The house crumbled faster than any other they had seen thus far. Roof-made rain fell down through the ceiling, corroding the pillars while penetrating in the floor and walls. Melted slime soaked Colin, covering him in dejected matter that kept filling the ground like a river, unwilling to form new bonds. Still clean despite the bathing, he stepped out of the mud and got back to the avenue with OOOO.
"Oh... Should we rebuild the house?" the creature asked.
"No, let it go. I can only have it again when I have my world back," Colin said. "What did you do to Terra's Creator?"
"Ok, wait, her name is Lara, so that you know. And I want to understand what you mean by that, don't I? Yes, because I did many things with her! She and I are good friends, aren't we? But maybe you're talking about how I made her give up of Terra with the World Voice?" it said, bobbing its head.
"You released a monster over her. Is it what friends do in this Creator's realm? That doesn't sound friendly to me, you know, not at all, so I hope you see why I'm having trouble to trust you. You know how terrible your creature is, don't you? This thing melts everything, even you! Lara might have died!"
"That's a possibility, yes, isn't it? And it's bad, I know, very bad. But... But I knew her, didn't I? And I think she's fine."
"Have you seen her after the world's end, by any chance? Or are you talking out of your mouth?"
"No, I didn't see her yet. However, she is the kind of Creator that's good at resisting sorrow, so I'm sure she found a good place to take care of her new projects, you see?" OOOO said.
"Then I want to find her. I could never hope to create Terra again by myself, and even if I did, it wouldn't come from the original mind. I need to meet Lara and ask her to bring my world back, to let me live again with the people I love," Colin said.
"You know you can just recreate these people yourself, don't you?"
"Like you did at the beach? And watch them melt right after? It's... It's not the same, no..."
"In fact, it is pretty much the same, isn't it? You know what you want, and it's only a matter of materializing it. Would that make you feel better?"
"Not at all. I don't want melted people, and besides, it's not only the people. It's the whole life that I had with them. All of it! Can I wish and materialize it?"
"It's a good try! It's all probably going to melt, though, isn't it? That's the funny thing about this world, you see, it has the World Voice, and it's mighty depressing, isn't it?"
Colin walked away from OOOO, turning his back on it. He followed the avenue until the edge of the city, where ruins no longer appeared, where bare hills marked the entrance to the countryside, going the opposite way from the colossal glowing pillar of light. OOOO followed him in silence, curious to see its new friend in action, in a constant state of expectation.
As they roamed farther and farther from the city's wreckage, the land became monochromatic. Trees melted first, followed by any other form of vegetable life. A grayish slime covered hills and valleys, flowing towards crevices, filling the earth's pores with sad matter.
"You're walking nowhere, aren't you?" OOOO asked, unable to hold itself longer.
"You said we could find other Creators around, so I'm looking for anybody. I'm trying to find Lara," Colin said, stepping hard on the soft ground.
"Do you know where she lives?"
"I have no idea. Maybe if I find someone, they can help me, and if I can help them back with something, I don't know, I'll do my best. You'll help me too, won't you? You said you were her friend."
"Sure thing, I can help you, can't I? The thing is, she used to live in what you called New York. And it's very far from here, you see?"
"I see...That's not good, unless we could travel by airplane," Colin said, looking down with a finger on his mouth, thinking of how well he knew flying machines to attempt creating one. "At least we are in the same continent, so if we have to go walking, it won't take that long. Is there anything we can do to get there faster? Would an airplane work?"
"A creation? First, does it fly in a vacuum? Second, can you think of space-warping creations?Third, would you mind falling down after it melts in space?"
"If we could avoid that, I'd be more thankful..."
"Well then, if falling doesn't please you, we can find a liquid-space Creator, can't we? It can give us a ride instantly!"
"Ok, that sounds like a plan, a good one, somebody with experience helping us out. And do you happen to have any idea of where can we find this... This liquid-space Creator?"
"Can you craft a Creator detector in this world?"
"No."
"Neither can I, I guess. So we just have to look for one, don't we? Don't worry, they're not rare. Most worlds aren't physical like yours or mine, are they? They're stranger," OOOO said with a big smile.
Facing the challenge ahead of him, Colin pondered about his inability to help himself in his quest. As a project manager in a graphic design studio, he had always depended on others to make things happen, serving only as a mediator to their efforts. He looked for tools to make everybody's jobs easier, and now he had the power to craft any tool his imagination could come up with. If only his creative ideas didn't always end in disaster, perhaps he could ease his chores by making better use of his new powers.
