The Melted World (Worlds of Creators Book 1)

by Davi Cao

  “I can't see it. Are you fascinated by nothingness? What, help me here, do I need a special visor to see what you crafted? Give me one too, I want to see it!” It turned around, excited, looking for Colin's creation.

  “What? No, what are you looking for? You know what I was thinking about? You, that's what! I can’t create anything, I told you already!” Colin pressed both palms on his forehead to hold in the madness.

  “Oh, I see,” OOOO said, giving up his search for the nonexistent creation. He approached his human acquaintance and stood by his side, looking away into the horizon. “Something from your world, see? Think of a cat! A cute fluffy cat, with orange stripes and big whiskers, fat paws and a long tail. You want it to be with you, don’t you? Huh, do you want the cat? This funny friendly cat that will walk with you and be some company? You want it, don’t you? Think of this cat and say that you want it!” it said.

  The cat’s image came automatically into Colin’s mind. He saw it the way OOOO described it, and the other necessary characteristics from his own knowledge of animals. He then wished to have the cat on his arms, hopeful to have a connection with any earthling, already feeling its soft fur caressing his skin.

  A cat showed up in his arms as soon as he completed his wish.

  The animal had the appearance of his imagination, and it squirmed in Colin's eyes, it breathed and looked around. At the same time that it came into existence, the cat struggled against the world's invisible hostility. It jumped from Colin’s lap and contorted itself on the melting ground, screaming with all its energy, although nobody heard a thing.

  It bent its tiny body like the victim of a fire, and the pain it felt became visible. Rashes cut down his fur and then exploded, blowing chunks of its skin everywhere. It suffered a slow self-destruction and then melted down, dying less than a minute after its birth.

  “See, you are a Creator, aren’t you? See, I told you! Nice creation, nice death! We can play a game later that I think you’ll like,” OOOO said.

  The creature strolled slowly on its rigid legs, waiting for Colin to follow. He had spent his entire life avoiding any images of violence or gore, feeling needles piercing his neck at the mere mention of surgeries and ugly accidents. With the vision of a cat burned alive by invisible flames, he would never sleep in peace again.

  “I will never do that again!” Colin took a deep breath, speaking with clenched teeth. He pressed his jaw to take control of an imminent sobbing.

  “Why not? That’s what Creators do!” OOOO said.

  “They destroy everything? Is that it?”

  “No, it’s not really it. See, take another look at this world of mine. You don’t see any clouds, do you? Any stars? The sun? The moon? No, nothing, because it’s all gone. I removed everything! There’s only one planet in the whole universe, you see? And only one creation inhabiting the land. The World Voice. You think I did it to destroy Terra, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do! You monster, you killed everything just to have a laugh!”

  “You’re wrong, aren’t you? Yes, you are. I did this because I wanted to create a new world! And to have new things, we must let go of the old ones. It’s the price to pay, and what is gone is gone, isn’t it?” it said.

  “Couldn’t you just leave Earth alone and find another place to create your stuff?” Colin drew his brows together, angered at the creature’s grin.

  “Oh, we already did that, didn’t we? Your world was a big one. Me and the others did awesome things in other galaxies! You didn’t develop fast space travel, did you? If you did, you’d find great creations everywhere!”

  “So why didn’t you let us get there? If you waited longer, we’d be able to see it all!”

  “It became … boring, you know? It was time for a world with new rules! How about a world in which atoms get sad just as humans do? Great fun, isn’t it?” OOOO smiled widely, its big eyes shining bright.

  “Sad atoms? Is that even possible? You said it already, and I still can't believe it. No, it's all too normal to be true, except ... except for the melting. No, that's not possible ...” Colin made circles around himself, disturbed by his thoughts.

  “Of course it is, isn’t it? You conceive it and it happens. That’s what Creators do!”

  “Then I wish to have my world back.”

  “Oh, you can't have it like this, can you? I'm the Dominant one now. You'll have to defeat my world, won't you? Like I did with Terra.”

