Reality Discontinued

By Jem Morgenstern

With all that was done to prevent it, the fall of the universe was still inevitable. Existence was conquered by a force with no form - a nothing from beyond matter. By the time it was discovered, it was too late. It was understandably difficult to comprehend or analyze and understandably impossible to defeat. By the time the universe ceased to exist, our understanding of the nothingness was just that. That it didn’t exist, but that it was somehow bending reality and invisibly sucking the physical form and the entire concept of the universe out of reality. With such little understanding of the force that was ending us, we didn’t have any chance of survival. Our efforts were mostly trying to exist harder. Besides that, a few people built domes from pure matter, which was basically the complete opposite of complete non-existence, so those people were almost certain that their domes would completely reflect the nothingness. We didn’t understand pure matter at the time; it was discovered only a short time before the nothingness warped us outside of reality. All that we understood of it was that it was essential complete concentrated existence in material form. Given our understanding of it, I do understand why people would had thought that it could have potentially saved them from non-existence. Though I think they overlooked the fact that they themselves weren’t pure matter and that the nothingness wasn’t flooding inwards, so they couldn’t have possibly evaded its reach. The nothingness, really, was everywhere already. It was there. It was in them. My theory is that all things were some proportionally adequate combination of nothing and something that allowed them to be. Having some nothing in things is required for some reason that I have not yet thought of. This does conflict with the existence of pure matter, I realize, but I do have an explanation for that. Nothingness appearing precisely after we created pure matter is not a coincidence, I believe. I firmly hold the belief that creating pure matter threw reality out of balance. I think the universe only has so much allotted space for existence. As soon as we began manufacturing concentrated existence, the universe had to begin extracting existence from previously existing things to compensate. We did produce an incredibly selfish quantity of pure matter, so I wouldn’t be whatsoever surprised if that amount would have required the universe to completely remove everything else in existence to allow our stockpiles of pure matter to continue in reality. If that’s not the case, I’m also willing to believe that our expedited production of pure matter crashed the universe’s system - we were creating so much pure matter so quickly that the universe broke and it was stuck with its (metaphorical) finger on the the delete button. Either way, I would like to place the blame on humanity. Even more, I would like to place the blame on myself because I really do enjoy feeling sorry. I’m a bit of a sadomasochist and the extermination of the universe is the biggest punch in the face I could land on myself. You see, I’m the one who discovered pure matter and I’m the one who monopolized on the industry, completely blowing its production out of the water. Sure, pure matter is a wonderful construction material - it basically does whatever it’s meant to do and there’s a zero percent chance of it failing, but there’s no reason to have absolutely everything made from it. I did enjoy having all the money, when the concept of money still meant anything, but I do miss physicality and knowing what that actually means.  

Sly Key: Part II

Malcolm Morgan
By Jem Morgenstern

Malcolm Morgan was impressive, although less than he himself thought. He willed himself to power with his words and built his fortune on a vague promise. Even in the lives in which he was loved, Malcolm was somehow insignificant. By his standards, he was unimportant. By any other person’s standards, he was unimportant. In the most dangerous way, this allowed him to become whatever he could imagine, unseen and unbothered by anyone standing beside him. Malcolm Morgan gently brushed through his obstacles. Now, he stands with an empire behind him: forever loyal, powerful, and willing. With all that he would want available at his demand, there wasn’t much left to be desired, which turned his sights towards time and its finite availability. Although he didn’t fear death or mind the inevitability, Malcolm was struck with a desire for immortality. With this desire, his crusades began.

They began with simple teams excavating, exploring, and investigating, but they were never meant to stay that way. From the beginning, Malcolm intended for them to become an aggressive invading force, which they now are. Before this, his followers had been ordinary people: average skills, average strength, average minds. As his crusades evolved, those followers vanished and were slowly replaced with brutes, unethical archaeologists, and thieves.

Despite being the leader of an evil empire, Malcolm was still an average person with an average mind. He was surrounded by mindless drones and found himself to be very lonely. Out of desperation for connection and companionship, he adopted a white persian longhair, which had yet to be named and never would be. During particularly difficult meetings with his pawns that might involve detailing punishment or the relaying of bad news, Malcolm would have his cat sitting on his lap because this would relieve him of at least some of the stress that came from these meetings. No matter how many years Malcolm spent leading, he never became comfortable confronting people. He rarely met with any of his underlings, which did good for his image in some ways. It created a cloud of mystery. Besides the few slightly more intelligent brutes who Malcolm shoved his leadership responsibilities onto, none of his followers were quite sure who he was or what he was like. This allowed any image of him bred in the minds of his followers to become his true image.

He sat comfortably on his throne-like chair, behind his desk at the end of the long, concrete room. He faced the window, eyeing the expanse of nothing, as if it were everything. The cat sat with him and relished the gentle petting and stroking of its fur. The door on the other end of the room opened. Four men stood at the entrance; two standing behind two others, who were being forcibly guided towards Malcolm’s desk. They were all dressed the same: heavy boots, sturdy coats, black. The arms of the two men in front were restrained by the two standing behind them and their faces were bruised and bleeding. Malcolm turned his chair to face the visitors, slowly. He wasn’t in the mood to handle any external issues and was hoping that the slow turn of his chair would come off as passive-aggressive, but it didn’t. The slow turning of the chair and the displeased expression on his face came off as intimidating and powerful. All four of the men were afraid of what might happen. A few feet in front of his desk, the men behind pushed the bruised ones down to their knees and held their heads in place by the roots of their hair, so that they were forced to look directly at Malcolm.

Malcolm looked at them with a forced expression of discontent, holding back the worry and guilt he felt inside. He wasn’t sure what the two had done, but he knew that he would have to order their execution. As the men with the accusations explained what the other two had done, Malcolm began building up the courage he needed to order the deaths of two men he truly felt shouldn’t need to die. He constantly regrets choosing to lead by fear, because of the terrible things he’s forced to do in order to maintain his merciless reputation. The accusing men finished their story and asked their great leader what to do with the two who had now been labeled traitors. Before Malcolm could answer, he had to turn himself back towards the window, so none of them could pick up on the miniscule expressions of discomfort that would surely appear. He took a brief pause to find his voice, unintentionally building tension. This time with a slight unease in their voice, the men repeated their question. Malcolm took a deep breath, and answered them with the most displeased and monotonous voice he could, ordering them to leave the traitors far out in the wilderness without so much as a thong to keep them warm. He knew their chances of survival would still be slim, but this was the closest he could get to letting them live without damaging his reputation.

Unexpectedly, the traitors were stripped immediately. The traitors were entirely cooperative, allowing the men whose accusations brought them to their banishment to undress them gently. The boots came off first, then their jackets and shirts. As they came to the belts, there was a brief pause, but the undressing resumed within seconds. With this happening so often, Malcolm could now expertly hide his curious interest. At first, many of his underlings were put off by the abundance of nude punishments ordered, but it has since become a part of their mundane routine and prisoners escorted around the fortress in their bare, raw masculinity aren’t given a second glance (with the exception of ones who are particularly eye-catching). As soon as the traitors were completely disrobed, they were escorted out of Malcolm’s concrete lair and he sat alone once again.

An hour passed. His door opened again. Two new guards escorted a singular prisoner towards his desk. The guard to prisoner ratio was unusual. It was almost always one guard for one prisoner. The fact that this one prisoner required two guards for its escort excited Malcolm to a small extent. Malcolm turned his chair again, to face them and listen to their accusations. The lifted the prisoner’s head by its hair to face Malcolm, as is the customary procedure. Malcolm recognized this face and his initial realization of the familiarity nearly threw a surprised gasp from beneath his cold facade.