A large black gift bag rests on your kitchen countertop.
[[Examine it]]It has no markings and the matte finish gives it uncanny depth. Its handles are made of carefully woven twine and they touch one another at their arches, leaving a sliver of an opening at the top of the bag.
A dim fluorescent light flickers above. A dull unease flows through you. That bag wasn’t there before.
[[See what's inside]]
[[Go to bed and hope it goes away]]You slink toward the bag, the twine handles shudder stiffly, slightly as if motivated by a draft in the room. You reach toward the bag and with tentative fingers pinch its lip and slowly tip its contents into view.
Suddenly the bag acquires a great deal of weight and its flat bottom slams back down on the countertop with a low thud.
You leap back in fright.
[[You need to find out what's inside]]
[[Time for bed]]You rub your eyes and turn to go to bed. You glance back at the countertop and the gift bag is still there. Its presence is unassuming yet disturbing. And your curiosity is impossible to ignore.
[[See what's inside]] You take a moment to gather yourself. You're shaken but there's a gravity, full and real, that draws you in ever closer, an irresistible, unnatural force you have never felt before.
You place your hands on the counter on either side of the bag and peer within. Your eyes barely clear the edge the bag's lip and you can see what's inside.
[[And inside was...]]You decide that's enough excitement for the night and head for bed, where you toss and turn until dawn. In the morning the bag is gone from your kitchen. You beat some eggs and burn them in a hand-me-down Teflon pan.
The End.everything. A swirl, a slurry of all that ever was, is, and will ever be, in every possible reality. Your eyes expand as you gaze into infinite infinities, the slurry’s hypnotic pulses and waves filling your view.
With your face nearly in the top of the bag you are utterly motionless. But inside your head you are able to pick and choose every minute detail of all existence or even manipulate entire galaxies.
[[Rearrange some atoms]]
[[Destroy a galaxy]]
[[Create a galaxy]]
[[Wipe out all thoughts]]
<audio src="https://krisgraft.neocities.org/creeping%20dark.mp3" autoplay>In the pulsating slurry, atoms obey your command and the fabric of space flexes. All elements and matter transform and shift at your whim creating a new reality misaligned from the one you know but still real and natural.
[[Destroy a galaxy]]
[[Create a galaxy]]
[[Wipe out all thoughts]]
[[Hm, interesting...]]You see a pinwheel swirl of stars and planets in the distance. In a moment you find yourself towering over the galaxy. It reminds you of your own. You slip your hand under the fragile bundle of lights and hold it in your palm. You bring it to your face for closer observation.
You close your hand into a tight fist and colorful supernovas shoot brilliant rays of light from between your knuckles.
[[Rearrange some atoms]]
[[Create a galaxy]]
[[Wipe out all thoughts]]
[[Hm, interesting...]]You call upon the elements and command gravity to create a swirl of stars and planets, moons, comets, asteroids and a black hole. You add a bit of life to some of the planets and hope what you made is good.
[[Rearrange some atoms]]
[[Destroy a galaxy]]
[[Wipe out all thoughts]]
[[Hm, interesting...]]Just as comets fly across galaxies so do thoughts of all things living and dead. Out of sheer curiosity you effortlessly erase all these intangible remnants of existence. There is nothing left but you, the cosmos, and silence.
[[Rearrange some atoms]]
[[Destroy a galaxy]]
[[Create a galaxy]]
[[Hm, interesting...]]You recognize your omnipotenence, omnipresence, and omniscience.
[[What else am I capable of?]]
<audio src="https://krisgraft.neocities.org/realization.mp3" autoplay>You play with physics and shrink the universe back down to the infinitesimal singularity from which it came then explode it out again to watch all things be born and die and be born again, all in a moment of time smaller than a thought.
[[I can feel my mortal body]]In your kitchen, the bag draws your face in. Your skull and your teeth vibrate and you feel an immense pressure in your head but it is not painful; more of an embrace.
The bag pulls at your head and the rest of your body begins to pour itself in. As if by a great gravity, your head caves in on itself and the container swallows the rest of you, like a seabird gulping down a live fish many times its size.