"I should try harder, I most definitely should," he thought.
In front of them, a jeep appeared over the melting road, materialized by Colin's wish. He climbed the car with confidence, grabbing the steering wheel with the knack of a veteran explorer, although he had never driven a machine like that before. OOOO, marveled at his initiative, hopped along, fitting itself on the passenger seat. The motor didn't respond to the key's turn, and it melted between Colin's fingers. The whole chassis became liquid in seconds, sad to be so alone in a world of pure suffering of matter. It found no value in life, its atoms refused to admit contact with each other, why insisting on it?
OOOO and Colin fell to the ground and raised themselves from the mud. Colin got back to the remainder of the road and walked on.
"I can't wait to meet the veteran Creators! This is a high difficulty world, isn't it? It's one big puzzle!" OOOO said, not minding at all its friend's failure.
Walking posed no stress to Colin's immortal joints, his only burden that of standing intact while the world's landmarks disappeared one by one, mountains, buildings, roads, everything. Without a sun, even north and south became meaningless directions. Without signaling, what little remained of roads and highways served no purpose. Going to old New York would take forever.
"It's hard to think of friendship with creatures out of my world, you know. And if Lara is human, and if she spent time with you, then, well, that's something to think about. Tell me, how did you meet her?" Colin asked, kicking the mud under his feet with the calmness of a slow walker.
"The same way I met you! By chance, wasn't it? Creators are many in the world, and it's not hard to find others. It's also easy to become friends when you're immortal, isn't it?" OOOO said.
"I hope so. The more I wait, the more I forget about my old life, about the people I knew, about how good everything was. It's lonely to forget, you know? And even though living here is terrible, I'm confused. I'm never hungry or tired anymore, like you said I wouldn't be. Besides, I'm not afraid. When I come to think of it, it's quite comforting..."
"The life of a Creator is amazing, isn't it?"
"Maybe, but I don't want to forget. I still had so much to do back there, so many things I didn't do out of fear. It all looks so silly to me now, and yet, if I got back, I'm not sure I'd act another way. I don't trust my feelings anymore, that's the thing. They tell me I should focus on now and enjoy my stay, but that's wrong. That's the same as saying that I'm ok with mass murder."
"They were just creations, weren't they? That's not mass murder. That's like tearing a piece of paper to try another one, isn't it?"
"No, that's still wrong. They were living beings like me. If letting me die is bad, killing them is equally bad."
On the top of the hill they had just reached, OOOO laid itself on the floor, its legs spread sideways. It studied the toboggan ahead and rolled down. The spin of its body threw melted matter in the vacuum of space above, a vortex of mud propelled by amusement in its simplest form. OOOO fell in a thick pool of ooze, from which the creature raised intact, waiting for Colin's arrival. To its surprise, the human came right behind, rolling at high speed and then tumbling madly. Were Colin still mortal, he'd break many of his bones with the fall.
OOOO hopped out of the mud pool, carrying his friend with one bent member. They walked on, at peace with their mutual need for distractions in their immortality.
"Lara and I used to live in an apartment together, did you know that?" OOOO said.
"Of course I didn't. Could people see you, then? I mean, if you could rent an apartment..." Colin said.
"No, in Terra we couldn't interact directly with creations, we were in separate dimensions. But we could watch them and create other things that affected their world, couldn't we? Yes, and that's what we did!"
"Hm, I guess that explains a lot. You were the gods surrounding us, the real ones. And yet, there you were, living in a city, around us. Why did you choose an apartment? It makes no sense for a god to do so."
"Oh, Lara was fascinated by the architecture in your world! Humans from other worlds not always build things, you know that? Sometimes there are no predators, sometimes they live in utopias, which are the most boring worlds of all, sometimes they fear their own intelligence and sometimes they simply enjoy dying. But in Terra, Lara created an interesting balance between need and creativity that amazed us all at first, didn't she?"
"Yes, it was a very good balance, I agree wholeheartedly! See, we were very creative, we should never have perished the way we did. I can't speak for myself, because I know I didn't count for much, but I knew some amazing people that..."
"Yeah, yeah, do you want to know what Lara liked to do more than anything, by the way?" OOOO said, ignoring Colin's never ending resentment.
"Please!"
