It Takes A God

ASCIIN SERIES
Asciin floated around in the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities, watching Allspheres rise and fall in the tide.
He was content these days. He'd given up his ill-fated revenge on the Allsphere Weaver, and now peacefully coexisted with it in the Ocean, protecting the Allspheres from the horrors he'd witnessed. He could enter any Allsphere he wanted at any time, and do anything. He was happy.
Or so he told himself.
The truth was, he still missed his parents. He was, after all, still only a teen. He hadn't been prepared for them to suddenly be violently ripped away from him, just as an afterthought in some cosmic event that was, in the grand scheme of things, just as insignificant as their lives.
Why did it have to end up like this?
He wondered where they were now; they were dead, but in his travels, he'd seen many an afterlife. All contained within Allspheres, of course, so that was out of the question for his own family, but... they couldn't be gone, right?
He existed in a meta-conceptual space. At this level, if an entity were to be truly purged from existence, they would be so at a meta-conceptual level. No one would even be able to remember them.
I mean, really, what is death? A passage from one plane of reality to a less restrictive one, a higher level of existence? Surely not, that would mean that I've died infinitely many times now. A transition to some other form of existence, or an abstraction? Or does true death simply not exist for the lower layers of existence? Is real death just... nothingness? I mean, that's the scientific answer, but I've gone far beyond the scope of science as I understood it in my mortal life- they thought that "death" within an Allsphere was nothingness, yet there are countless other lives beyond the known mortal coil in just about every one of them. Is there something beyond this, where they go when they die at this level? Is that where my parents are?
"Asciin."
"WHA-" he whirled around and threw up his hands in a fighting stance, a leftover instinct from his human existence, stirring up waves in the Allspheres around him. The Allsphere Weaver eyed him placidly, unbothered by his reaction. "Sorry, you, uh, startled me."
"I observed as much." The Weaver raised a hand, calming the Hypercosmic Ocean. "I've been observing you. You appear to be rather... discontent. Depressed, perhaps."
"Really? Depressed?" He stared at the Weaver quizzically. "I'm fine," he lied.
"I am all-knowing, but my knowledge does not extend to beings that exist on the same level as myself. However, I am not gullible. Tell me, what is bothering you?"
"Are you trying to... therapize me?"
"You may be a fellow god, but you are still one of my creations. My duty is to all inhabitants of the Ocean of Realities." It stared at him sternly. "Now, speak, child."
"I'm... well, yeah, I guess I am kind of depressed."
"And why is that?"
"Why do you think?"
"Asciin, if I knew, I would not be asking."
"Fine. My parents are dead, everyone in my entire universe is dead, and now I'm a god floating around in some metaphysical superstructure. I'm a little shocked."
"Ah. You seek companionship of mortals, and grow weary in your isolation."
"Yes." He glanced below him. "And, if I'm being honest, I'm probably even worse off than a typical mortal would be."
"How so?"
"Look at me! I'm a kid, Weaver! I'm not supposed to be parted with my family! I mean, no one is, but young ones especially! I'm not just a mortal, I'm a mortal child!" The Weaver just continued to fix him with its unwavering stare, leaving him unable to tell whether it had zoned out, drawing a hilarious parallel of short attention spans between itself and the lowlier humans among its creations, or, the more likely option, was deep in thought.
"I see," it said at last. Its face remained neutral, but it seemed to somehow... radiate compassion. "I believe that there is a way to help you." Asciin immediately perked up.
"Do tell."
"It's rather simple, really. You were never intended to be a god. You were supposed to live a mortal life, have mortal friends and family, experience a mortal death, go to a mortal afterlife, and so on. Mortals were never intended to be in your situation. So, the obvious cure for you current dilemma, which owes to this fact, is to go and be a mortal. Enter an Allsphere, live your life, be in the presence of friends. Forget all of the insanity that's led to your predicament. Erase the past from your mind, if necessary, or simply repress it from your mortal form. At the end of your mortal life, come back here. Do it again. You can have all of the fulfilment and fleeting joy you were supposed to, as many times over as you wish."
Asciin looked at the Weaver with gratitude.
"Thanks."
"You are welcome. It is my job to care for you, just as I do for mortals."
"And am I ever glad I didn't kill you," he laughed.
"Agreed." And the Allsphere Weaver disappeared from sight.
_____________________________________
Asciin didn't like the idea of forgetting about his parents, or his home. It felt disrespectful. And ultimately, any reprieve he got from forgetting would be temporary; he'd always end up back here, where he would remember them, and that they were gone. No, he couldn't do that.