[[You're in your realities]]You're no longer simply viewing and manipulating existence from afar but now experiencing every possible version of your own being, simultaneously. All aspects of your realities bend and shuffle at your will.
You can mold your perfect life, your perfect world.
[[Take control.->Take control of your existence within your personal cosmos]]
[[Go home. This is too much.]]You take control of your existence within your own personal cosmos, meticulously selecting the appropriate atoms, the ingredients of happiness, satisfaction, self-worth, and contentment. You tear apart the fabric of space and time--the reality you know--and patch it all back together to reshape your...
[[soul]]
[[childhood]]
[[body]]
[[relationships]]
[[mind]]You are suddenly overhwhelmed by the amount of power you have, especially the power you may have over your own existence. You will yourself back onto the mortal plane from which you came.
[[There's no place like home]] (set: $childhood to true)The pain you endured as a child will no longer hold power over you in this new life. You inhale the elements of the universe and with a cosmic breath sweep away every instance of hurt and trauma, healing the many knife-cuts that bled all over every aspect of your being.
[[Reshape my soul->soul]]
[[Reshape my body->body]]
[[Reshape my mind->mind]]
[[Reshape my relationships->relationships]]
[[I'm ready to test drive my new life->I'm done toying with my life]](set: $body to true)Your body is a mess of cells. So you pluck the ingredients of your new body from the gasses of the stars to shape your ideal physical manifestation.
[[Reshape my soul->soul]]
[[Reshape my childhood->childhood]]
[[Reshape my mind->mind]]
[[Reshape my relationships->relationships]]
[[I'm ready to test drive my new life->I'm done toying with my life]](set: $relationships to true)You pull the many individual nodes of sentient existence from the slurry and link them to yourself with braids of living stars. Your connections with others are perfect and pure.
[[Reshape my soul->soul]]
[[Reshape my body->body]]
[[Reshape my mind->mind]]
[[Reshape my childhood->childhood]]
[[I'm ready to test drive my new life->I'm done toying with my life]]All the elements of your new, ideal existence are in place, every atom of your new being is imbued with kinetic energy, ready for you to touch just one electron to launch your choices into motion.
[[I'm ready]]
[[Wait, I need to change other parts of my life]]
[[This is wrong]](set: $mind to true)You etch upon grey flesh and fold it upon itself to form your ideal mind. A mind with perfect memory, logic, and cognitive ability. One with limitless creative potential that will be the engine for everything you do in life.
[[Reshape my soul->soul]]
[[Reshape my body->body]]
[[Reshape my childhood->childhood]]
[[Reshape my relationships->relationships]]
[[I'm ready to test drive my new life->I'm done toying with my life]](set: $soul to true)Your soul is an amalgamation of all the lives you lived since the universe first burst forth. You examine this ancient, invisible lineage and prod at each iteration of your being, reaching out into eternity and grasping the most coveted pieces of an indestructible self. The new soul wells up inside of you.
[[Reshape my mind->mind]]
[[Reshape my body->body]]
[[Reshape my childhood->childhood]]
[[Reshape my relationships->relationships]]
[[I'm ready to test drive my new life->I'm done toying with my life]]You reach out with your cosmic hand and lightly touch a single electron of the life you had made yourself, setting your new existence into motion. Within your cosmic realm you live this life in a blink; an existence of pure contentment, happiness, and fulfillment. One with no pain, trauma, or suffering.
It is a reality your mortal self can have, if you choose to have it.
[[I'm thankful to finally find peace. This is the life I want]]
[[This isn't as great as I hoped]]
[[Hm, I need to try this life again]]You've already seen what you are capable of and have seen infinite versions of a reality that you could live. You've chosen the ingredients of an ideal life but to live that life is to deny yourself the one you've been given; the one you know. The idea of complete and absolute control was appealing at first but this feels unnatural and scary. This is wrong.
[[...but I'm going to set this new life in motion anyway->I'm ready]]
[[It's time to leave this place]](set: $perfect to true)
You live the life you made again and again. It gets better with every cycle. You want to stay here in this place but a force draws you upward and away and your infinite realities flee from your sight.
