[fantasy] fate
Title: Fate
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 450
Written for a writing challenge for RCR called "Stranger Than Fiction" in which someone finds out that he is only a character in a book. Mine's kinda depressing. Written in second person.
You never believed in fate. Most people do, in one way or another--maybe not in a destiny written out in advance, but at least in a higher power guiding their steps. You were never so naïve. They always said bad people get their comeuppance, and good people are rewarded in the end. What goes around comes around. But you saw the state of the world. Try telling a mother whose straight-A med student daughter was raped and killed about karma. What could her little girl have done to deserve a fate like that?
No, it was always clear to you that the universe is random. There is no God. Just you and every other soul on the planet, fighting daily just to stride water a little longer to keep from drowning.
You were wrong.
You died yesterday. You woke to find yourself standing in a massive library, but there was no illusion of being alive. Though the world felt very solid, you understood perfectly that it was a construct--just your mind translating your surroundings into a form you could understand. That knowledge made it very easy to navigate the ‘library.’
The book in your hand has your name on the spine. The story inside is a record of your lives--all of them in perfect detail. You can remember now who you were before this latest lifetime. The long string of monotonous births, lifes, and deaths is too much to bear. What’s worse is that the book continues onward. It details all the many lives you will go on to live after this. A million births. A million young loves. A million losses. A million deaths.
The other shelves are lined with books with other names on them. You don’t have to look to know that these are the histories--past, present, and future--of all the other souls on Earth. Every life mapped out in advance. There is no free will. There is no choice. Everything is one massive story written by some cosmic author. You are just a character.
The despair is crippling. The worst part is knowing that there is nothing you can do about it. Your book tells you that in a few short eternities, you will be reborn into the cycle. You can picture the life mapped out for you by your cosmic author. You will know hunger and disease. You will find great happiness for a short time, but then you will die young, killed by a drunk driver. And you will not see any of it coming, because these memories will be wiped from your mind until the next time you are caught in the limbo between lives.
To be the plaything of God. It hurts to have been so wrong. Fate is real. And it’s worse than anyone ever imagined.
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 450
Written for a writing challenge for RCR called "Stranger Than Fiction" in which someone finds out that he is only a character in a book. Mine's kinda depressing. Written in second person.
You never believed in fate. Most people do, in one way or another--maybe not in a destiny written out in advance, but at least in a higher power guiding their steps. You were never so naïve. They always said bad people get their comeuppance, and good people are rewarded in the end. What goes around comes around. But you saw the state of the world. Try telling a mother whose straight-A med student daughter was raped and killed about karma. What could her little girl have done to deserve a fate like that?
No, it was always clear to you that the universe is random. There is no God. Just you and every other soul on the planet, fighting daily just to stride water a little longer to keep from drowning.
You were wrong.
You died yesterday. You woke to find yourself standing in a massive library, but there was no illusion of being alive. Though the world felt very solid, you understood perfectly that it was a construct--just your mind translating your surroundings into a form you could understand. That knowledge made it very easy to navigate the ‘library.’
The book in your hand has your name on the spine. The story inside is a record of your lives--all of them in perfect detail. You can remember now who you were before this latest lifetime. The long string of monotonous births, lifes, and deaths is too much to bear. What’s worse is that the book continues onward. It details all the many lives you will go on to live after this. A million births. A million young loves. A million losses. A million deaths.
The other shelves are lined with books with other names on them. You don’t have to look to know that these are the histories--past, present, and future--of all the other souls on Earth. Every life mapped out in advance. There is no free will. There is no choice. Everything is one massive story written by some cosmic author. You are just a character.
The despair is crippling. The worst part is knowing that there is nothing you can do about it. Your book tells you that in a few short eternities, you will be reborn into the cycle. You can picture the life mapped out for you by your cosmic author. You will know hunger and disease. You will find great happiness for a short time, but then you will die young, killed by a drunk driver. And you will not see any of it coming, because these memories will be wiped from your mind until the next time you are caught in the limbo between lives.
To be the plaything of God. It hurts to have been so wrong. Fate is real. And it’s worse than anyone ever imagined.