AUTHORES NEWT: Real @nobodyatall s stories for more weird cool stuff like this. Also read his revised version of the previous part because it’s very good.
Hello, dear readers. I may not be who you are used to hearing from, but allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jackson Albert Clockson, of Timeline-999999. You are usually used to hearing from Calvin Korkea, at least one version of him. Whether its the idealistic hero, the psychopathic nihilist, or some other Calvin, it’s usually a Calvin speaking directly to you. This is my first time speaking to you, but I understand that it is not your first time reading about my exploits. You must know by now about my quest for heaven. It’s going fairly well, not as well as I would like, but better than it could be.
Cal, or Blackstar, whichever you prefer, is currently sleeping as I keep watch. Not that we’re in any danger or anything, the raiders here aren’t exactly stealthy, not to mention there’s a settlement a few miles away, but I just want to make sure. Besides, there’s a few abandoned buildings nearby that I’ve been meaning to look into.
You are probably wondering where in the multiverse Cal and I may be. Well, allow me to fill you in. I don’t know what timeline this one might be, but the Earth is in a sorry state. About 200 years into the future from your point of view, I would predict, making it 2222. In this timeline, global climate change spiraled out of control, reducing much of the world to a sunbaked desert with huge oceans. Billionaires and trillionaires take off to the stars to escape the dying planet, leaving the rest of humanity to deal with the consequences of unchecked corporations cutting corners in the name of profit.
Much of humanity was killed in the resulting famines, as well as simply in wars between the remaining countries over landmass and resources.
[this could probably be rewritten better, It’s late and I didn’t have the words for corporations causing problems and then running away]
Cal was certainly surprised, and a little dismayed, to show up in his home city, half underwater. The skeletal remains of FauCorp looming in the distance. If he’s anything like our Faucheuse, he no doubt fucked off into space with the rest of the .01 percent. Running away from the problems that they caused in their endless greed.
Despite all that, humanity has survived. (So have plenty of animal species.) Fluffies, miraculously, have survived the apocalypse as well.
“We could be like Fallout protagonists! Roaming the wastes, dispensing justice! Earning a reputation! Or like Waterworld, only not shit!”
“Frankly I was going to go more for Fist of the North Star, but either one works.”
So we did just that, roaming the wastes and taking out raiders that we saw. The raider camps we came across just ensured that they would be killed in far more brutal ways. Live fluffies, roasting on spits. Their owners made to watch before they too were killed. Corpses hanging from ceilings, presumably tortured to death.
Cal and I are competing to see who can get the most creative kills. I think he’s gonna beat me though. He had his nanobots take the shape of a fluffy to lure in a raider, then when the raider got close enough, the nanobots swarmed the guys head, forming a metal shell around the guys head, and then, well…
You ever crush a can of soda after you’re done drinking it?
Yeah, it was like that. Only much messier.
Anyway, we’ve been here for a month, mostly living in the settlement nearby. Not a bad place either, they have electricity, working water, fresh food, it’s just like what we would consider modern society. Just like it, in fact, in all ways.
No matter where we go, there’s always suffering somewhere.
At least it’s not as bad as some places.
Only reason we’re not sleeping there tonight is because we’re tracking a group of raiders.
That’s neither here nor there though, I was going to go investigate a few of these ruined buildings. I don’t know why, but it feels as if something is drawing me to this building.
I need to learn to ignore that feeling.
Within the dark, dusty building was a living room, seemingly untouched by time. For some reason that I can’t quite explain, this room gave me an intense feeling of dread. I could see something sitting on the couch, but it was too dark to tell. I try turning on the lights, but as expected, no power. Good thing Cal helped me make this kick ass mask/glasses thing.
“Activate Night Mode.”
I probably shouldn’t have done that.
Sitting on the couch was a family of 5 skeletons, all holding each other. One of the skeletons, child sized, no older than 4 judging by the clothes, was clutching a teddy bear, and a slightly larger skeleton, preteen perhaps, was holding a skeleton of a fluffy, which was clutching a huggy toy to its chest.
On a table next to the couch is a picture depicting a happy family. The fluffy still being held by the preteen, a boy by the looks of it, and the little girl still clutching her teddy bear.
I stand in silence as it slowly dawns on me that what I am witnessing is the final moments of a loving family. They all died together, due to the actions of others.
I look around the house, seeing visions of the past. The 4 year old playing with her teddy bear, along with the family fluffy. The preteen, in his front yard, playing with his companion. The mother and father sharing a kiss in the kitchen as she arrives home from a long day of work. The entire family sitting around the dinner table, fluffy in the floor eating spaghetti. Tears stream down my face.
And then I see this happening all across the world. In a million different realities. Normal people living happy lives, a large number of them having their lives cut short due to the hatred, greed, and evil of others. And this happens an infinite number of times, in an infinite number of realities, to an infinite number of people, fluffies, an infinite number of creatures.
I let out an anguished scream.
(authors note: this next part would be written from Cal’s point of view but because idk how best to write cal, im just gonna wing it.)
Hey, It’s Cal. Not the ones you’re used to, of course, but it’s still Cal.
