\\\\\\\”
Koyo stared at the man (scared shitless of course). He could potentially run, but like, fuck man. He knew he would be killed instantly either way. It was fight of flight but both of the options where out the fucking window. A part of him did think it was healthy to be at the mercy of the universe every now and then, it kept one humble so to speak. He was thankful for this part of his brain. It was, at the very least, keeping him from pissing(and shitting) his pants. The man however, did not move. It was almost like he was waiting for koyo to move first. Like in an old western, waiting for koyo to make the draw just so he could get filled with holes the instant he tried to go for his revolver. Not like he had a revolver, but he imagined any action he performed from here on out would be symbolically akin to that, and so he stood frozen in one place, suppressing his primal instincts to piss, and shit himself, followed by his other primal instinct of running away and (needlessly) screaming at the top of his lungs. It was tough to suppress all of these emotions at once, but he figured it would up his chances of survival by one or two percent.
Five seconds or so passed before the man spoke again, this time in a language koyo could identify as being from earth. It was still, however, the wrong language. Still, Seeing the man try to communicate did give koyo a bit more peace of mind, and so he softly spoke out to the possible perpetrator.
“it’s english” Koyo said in an amusingly submissive voice. “Ingles” He said again in spanish for no particular reason. The man(who was masked I should note) looked at him for one or two minutes before finally speaking in the correct language.
“Sorry about that” He said in a candid tone “haven’t been here long, don’t really know how to manipulate this fabric”
Koyo, unable to come up with something, stood there in silence. What seemed the most amusing to him, if at least for a second, was the fact that his attempt at saying something and then giving up when there was nothing to say was not a product that was unique to this situation. He found that his attempt at communication with this man was practically the same attempt at communication he had often gone through when trying to socialize with his classmates. still, the fact that he had nothing to say remained, and so he stood there in silence until the man spoke once more.
“I’m surprised you weren’t frozen like the rest of, well, the world. I guess this means you’re either an anomaly or not of this dimension”
Koyo’s mind began racing on queue. He began to panic and started to theorize what would come next, again with his priorities out of order. Thinking first of how he would defuse or get out of this situation, and second about the magnitude of the things the man had just said. It was like cause was more important than the effect for him, despite the fact that they should both be about as important in this situation. Struggling to come to terms with anything, but finally being given a queue to speak, Koyo…..well, spoke.
“What’s going to happen now?” He chose these words carefully, more carefully than you would ever imagine, unless of course you land yourself in a similar situation. These words carried the weight of koyo’s life, and he had deemed them to do so. For this phrase was the most neutral thing to say in this situation, according to Koyo. After scurrying through every bit of his mind, and wiring and rewiring every single system in order to rationalize as best as he could, this sentence was the best possible response he could come up with. It was neutral, it didn’t show fear or panic, and it also did not specify an individualistic standpoint. By saying “what’s going to happen now?” Instead of “What’s going to happen to me now” koyo not only dodged a couple of possible scenarios, but also created a question that could be answered any way the respondent chose to. This meant he was not only maintaining a neutral position, but also giving all control of the conversation to the man. Suggesting, as a result, that he was not taking an equal position, but a lower one. This all didn’t mean shit however, as the man said exactly the thing he would have said had koyo just gone with the cliched response. This was, after all, a way to move the plot forward. A flexible outcome was not allowed (sorry koyo we’ll talk to the producers about it).
“It means I’m going to have to delete you from this dimension. Anomaly or foreign species, doesn’t matter, can’t have you here while I do the things I gotta do. You’ll get in the way. As such I’m going to have to toss you into the abyss. Tough luck. See ya.”
It happened fast, and maybe a bit furiously too. Before he could actually shit his pants, koyo was being pulled into a giant black sphere that had suddenly appeared behind him. However, upon a closer look, the sphere appeared to be more of a gate, or maybe even a lovecraftian creature. Koyo struggled, if only in a primal sense. He kicked, screamed, and tried to pull away, but these pathetic actions were nothing more than his survival instinct kicking in last minute. His actual conscience had long given up on trying to escape this situation. It was all just too bizarre, his mind was exhausted. All he could hope for was to not die once he was on the other side. And so giving up resistance, koyo opted instead to focus his attention on the sensations he was feeling as he was being removed from reality.
The sensation was……...well nothing to write home about honestly. It kinda just felt slimy and gross. Like driving four hours to get to the beach, only to realize the seawater is dirty, get sand in your underwear, and to top it all off, get stung by a jellyfish and embarrass yourself as you wriggle in pain in front of a crowd of people. Well it was close to something like that, but more cosmic. And so after ten or so seconds, koyo was pulled into the black orb and ceased to exist as an entity, at least on paper.
Lucky for him, he didn’t cease to exist as a concept(look, just go with it and don’t ask questions). After being swallowed, he found himself in the middle of a giant abyss of nothingness. A pool of rejected matter, of dimensions that had long ago crashed and burned. Of lingering spirits and beings that had no business existing. He was now part of something deeply prohibited to humans. Like the garden adam and eve had been kicked out of. He stood in a setting straight out of the cosmos. It lacked shape, but he knew the thing he was inside of, was definitely meant to instill fear on humans. And man he sure was feeling it. Though he was, unfortunately, now unable to shit OR piss his pants, as, you know...he wasn’t a physical being anymore. At least not by our dimension’s standards.
So…. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?