  A building by the roadside collapsed, slowly folding half-melted to the ground. Its walls still kept a part of its rigidity, becoming a straight edged mound. Colin jumped in fright, expecting another beast. He looked at the ruins with expectation, finding nothing besides a pile of dead shapes.

  “Did ... Did everybody die? Is it possible for humans to survive in your world, OOOO?” he asked.

  “It’s very hard, and they should die, shouldn’t they? Only omnipresent Creators know! I’m not one of them, so if I found living humans in here, I’d be amused, although I’d try to eliminate them to clean the slate. It’s not good to take old habits into a new life, is it?”

  “No, please don’t kill them! I need to find a person!” Colin said.

  “A Creator?”

  “No, a human like me! Her name is Angeline!”

  ∙ 5 ∙ A walk at the beach

  Buildings fell down at every block. Their columns melted with the sadness of their fate, in a world where even atoms reacted to the World Voice's power. Many bricks resisted, shielded by more optimistic particles, keeping the shapes of houses and tall structures intact in the middle of puddles of liquid matter. Each and every one of them, though, could fall at any time, and their melted masses flowed down the slopes, leveling out the land with their depressed molecules.

  Colin’s house met the same fate. When he reached it in the company of OOOO, half of it lay on the ground, bleeding a gray slime made of furniture and concrete. The windows had lost their glass, the roof dripped with the melting of its tiles, the bedroom’s walls had holes like the gaps between ribs.

  “You’ll get inside, won’t you? OK, I can take you out if it crumbles and traps you,” OOOO said.

  “Do you think it might fall right now? I doubt there’s anybody in there, but I need to see it,” Colin said.

  He found the couch still whole, the television screen still intact. Between the dismantled room walls, objects gave little sign of decrepitude.

  “Mom, dad!” he yelled.

  “Haha, sound in the vacuum? This place has no air anymore. They wouldn’t hear you, would they?” OOOO said.

  “We’re talking, aren’t we?”

  “Because we’re Creators, aren't we? We communicate at will.”

  “Why can I still breathe, then?”

  “You’re not really breathing, are you? You’re immortal now.”

  Colin climbed the stairs with care, jumping the liquid looking steps. He got to his parents’ room. Sheets draped their big bed, messy pillows lay on the mattress, clean carpet on the ground, no sign of their slippers. A good sign, Colin thought, looking around for puddles of strange liquids.

  “They’re not here. They must have gone somewhere with the car,” he said, noticing the empty garage at his arrival.

  “It must be nice to melt at high speed, must it not?” the creature said, giving him a child's innocent smile.

  Colin took a mad glance at OOOO, finding no malice in its face. “There must be other people alive. I need to help them survive, wherever they are.”

  “Nice, you accept being a Creator now, don't you?”

  “Not at all, I'll never create anything in this hell, only to watch it meltdown later. I'll help by just being around and keeping you away from them.”

  “Hey, I can help too! I'll go with you and we can find others, can't we? But I doubt we'll find any creation still alive.”

  Colin looked at a portrait over the nightstand. A photo of him and his parents on Christmas, Colin in the middle, hugging them with hands on th
eir backs. The only official image of his family left in that age, it risked melting down with all the rest. The digital ones, all the others, they’d never be accessible again. He took the photo out from its frame and put it in his pocket.

  “You can’t be right. People are smart! Many found a way of surviving here, I’m sure they did.”

  “I’m curious to see that!” OOOO said, shaking his head.

  Colin went downstairs, into the kitchen, to look for supplies. He opened the cupboard and found bread and packs of chips. He took all that he could and put them in his backpack.

  “I’m interested in your action. You’re collecting creations, aren’t you? Food? You don't need food, so you must be collecting,” OOOO said.

  But the human himself doubted the importance of his actions.

  “I want to be prepared, just in case you’re lying,” he said.

  “Me, lying? Why would I do that?”

  “You said I’m immortal, right? How can I be so if I felt no change in me?”