"Preaching at her cults!" it said, with goggled eyes, waiting for Colin's admission of the awesomeness of that.
"No wonder. Was she the one people used in the West used to call God, by chance? That would make perfect sense, so I'm not surprised. We had a Creator behind our backs, in the end."
"Not exactly, was it? That God you speak about was a myriad of other Creators, all having fun at their turns. Lara had a very small cult, very restrict among bank cleaners, you see?"
"Bank cleaners? Only them?" Colin asked, clenching his eyelids.
"Exclusively them! She sent messages to a guy that spoke to others about the correct alignment of desk papers in the healing of illness, didn't she? Yes, banks were their temples, and each room needed to have piles of papers oriented in certain ways, and if all was correctly positioned, they could heal anybody who held a broom and wore a cap in a particular place," OOOO said.
Colin laughed, "I'm sorry, I can't believe it, that's too silly to be legit. You seemed so blunt and honest until now that I forgot you could lie to me as well. Is this part of the Creator's act, you know, coming up with stories? Yes, of course it is, Creators create, right, why am I asking..."
"We are Creators. We don't lie, do we? I'm not making this up. It was a very small cult, and it was kept secret, wasn't it? You'd only hear about it if you were a bank cleaner who accepted the one set of essential truths."
"Which were...?"
"I have no idea. It didn't interest me so much, and Lara herself got bored by it later, didn't she? She then became more fascinated by the negation of things, you see?"
"Hard to imagine it. We had so much to do in that planet, not to talk about the universe itself, that I can't see anybody getting bored with Terra."
"And yet they did, didn't they? Even creations themselves died of boredom. We always tried to push you guys around and see how you would react to certain things, but in the end it became repetitive, didn't it?"
"That's not right. We were still plugging everything to the Internet, we finally had electric cars becoming popular, we had the first real successes in reusable space flight, and even artificial intelligence was advancing in a good pace! The future was bright, and how can that be boring?"
"Well, it was uninteresting enough so that Lara herself thought about giving up of your precious Terra, wasn't it?"
"I disagree, I'm sorry, I do. I think you are all wrong, you and the rest of your Creators, if that's what you really think," Colin said, shaking his head with vehemence. "I can't speak for Lara, but if she's my Creator, and if she saw my world the way I did, I think I need to hear her first before believing in you."
"We are on the same boat, fellow Creator! And I loved your original world, didn't I tell you that? In fact, I tried to make it more interesting before deciding to take it from Lara," OOOO said.
"You? Out of all Creators, the destroyer of Terra, wanted to save it?"
"Not save it... Just make it more interesting! To me and all the others, you see? Whenever you had a small, backwater country doing new weapons tests, that was me! Whenever you had a holly person expressing joy with the killing of others, that was me! And I was also the one pushing the people angry at those holly people against their sects. Why, do you ask me?"
"Yes, why? Were you the devil?"
"Ah, sometimes! But I don't like all that evil versus good mythology that you were so found of, do I? No, it was interesting just at a point, because then it became too repetitive and predictable. I did it all to raise the stakes! To sow conflict, right?"
"Right... We never had a chance, then..."
"At what?"
"At peace."
"You had, of course, because peace can be interesting too, can't it? Most worlds know no war or predation, if you want to know. I just paid attention to what you seemed to care about and pushed things to go one way or another, you see? It was like painting with the materials at my disposal, wasn't it?"
"And did it help? I mean, did you make the world more interesting to Lara... to our creator?"
"Sort of. She laughed at what I did, didn't she? And she tried to come up with new cults. In the end, though, she was tired of history repeating itself in Terra, and knew that humans in that world would be all dead in just a few decades by their own doing anyway..." OOOO said.
"Wait, wait, wait... What are you talking about? Is it war or something, or did she have a scheduled apocalypse of some sort for us? Because if you're talking about war, I don't think that would be possible, because the world headed towards union more than ever."
"Ha, you all walked on a mine field, didn't you? I don't think you understand the danger you were in."
"That's not true! There were dangers, of course, but we would overcome any challenge ahead of us, I'm sure we would. Besides, if the end was so imminent, why didn't you wait until we all died by ourselves instead of killing us all? Wouldn't you have fun watching us disappear?"
"What's the fun of watching something you already know the end of? I want surprises, don't I?"
"We would surprise you!"
"No, you wouldn't. A liquid-time Creator told me how Terra would end, and that was exactly like I saw it. So it became boring, didn't it?"
