World Zero

Existence and its weight came bearing down on us with an almost painful realization. We had no clue who or what we were before, but there was no mistaking what we were supposed to be from this moment. It was quite simple actually. Like a newborn creature with its innate instincts kicking in from the moment it is born, we simply knew what our roles were to be at every moment, knowing that those roles can be changed or adjusted at the whim of- probably some supreme being or something, but we played those roles to perfection, not questioning how we knew or did what we knew and did. Immediately forgetting about our momentary nonexistence, we proceeded to exist. As time went on, we discovered that we could feel another consciousness spurring us on, directing our actions. We eventually noticed a certain being who stood out amidst us. He alone didn't seem to be as instinctive as the rest of us, he seemed to be elated. We realized that it was his mind seeping into ours, controlling us, manipulating us, making us into who we were. This was our supreme being. This was undoubtedly our creator. Then just as sudden as the presence of his mind was in ours, his emotions slowly trickled into our minds, mingling with ours. We could feel what he felt, a little at a time. We could feel what made him seem different. It was this emotion called joy. The joy and happiness at having achieved success. 'Why?', I wondered. 'What could be the cause of this beings happiness?'. As I had the thought, I could feel the answer siphoned into my mind. The being had succeeded where no one else. He'd successfully created a different existence, a different world, all from scratch. As I got the answer to my question, more questions surfaced in my mind, and as they did, I realized that I could simply reach into the mind of this being, and simply think up the answers to my questions. Slowly, I began to notice the change of the beings emotions. While his initial emotions had been of joy and elation, the being had slowly moved to that of astonishment and pain. 'Pain from what?', I wondered. 'What was this pain?'. It was then that a sudden wave of realization came to me. If I was able to reach into the beings mind and get answers to my thoughts, then certainly everyone can too. This answer came to me and I could feel that the being received this information from my consciousness almost as soon as I thought it. And then I felt it. The entire process of the supreme beings mind. I could experience his thoughts like they were mine. I could probe into his memories, his past, his dreams, his hope for this newfound existence , like I'd experienced his own entire existence myself. I was able to figure out what was going terribly wrong. This supreme being was created to host just one consciousness. One mind. Not a collection of minds and consciousness slowly merging together like what was currently happening. As he struggled to set up a boundary between his mind and ours it became obvious that he was fighting a losing battle. Slowly but surely, every individual in this existence had begun to realize they had a connection to this being, and they were exploiting it. Taking answers to questions that they have had in their brief lifespan and generating new questions that only burdened the supreme beings mind for answers, turning it into something akin to a hive mind, something this being, something I, was never meant to handle. It only took a few more moments before what pain the being felt began to morph into agony. Agony that surpassed the amassed memories of pain all jammed into one single moment. Pain that couldn't be described by anyone who had ever experienced it. And seeing as the being couldn't even fathom that this much pain could be felt by just one person, then surely words could not possibly do it justice. It wasn't just his pain though. It was the pain of one mind being forced to share the same space of everyone of us in this existence. It was the pain that everyone of us felt as we were forced to feel the supreme beings pain. It was the pain that the supreme being felt upon receiving the feedback of our emotions. It was an overlap and a cumulation of a million sources of pain that wrecked the supreme beings own mind. And eventually it destroyed him, his physical body exploding in a flash of brilliantly white light that simply erased everything in its path until eventually not a single thing remained in this newfound existence. ... A laboratory room was filled with scientists running around trying to stabilize the vitals of the test subject currently in the immersion pod. He'd undergone multiple immersion tests before this one, but there'd been no major results. But now, there was an immense spike in the electrical activity of the subjects brain that nobody was prepared for. It was even higher than those of the divers of the force who had the highest record. While they scurried around trying to get the situation under control, there was a massive surge of electricity from the immersion pod, and then a blackout. There was pandemonium as nobody in the room had any idea what was going on. This was all new and not much preparations had been made for an event like this. The hum of the emergency lights turning on brought back a semblance of order to the scientists. All their monitors and screens had gone out due to the surge. Dr. Alex Stevens, the lead scientist in this project began to leave his post from behind the observatory panel of glass propped up for safety. He had been glad when they finally began to see some real progress after months of testing with nothing to show for it, but he had become extremely worried as things started to get out of hand and they could no longer keep up with what was going on. He knew that there was no hope of the test subject to have survived such an insane amount of electricity. He tried to make a quick estimation of what could have triggered an electrical malfunction serious enough to have cause this amount of damage. The repair costs were going to be very heavy, and their sponsor was going to get very upset. As he approached the immersion pod, he hesitated before opening it, not knowing what to expect of it after having generated so much power. A sudden wave of nausea hit him as he opened the pod and the sight before his eyes could never have been prepared for.