  “Can I stab you again?” OOOO raised one of its stiff legs in his direction.

  “Don't touch me, stand back!” Colin protected himself with an opened hand in front of his chest.

  “You’re more than you think. You’ll find it out, won’t you?” OOOO locked its eyes into Colin's while approaching him with all limbs on the ground.

  Colin took a sip from his water bottle, not thirsty, only because of sensation. The liquid went down his throat like a specter, the ghost of water, unaware of skin. He took a piece of bread and ate it, despite not being hungry, just to be sure that his condition remained rooted in the world of humans. It had no taste whatsoever. They left the house.

  The road became a grayish brown, tinged with the dirty color of too many pigments mixed together. He headed in the direction of the beach, taking care not to slide on the melting ground. After a long slippery walk, he reached his destination.

  “I’m so alone ... So miserable ... Is anybody there?”

  The Voice still echoed in the universe, striking Colin’s mind with enough power to keep him in constant sadness. Filled with hope and curiosity, though, expecting to find survivors at the beach, he marched with an explorer's might.

  On the crossing before the beachside avenue, a tall hotel had collapsed in on itself, filling the entire area with debris. Buried cars blocked the way, puddles of melted flesh oozed out of their liquid doors and windows. Colin climbed the mountain of half-solid steel and concrete ahead of him.

  Under his feet, matter rippled, unrest spreading throughout the land. One sad atom collapsed, taken aback by the Voice, and others followed suit, inspired by suicide. Chemical compounds dissolved, joining the big soup of depression which destroyed everything. The first view of the ocean had still water, purple sky, and slimy sand.

  “It’s an amazing world, isn’t it?” OOOO said by his side.

  “It’s ugly as hell. You should be ashamed of what you did.”

  “Ugly can be interesting too, can’t it? I bet you never saw a place like this before.”

  The boardwalk broke down in craters, its lampposts and kiosks in ruins. As Colin descended the mount and stepped on the stone slabs before the sand, he had to pull his legs from the melting matter and dodge a myriad of unrecognizable objects, all of them crafted by humans and deformed by the World Voice's power.

  “I hope the others are enjoying this kind of view too! There are bigger cities, aren’t there?” OOOO said.

  “Who are the others? That Mae you told me about earlier, the one you said was the Creator of Earth?” Colin said.

  “Other Creators like us! I wonder if they’re having fun with my world too.”

  “Are all of them like you? Does everybody want to destroy all the humans?”

  “They are all different, aren't they? When we find some, you'll love them!”

  Colin stepped on the sand and his foot sank. It was fluffier than it could ever be within the physical laws of Earth, swallowing his bony ankles with the softness of a gel. He marched with difficulty on the hungry terrain, hypnotized by the ocean water. It reflected the sky's purple tint, mirror-like, spreading out the weirdness. When he touched it, its surface rippled, water indeed. OOOO watched him from the boardwalk, amused at his interaction with the world it crafted with so much excitement.

  “Nice mirror, isn’t it?” it said.

  “It’s so still ...” Colin watched the waves fading at a short distance.

  He looked up and found a featureless space. Beyond Earth's corpse, purple painted the universe, its gloomy domination plain and dark. Only the World Voice's colossal pillar disturbed the horizon, a tall line extending its length high above ground. He could see things, therefore light existed, any source of light.

  “Where is the sun?” Colin asked.

  “Nowhere. I didn’t want it, you see? Light just happens in here.”

  He took a half-melted cell phone and raised it from the sand. It projected no shadow, and yet it changed tone according to its viewing angle. Colin lived with inert senses since the new world's dawn, and to think of a universe with no sun made his legs tremble with vertigo.

  “That’s why the water is so smooth. You took away the moon too!” he said.

  “Yes! Beautiful, isn’t it? Terra plain and simple, alone like the World Voice!”

  “Are we still rotating at least?”

  “No, no need. It’s just a sphere hanging in nothingness, isn’t it?”