"Oh, yeah? Then how was it going to end?"
"You can guess it, can't you? Just give it a shot!" OOOO said.
"Nuclear attacks?"
"No."
"Some sort of new disease?"
"No."
"Hm... Weather change? I don't think it could kill every human, but sometimes it seemed a pretty apocalyptic event at the time, with all the talk about life extinction and all that..."
"You got that right. And yes, everybody would die eventually, wouldn't they? See, it was so predictable that even you could see that."
"That's up to controversies!"
"I don't see how, do I? Your world is already gone!"
"And we'll never know if you were right or not, unless we have Terra back."
"If you have your world back and you don't change it in any way, then your fate will be nearly the same, won't it?"
"Let's see... We can only find it out when we get someone who can help me reinstating Terra in its place. Right? We wouldn't let the world end by our doing. I'll show you how wrong you are."
"Are you really going to have it just the way it was?" OOOO asked, as they walked on deserted land, round hills taking over the horizon.
"Of course! All life in there must have a second chance. And you have to learn to respect your creations. They are more than a mere piece of paper," Colin said.
"People are more interesting than lifeless materials, of course, but only if you are a human yourself, you see?"
"Well, I don't see the point of this argument. I'm talking about life, and yes, I know certain things are only important to me because I'm human, just like others matter more to other animals. And I want to help them too, I want all lifeforms back. That fixes things for everybody, right? Are there, by any chance, Creators that are not living beings like me?"
"There are, aren't there? We should look for KIII, you'll love it! It's a mountain who's a Creator! Amazing, isn't it? It doesn't have a name on its own, so I gave it one, KIII, and it's quite an unusual one. We have Creators made of light, others made of void, others who express no will at all. To them, humans are really boring, you see?"
"Ok, then show me these other Creators. And help me finding one that can take me to New York instantly, like you said."
"We're looking for them, aren't we? What's the rush? We will find them. As long as we keep looking, you won't wish to melt down, will you?" OOOO said, approaching Colin with its fast legs.
"I don't want to disappear. Not right now. That Voice, that thing you created... It makes me feel bad. I don't want to get near it again."
"Me neither! It's too powerful, isn't it?"
"Too much, yes. Did you really have to create such a monster to remove Lara's world?"
"The World Voice was just a little push, you see? She was already bored with Terra, but didn't want to see it go. And we can only become the dominant Creator if the former one decides to abdicate of it, so I had to convince her to let go of it, didn't I? And to do so, what did I do?"
"You made her feel miserable and alone, worthless of any attention. You made her want to disappear, to leave that awful world... I know how it feels like. Couldn't she resist it, though? If you were her friend, she should know what you would do."
"That wasn't important, wasn't it? If she became so affected by the World Voice, it was because the Voice spoke the truth, somehow."
"It... it did. But to her too?"
"Creators are sensitive beings, aren't they? Well, usually we are."
"That's the opposite of what I always thought a bunch of immortals would be like," Colin said.
"Interesting! How did you think we would be?" OOOO asked.
"Either fighting all the time or indifferent to everything."
"Fighting? What for? We will never die! We don't need things, do we?"
"I know, but that would be the case if there were mortals around, I thought..."
"Maybe, just for fun. And indifferent? Yes, that could happen, couldn't it? That's why we create!"
"You create because you have nothing else to do. Is that it?"
"Yes!"
"And you get bored when the world doesn't suit your expectations?"
"No! It's only when it brings us nothing new."
"I don't think I could ever get tired of Terra."
"That's because so far that's the only world you know of, isn't it?"
"I see your world too. And I'm not impressed..." Colin said.
"You are not? But it's a World Voice! Look at how majestic it is! Please, you must see the whole picture, it's a world inhabited by just one living being, a human mind trapped in an incorporeal existence! That's so funny, isn't it? You have to admit that, come on, please!" OOOO said, pulling Colin by the arm to look at the glowing pillar of light, far in the horizon.
He did so, laughing at OOOO's frustration with his distaste for its creation. Over the ruins of a public square on a small hill, a light shone with the pretence of a small sun. It hit Colin with intensity, confusing him. A light, something banal, so abundant in old Terra, still working after so much destruction! Whatever lay behind it, he had to see for himself.
Colin pushed OOOO to the side with calm, keeping his eyes fixed in the distance, and ran towards the small point of light that lured him in the middle of a half melted park.