He did, however, like the idea of hanging out with other mortals. Isolation was just as much a factor in his mental state as loss, and it was generally helpful for humans to socialize, a part of his psyche that hadn't yet transitioned to godhood.
Fortunately, I've made a few friends outside of my Allsphere.
He summoned the Allsphere he'd originally ascended from, which contained one universe in particular that he was looking for...
In a flash, he found himself sitting in a familiar warehouse-turned-office. Two teens, around his age, were crowding around a computer, while an older, university-age man scrolled on his phone nearby.
"Hey, guys!" They all jumped. The two at the computer screamed. The one with the cellphone just stared at him dumbly. "Sorry, did I startle you?" He chuckled. "Looks like I did." The four of them all grinned.
"Asciin!" Stuart exclaimed. "It's been a while, buddy! Where've you been?"
"The super-cosmological water or whatever it's called," Victor responded before Asciin could open his mouth.
"Yup," Asciin agreed. "But it's pretty boring up there. Lonely, too. I figured I'd talk to you guys instead of watch Allspheres rise and fall for the rest of eternity."
"Good to see you," Ali said. "How about we all talk over a meal? Reading through this database has left me surprisingly starved!"
"I second that," Stuart chimed in.
"I could eat," Victor said.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Asciin asked. "Let's go!"
_____________________________________
They sat at a four-seated table in one of the trio's favorite restaurants. The food had arrived a few minutes ago, and they were all happily stuffing themselves.
"Mmmph," Asciin mumbled. He swallowed his food. "I just realized that I haven't eaten since that meltdown I had back when I was still climbing up to the Allsphere."
"Wharft?!" Victor exclaimed, his mouth full beyond the ability to chew with steak. He very surreptitiously coughed it back up onto hi plate and began cutting it up with his knife while he talked. "HOW!?"
"I guess I don't really need to anymore," Asciin told him, shrugging. "I'm not really a physical entity anymore, so there's no requirement for sustenance."
"Fascinating," Stuart said.
"Anyway, how have you all been?" Asciin asked. "I'm sure a lot more has happened with you all than with me. Ooh, how did the research go? Have you published yet?"
"We compiled all the worthwhile data from your database into a document," Ali said. "Every property of every step up from the universe, right up to the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities."
"Unfortunately," Stuart added, "between the apocalypse you accidentally caused and the excitement of having all the information, we completely forgot that we had no evidence beyond "our friend is a reality-warping god who ascended through all of these places," which not a lot of people are willing to take seriously. Actual scientists laughed. We got famous on the internet, though."
"Oh, no," Asciin breathed. "That can't have gone well, then."
"Actually," Victor piped up, "It did."
"He saved the whole thing," Ali told Asciin.
"Yup," Victor said proudly. "I spun the whole thing and made everyone think that it wasn't an actual scientific paper, it was the launch of a science-fiction series disguised as one! People suddenly thought that it was a brilliant advertising ruse, and we ended up with a huge fanbase overnight. We even have wiki now, and we're thinking of going commercial! People are freely able to make up new stuff to add, so we've got a real interactive community, though we obviously have a separate category for the pages that are based on real things."
"Not what we wanted, but none of us are exactly complaining," Stuart said wryly. "If ten percent of our readers buy a novel based on it, at a ten dollar price point and a 30% profit margin, which is quite the conservative estimate, we'll all be able to retire before we even enter the workforce! Imagine the kind of research that could fund! We might even be able to discover the Multiverse independently!"
"Nice," Asciin said. "I take it you're all happy with all of the info you were able to glean from my ascension, then?"
"Absolutely!" they chorused.
"Excuse me," said a server who was standing next to their table. "Will you be ordering more food, or would you like to pay now?"
"I think we're all good," Stuart said, and the other three nodded. "Okay then, let me just pull out- oh, shoot."
"What is it?" the server asked.
"I forgot my wallet," Stuart groaned.
"I'll pay," Asciin told him, pulling fifty dollars from his pocket and handing it to the server, who handed him the change and, after registering the payment, left.
"Since when did you have money?" Victor asked him. Asciin shrugged.
"Since I pulled it out of my pocket."
"So you just... pulled money out of thin air?"
"Pretty much." They exited the building.
"That's counterfeit!" Stuart exclaimed. "A felony!"
"Nah, I just made it so that the government printed an extra fifty last month, which made its way into my pocket. Not fake money, real money that's been time-manipulated into existence." They all stared at him. "What's fifty dollars to the economy? And anyway, if I wanted to, I could erase the concept of poverty entirely, and then inflation wouldn't even have any harm!" He paused to think. "Hey, should I do that? What do you guys say?"