  Vacuum, the atmosphere gone, all of it, Earth's layers reduced to the void. Life made impossible, the apocalypse, all of it gone for real and forever. The end, a monster crawling in his guts, struggling towards his throat, to choke him.

  One person, any living being, to save himself. If one could live in that airless, poisonous place, he could still find hope. He walked on the messy beach grounds almost willing to hear OOOO speak again, terrified by the silence of the world's end. An intact restaurant on the opposite sidewalk caught his attention before long. He crossed the avenue to inspect the place, followed by OOOO, who went after him without any of its lunatic interruptions.

  “Don’t you have anything to do for yourself? I appreciate your help, but, you know, I'm not forcing you to come along. I'm looking for survivors,” he said.

  “I want to watch you. You're admiring my world, aren't you? It’s interesting, isn’t it?” it said.

  “Not admiring, I guess. This is a bad place, and I wish you hadn't done what you did. You turned a rich world into one big desert. How can that be interesting?”

  “Well, there’s old Terra, and there’s the World Voice. They meet, a conflict takes place, and then stuff happens, doesn’t it? Conflict! We’re watching an aftermath that is also a beginning!”

  Colin knew that restaurant. He went there once with his parents, where they ate seafood at night, after promenading on the boardwalk. A buffet table occupied the center of the big room, and he wondered whether that was due to the end of times’ celebration or just a natural reconfiguration.

  He opened the tray lids to take a look of the remaining food, surprised to see a preserved banquet. Only one of the options seemed to melt and mix with its containment’s metal, becoming an ugly mass of gray ooze. OOOO tried to take a dish from a neighboring table and dropped it on the floor, as he couldn’t handle human objects with its stiff legs.

  “What are you doing?” Colin said.

  “You carry food in your bag, don’t you? Don’t you want to taste these?”

  Colin smiled at him for the first time. If he didn’t look outside the windows, the restaurant enveloped him with the warmth of a normal place, and he needed normal for one minute to keep from melting down. He grabbed a dish and served himself with shrimp risotto, fish with vegetables and roasted salmon. OOOO sat on a small table and beckoned Colin to join it.

  The food's colors died in themselves, translating no odor to Colin's nose. He touched it with his nostril and still smelt nothing. He filled his fork with a good portion of
rice and bit it, chewing with care to sense whatever he could. Distilled water, no matter how solid.

  “Give me some!” OOOO asked.

  “It doesn’t have any taste. And it's human food. Are you serious you want to try it?”

  “I don’t even eat, do I? The experience is what matters!” it said.

  Colin filled the fork once again, sticking a shrimp in its end, and drove it to OOOO’s mouth, a baby posed in front of chocolate. It opened and closed its mouth and let most of the food fall, making a mess on the floor.

  Colin laughed at that, amused by the creature’s ineptitude at eating in human ways. With the creature’s attempt and curious innocence, the restaurant seemed populated, and the world a friendlier place all of a sudden. One moment in the Earth that he knew well, and peace soothed his heart.

  “Nice, give me more!” it said.

  “Really? I bet you could eat this fork and the taste would be the same.”

  “Then give me that as well, you see?”

  Colin placed the plate in front of OOOO and let it grab everything he could with its mouth, helping it with the fork, which later became prey to the creature’s curiosity. It had no tongue, as Colin could see from the opening of his jaw, but it emitted sucking sounds as it tried to process the food.

  “It’s interesting, very interesting, isn’t it? The decay brought a few subtleties to its composition. The shrimp is still there, but it’s sad, I can sense that, can’t I? It gets bitter this way, accepting the dark hole of my mouth more willingly. It’s a pity we don’t need to eat, because it’d be nice to feed from depressed food, wouldn't it?” it said.

  “Oh, I didn't know you were a gourmet! You're one surprising creature, aren't you?”

  “Creator!”

  “Fine, whatever. Let me try again.” Colin picked the fork up and bit a piece of the salmon.