The『D』Project - Epilogue
*NOTE: The following is a work of fiction, and a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, locations, and events are purely coincidental. All images published were generated by AI (i.e. starryai v.1.8.1(1) and Dream v2.2.3 as of February 2023). Any resemblance to actual people, locations, events, and/or works of art are purely coincidental.
The『D』Project
Written by: CHONKY TL
Dedication
For my son. I write this for you.
Sincerely,
CHONKY TL (Your Crazy Father)
Epilogue
To understand where I am right now, you have to look at [TIME] differently.
The clock just ticked indicating that a second had passed. In that second, if you are able to zoom in to the atomic level, you will see that countless numbers of atoms have moved and changed positions within and all around you.
Right now, you are most likely sitting, standing, or lying down. And even though nothing around you has perceptibly changed, electrons have been busily whirling around you around the speed of light.
In the last few seconds, the number of changes that have occurred in the universe is now well beyond the human imagination. But to be fair, why would you care? Most of the infinite amount of changes happening around you will not affect your day to day.
You will still wake up, brush your teeth, go do some sort of work (or not), eat at some point, come back, and go back to sleep.
But let’s slow the universe down to take one single moment, the moment when an electron moves a zillionth of a nanometer - just a fraction from where it used to be, and freeze the entire universe.
Now, imagine an overworked librarian - someone who mindlessly catalogs this change like they did with the previous zillion fragments.
When they are done cataloging, we have the latest snapshot of the universe - excluding all the humans of course. Inside the snapshot, humans always get left out of the picture.
Sounds strange? I thought so too at first, but this is because of a thing we call the [SOUL].
You see, as a fragment breaks off into the [PAST], the souls inside will jump forward into the [PRESENT]. Your [BODY] is directly connected with your soul so it will (or rather, it should) jump with you.
Hence, if we were able to turn around and look at the fragment we just left behind, we would just see an empty city completely devoid of human life.
In case you're wondering, anything related to or connected with the soul will follow. So yes, your adorable pet won't be left behind.
As for how fast we are leaving these fragments, have you ever tried making a flip book at 24 frames per second? That's 24 pages for just one second of action, and you'll soon find out that it's a huge pain (try jumping 24 times in one second). Video rendering can go up to 60 fps, but no one bothers to go higher because the human eye won't notice the difference.
Now, let's accelerate that to a near infinite amount of changes per second (so like a zillion frames per second). Honestly, the scenery would be changing so fast that you would feel like you're suspended in air. Each scenery flying by faster than the speed of light - and that is simply another fragment being left behind. Just don't look down, and you (probably) won't fall through the cracks.
But don't worry. Even if you do, if you've taken good care of your soul, the transition outside of the [PRESENT] will be better than those who neglected that invisible aspect. Of course, by transition, I mean death.
In case the thought crossed your mind, don't try to get rid of your body to come here. Yes, I'm dead, and all my friends died at some point in their lives (probably), but that's not quite how this works. As a friend once told me, you can fool others, you can fool yourself, but you'll never be able to fool your own soul. Being connected directly with your body, a soul is shaped by your mind, heart, and action.
A destructive soul will take on a shape with a destructive nature - nothing good ever comes from a soul in that kind of shape. Have you heard some people call others monsters? Wait till you get to see what they look like after they leave their physical bodies.
That particular case was a kid. Not joking. He had one NASTY tantrum. I'm not saying that everyone will turn into monsters. But every soul I met here was [BROKEN] in some way. Grief, suffering, and pain are unavoidable, toxic ingredients that we have to mix in with our life. And none of us get by unscathed.
What doesn't kill us doesn't make us stronger. It [BREAKS] us - specifically, it breaks our soul. It rips a gash so big and wide that we simply learn to live with that bleeding, gaping, festering wound in the [PRESENT].
And in the end, we will find a way to heal or hide from that wound. That's what these fragments are for - hiding.
Broken Souls meander through a nebulous cloud of fragments piled higher than mountains.
They can't just enter any fragment. Every fragment has a unique shape, and your soul has to [FIT] like crawling through a keyhole.
Fragments fly off and pile up into that cloud with other fragments - an almost identical copy of its predecessor and its subsequent successors. They don't remain in chronological order either. As soon as a fragment breaks off, it shoots off into the mist where it would start mixing in with the rest.
Time works differently too. The majority of these fragments remain frozen until a soul enters it. The uninhabited, virgin world will once again start turning the rusted gears of time, and guess what? More fragments are born from that world.
To call this an alternate universe or multi-verse would be misleading. It's nothing like those movies or stories.
You don't run into alternate timelines and different versions of yourself. Don't forget, most of these (99.999...%) are completely empty worlds.
Some might call this purgatory.
Others, heaven.
Others, hell.
We just call it our home - temporary, but our home nonetheless.
Because that's what we are - [WANDERERS] - sojourners of past worlds. Unique [BROKEN SOULS] that turned around from going [BEYOND] the [MIST] for one reason or another. And right now, I am standing inside a [FRAGMENT]. Hi, my name is Dee. This is about one peculiar event that occurred while I was on the job. This is that story.