"Best not to," Ali said, silencing what looked like Victor opening his mouth to protest. "We don't know what kind of consequences could come from erasing a concept."
"Good point," Asciin conceded.
_____________________________________
Asciin went back to the Hypercosmic Ocean.
"Well, that was fun." He'd spent a whole week with his friends, chatting, playing games, reading, and generally enjoying their company. However, it hadn't really helped; at the back of his mind, he still wanted his own world. Sure, he had the Postsphere, which was kind of a world of his own, but it wasn't his world. His parents weren't there. His home wasn't there. His world wasn't there. At least I can take solace in knowing that I'm preventing more Amalgamation.
"You do not appear to have resolved your issue," came the Allsphere Weaver's voice as it materialized in front of him.
"Listen, my friends are great and all, but they aren't the world I came from. None of it is. Nothing in this entire place is my world! All I want is to see my home and my family again. But I can't." The Weaver was silent.
"...but perhaps you can," it said at last.
"I'm listening," Asciin said, giving the Weaver his undivided attention, not that he'd been focusing on much else before.
"This entire time, you have been under the mistaken assumption that Allsphere Amalgamation destroys the Spheres involved. This isn't true, though. Amalgamation, in reality, is what the name suggests: a merging of Allspheres. Your world isn't gone, simply mixed with others."
"And... why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
"I was planning to. However, you've been constantly busy, and you never asked if there was a way to bring them back. The opportune point to inform you never arose."
"Well, I know now. Where is this merged Allsphere?"
"Somewhere in the Ocean," the Weaver said vaguely. "I must also warn you, if you intend to look for it, that the specific realities contained within it before were destroyed in the event. You will need to use your power to restore them."
"That shouldn't be too hard," he said. "And even if it was, it'd still be worth it. Anything to see my family again."
"Very well," was all the Weaver said. "Good luck."
_____________________________________
He searched for some ungodly amount of time, no bothering to keep track. He closely inspected every single Allsphere, desperate to find the one that he wanted. He'd been given another chance to see his world and his parents, and he would follow that opportunity to the ends of reality itself.
At long last, he found it.
It didn't contain his old world. None of its contents looked familiar to him, not any object or entity. It just exuded some aura, as if at some deep level, he simply knew that he had come from it. And now that he was here, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He grabbed the Allsphere, cradling it against his chest, and began to look through the entire history of its existence, right back to when it had merged from many others. Among those others, he found his own, with himself, his family, and everyone else in his world living in it.
He began the process.
He knitted together the fabric of his universe ever so slowly, afraid that he would mess up some detail, and make it nothing more than a flawed copy, which he could have conjured at any point. No, it needed to be the exact way it had been before. While he was at it, he put back together the rest of the realities that had existed before the Amalgamation. No point in letting any of the dead be forgotten. And at last, with a final thought to put all of these worlds in place, the job was done. He'd brought back his world.
Now he just needed to enter it.
He looked upon his recreated universe. Within it, he found Earth, then his city, and finally his house. Within it, there were his parents.
And he was there with them.
What!? How am I there? I'm here! What happened? Have I been replaced? The truth hit him like a Consphere to the face. When my Allsphere was destroyed... I was removed with it. I remained in the Hypercosmic Ocean, but as far as this Allsphere was concerned, I was gone too. And so, in restoring it, I restored myself. He considered erasing the copy, replacing it with himself. No, I can't do that. This guy is Asciin every bit as much as I am, and it would be wrong to just delete him from existence. I can't. He laughed, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"All of that, and in the end, I just restart the world without me. Crap." He buried his face in his palms. "Screw my entire, useless, miserable existence." He stared down at the Allsphere that he still clutched. He watched his family together. He watched himself.
He was happy.
So what if it wasn't him down there? He'd righted this wrong. He'd fixed his world. It didn't matter if the Asciin down ther was the same Asciin who'd done all the work, because the end result was the same. Asciin, happy, living a normal life with his family.
That's good enough for me.
_____________________________________
Asciin was just a happy, normal kid. He loved his parents, he loved his friends, he loved his life. The world wasn't a perfect place, but it was good enough for him. Especially since, for some reason, he felt as if he was very lucky to have it. Like it could have been destroyed, and he could have been miserable or even dead. He felt that he could have watched it all burn around him, only to escape, and fix it all. He felt like that version of him was watching right now.
"Thank you," he said to himself.
Category:Story