You’re probably wondering why Jack stopped narrating. It’s, uh, it’s a long story.
So here I was, having a wonderful dream about eating a million chocolate bars, when I hear a scream of what I can only describe as pure rage and despair. Given that Jack was keeping watch…
So, I dash outside, expecting to see raiders, when I just see Jack, on his knees, in the center of the little culdesac we’ve been staying in. His sword is stabbed into the ground.
Something must have happened, because he’s pounding the ground with his fists. Just punching the ground over and over, tears streaming down his face.
“Jack?! Jack, calm down, talk to me buddy!”
He lets out another scream, not ceasing his assault on the concrete. Despite punching into the concrete with strength I’ve never seen from him before, his knuckles are unharmed.
“Jack, you gotta calm down man, just take a deep breath and tell me what’s wrong!”
I reach out to grab his shoulder, and in an instant I’m 5 yards away from where I was.
He just keeps punching, and punching, and punching. I run back, opting to just wait while he calms down.
“Jack, please, you gotta calm down man, you’re scaring me.”
He just keeps going. The ground under him is cracking, but, like, not in a way that makes me think the pavement is breaking.
It’s like when he opens those rifts into the infinite corridor, but less clean. Glowing cracks appear in the concrete.
“Uh, Jack?”
The cracks are spreading, and getting bigger.
“This… doesn’t look good.”
I start to hear something that sounds like waves crashing against the shoreline, getting louder and louder.
I take a look up, and massive glowing rifts have spread across the sky, seemingly infinite in their size.
I think every cognizant thing in the multiverse knows what the end of a universe looks like.
“J-Jack, I think it would be a good time for you to stop.”
He isn’t slowing down. Shit, I have to stop him somehow.
I release a swarm of nanobots on him. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill him. I’m just gonna knock him out.
He slows down a little, but those rifts are still spreading. Goddammit, I don’t know how we’re gonna get out of this one.
Jack isn’t punching much now, but it looks like the place he’s been punching has turned into one of those rifts he makes.
Oh. Oh shit.
He passes out and falls in.
“Fuck, Jack!”
I dive in after him.
Jack and I manage to get to a safe universe to catch our breath. He’s still passed out, and I think he’s gonna stay that way for quite some time. Thankfully, the universe we’re in is pretty damn similar to our home.
Helps that they’re doing some kind of convention nearby, so we don’t look too out of place.
“Ugh… C-Cal?”
“Jack?”
“W-what happened? I had a horrible nightmare. Are we still in New Vegas?”
I hand Jack a glass of water as I fill him in on everything that happened.
“What the hell happened that made you act like that, man?”
And then he explains to me what he saw that I’m not going to repeat, since you were there when he saw it, you already know.
“I guess I… I guess I lost it.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Jack sits there, just staring into his cup. Suddenly, he stands up and begins making a rift in the wall.
“Woah, woah, what are you doing? You just woke up!”
“I need to check on that universe.”
I don’t have a very good feeling about this.
“We at least have to tip the cleaning lady!”
This is Jackson again. Sorry for being out of action for a little bit, but I have recovered. Right now Cal and I are heading through the infinite corridor, to the universe that we left behind.
I have a sinking feeling in my gut as we travel there.
“Well, here it is, the rift leading to post apocalyptia.”
“Are you sure?”
“Cal, you should really know by now that this time power is one of the few things I have a grasp on.”
“Fair enough.”
We step into the rift and see…
Nothing.
There’s nothing here.
“What?”
“W-where’d everything go?”
“No, this can’t be right. What happened?”
I rewind time, going further and further back, but nothing changes.
“T-there’s nothing left…”
“What do you mean, nothing left?”
“I mean it’s not just gone, it was never here in the first place.”
I sit down, resting on nothing.
“I… I think I might have erased this place.”
“What? How?”
“I-I don’t know…”
As expected, I cry. And I cry.
“D-dude, it’s okay, it’s not your fault.”
“Then who’s fault is it, Cal? I’m the one who lost his cool and destroyed time here. No one else did.”
“You couldn’t help it, man.”
“It doesn’t matter if I could help it or not, the blood of an infinite number of people is on my hands. All the happiness that took place in this universe. Those kids, their fluffy, the thousands of families like theirs, they were dead before, but now they don’t even fucking exist! They’re gone!”
“M-maybe we can fix it?”
“Fix WHAT, man? There’s nothing TO fix! It’s all gone! The only thing that remains of this place ever having existed is you and me remembering it, and who knows how long we’ll have those memories before time catches up with us? What if I never forget? What if I remember everything about this place forever, all that it could have been?”
“Jack, I don’t know what to say man…”
I sigh.
“N-no, it’s not your fault Cal. I’m just gonna have to atone. I’m going to make sure that this wasn’t in vain. I’ll achieve Heaven, for all living things, and for this universe as well. I will hold them in my heart forever.”
“Y-you could always try looking on the bright side, right? All the suffering that took place here never happened, so I guess in a way you increased the amount of happiness in the multiverse, right? Maybe we’re a little closer to achieving heaven now, or something?”
“… Right.”