[[Where am I being taken?]](set: $perfect to false)Your existence of perfection feels monotone, flat. There must be something you missed, something you did wrong. But that's ok--you can fix it. You reach out to pinch more atoms and molecules and matter to change the recipe of your life.
But a force draws you upward and away and your infinite realities flee from your sight.
[[Where am I being taken?]]You reset the ingredients of your life, once again imbue them with energy, then flick an atom to start your perfect life over again. You experience it once again in the span of a moment.
[[This is everything I hoped it would be]]
[[This isn't as great as I hoped]](set: $perfect to true)
[[I'm thankful to finally find peace. This is the life I want]] In the kitchen, the black gift bag on the counter tips over and vomits out a thick primordial sludge, forming a puddle on the kitchen floor. The heap trembles for a few moments as the bag regurgitates the rest of the goo, which is you.
[[Reconstruct your body]]
[[I actually like being goo]]The thick puddle convulses, then strands of the viscous liquid creep upward and begin to form the marrow of your bones. As the living skeleton takes shape in the kitchen, veins writhe throughout, suspended in air, and in the center a beating heart forms.
[[...]]Your nerves sprout from the sludge like roots of a tuber and twist in and around red muscle fiber and white tendons. Eyes form in your skull, open and unblinking until skin wraps the frame and eyelids cover the stunned, dark globes. Your brain grows inside the skull while hair sprouts from a scalp.
[[Open your eyes]](if: $perfect is true)[You're in the kitchen naked, the black gift bag gone. Your clothes are in a pile at your feet, arranged as if you were sucked directly up and out from your shirt’s neckhole.(if: $body is true)[ You look down and touch this new body you made.](if: $mind is true)[ You feel an expansion of your mind.](if: $soul is true)[ Your soul is full and pure.](if: $childhood is true)[ The trauma of your youth is shed.](if: $relationships is true)[ You sense your relationships will heal and blossom soon.]
In a daze, you slip your clothes back on.
[[This can't be really happening]]
[[...I was actually puked up by a cosmic bag]]](if: not $perfect)[You're in the kitchen naked, the black gift bag gone. Your clothes are in a pile at your feet, arranged as if you were sucked directly up and out from your shirt’s neckhole. You can feel that everything is back the way it was before this all started.
In a daze, you slip your clothes back on.
[[This can't be really happening]]
[[...I was actually puked up by a cosmic bag]]]There's something appealing about being a disgusting, throbbing puddle of primordial goo. You haven't a care in the world, mainly because your brain is an unformed sludge of cells. This truly is your final form and if you had any cognitive ability or self-awareness whatsover, you would be having the time of your life.
The End.You examine your hands, turning your palms over, looking at the wrinkles in your knuckles. Electric particles hop between your fingers. You expand the width of your hand then close your fingers together and the sparks dissipate.
You inhale, filling your lungs with oxygen, rib cage expanding as you welcome a new breath.
[[I'm so tired.]]You try to convince yourself that you had some sort of disassociative episode. Your denial doesn't last long.
[[You know that it was real.->...I was actually puked up by a cosmic bag]](if: not $perfect)[You climb into bed where you have the most peaceful, deep sleep in years. You dream of manipulating swirls of stardust and dark matter and gravity, and mingle with the wondrous joy, misery, love, pain, life, death and possibilities of your own imperfect reality. Your cosmos.
The End.](if: $perfect)[You climb into bed where you have the most peaceful, deep sleep in years. You dream of manipulating swirls of stardust and dark matter and gravity, the weight of all things falling off of you knowing that tomorrow begins anew in a reality of your own making. Your own cosmos.
The End.]In the kitchen, the black gift bag on the counter tips over and vomits out a thick primordial sludge, forming a puddle on the kitchen floor. The heap trembles for a few moments as the bag regurgitates the rest of the goo, which is you.
The End.On second thought, I'd like to make some changes to my...
[[soul]]
[[childhood]]
[[body]]
[[relationships]]
[[mind]](set: $perfect to false)A force draws you upward and away and your infinite realities flee from your sight.
[[Where am I being taken?]]