Reality Rewritten - Part One

The air around me feels almost too still, the white panels on the walls around me doing little for the airflow of my cramped little cell. Beneath each of the tessellating square ceramic and foam tiles a faint buzzing can be heard, the power running through the thick copper cables to the unseen components that click and hum to life.

I shift awkwardly in my seat, unbuttoning my light yellow linen shirt in the hope of cooling down and avoiding sweating through the think material. The room around me is truly tiny, though it wouldn't appear so on any floor plan of the building as the original walls are obscured by several feet of machinery and components to give this device life.

"Do I need to..." I pant, pausing as I look down at my black jeans. "Should I take off my clothes or..."

"That's not necessary Mr Hughes" chirps a crackling voice a small speaker by the sealed door, a small screen sitting above it in some kind of standby mode. "We can work while you're fully clothed, though we apologize for the heat.

I wave my hand at my face in a pathetic attempt to cool down, the air in the room appearing to ripple from the white panels as the small space grows more and more like some kind of oven. Apparently noticing my growing discomfort the voice pipes up again, the nervous sounding voice of the young man on the other end cutting through the crackling of the speakers.

"Don't worry sir, this is normal. We need to get everything warmed up before we can rewrite anything."

It had only been close to a year between the first experiment started towards the creation of the 'Reality Rewriter', a study that attempted to look at some underlying trait of feature in people akin to their DNA. It had been by accident, a random error that caused an exhausted and half-awake researcher resulting in the dramatic discovery of a constantly shifting quantum substrata that underpinned every living being on the planet.

Before long innumerable research projects were being funded in order to try and find a way to capitalize on this new discovery. From creating better forms of surveillance and medical technologies, to self-improvement opportunities and even a plan to create a new 'objective' form of testing for schools.

While most went nowhere, a handful of these projects slowly ground their way through the testing phases with the 'Reality Rewriter' being among them. This immense device made a grand promise with some solid small scale results on lab rats to back it up. The team claimed to be able to move one trait from one person to another potentially allowing for people to look how they'd like, be how they'd like, or even cheat death.

With that promise and their small scale results behind them the funding rolled in and human testing began. Participants weren't hard to find initially, but without any incentive to participate developments rapidly chilled. Anybody with the right equipment could check their own traits, parsing the sizeable sum of information through a cobbled together app made by the researchers to reveal their 'Best Trait'. Users could then look for others, identifiable only by their 'Best Trait', and offer to trade.

Even with the small number of experiments the system did not seem to work, though with the sheer amount of funding they didn't plan to stop any time soon. Each pair would enter the 'Reality Rewriter' only to leave in much the less the same manner, albeit a bit more quiet and seemingly dazed into remaining mute.

However, unbeknownst to the research team something far serious was happening beneath the surface. The difference in size and complexity of the creature within the machine had a far more pronounced effect on the process. While the small rats could come out with an altered fur color or knowledge of a maze without much effect on the world around them, a human being was far more serious let alone two.

As the 'Best Trait' was excised it would rip anything required for it to exist out along with it like a tree stump and its roots. For a doctor to practice they required their education and the circumstances that got them there, for a soccer player to play professionally they needed all their training and the time spent practicing in their youth. All these corollary traits would be ripped from the test subject, leaving the test subject and the substrata of reality with a wound filled with potential energy.

As the new bundle of traits were moved across this wound would snap at the tantalizing morsel, the sudden burst of action releasing all of the pent up energy in a sudden burst. In an instant a new reality is born from each of the test subjects, two new worlds where the procedure never took place and the test subjects had simply always been this way with their newly transplanted traits. Despite the 'natural' state of things, the test subject would remember their old life and world with only the faintest idea of their new life insofar as the memories themselves were a trait they received.

Many who woke up after the procedure found themselves in an unfamiliar bed or waking up at a desk they had never seen before, with only a handful of subjects coming to in same white paneled room as before. The accident leading to the creation of the 'Reality Rewriter' was truly rare, with even the smallest and inconsequential changes leaving new worlds and most of the multiverse in general without any understanding at all of those discoveries.

I had signed up for the test months ago, somewhat eager to at least engage with the new and fascinating technology. I had found it relatively boring however, the bare bones app not even showing me a profile for myself after the scan.

I had taken me days of fiddling and searching online to find out how to even find my 'Best Trait', my lips pursing as I found it buried deep within a a manufactured crash report.

'Well-Educated Academic'

Over time offers slowly rolled in, each one more so resulting in a little smirk or chuckle as I woke up to check the app each morning before making coffee. With each passing day I barely checked the app, only noting it when my phone buzzed with an application or when I didn't get any offers for a few days at a time.

However, one morning I woke to a flurry of offers and a deep sense of confusion. By the time I had dumped another crash report I had a dozen new offers, my confusion only growing as I read what was now listed as my 'Best Trait'

'Tall & Well-Hung'

It had taken a moment to settle in, my stomach sinking as I realized my status as an 'academic' had likely shifted further down the ranking of the traits as my unemployment went on. As the twentieth offer rolled in I soon found myself scrolling through them, my eyes locking to one as I bit my lip and bit the bullet.

The white walls around me appear to throb beneath the rippling heat in the air, my stomach churning as I feel as though I'm wracked with heatstroke. Sweat beads up across my bod and drips to the floor, the droplets sizzling on the ceramic beneath me.

Suddenly, the throbbing in the plated walls begins to reach a strange resonance as my skin begins to crawl. It feels like something is snaking its way through my body, the writhing tendrils latching to some unseen and unknown organs within me. I gasp loudly as I feel a tug inside me, the sudden pull nearly toppling me from my seat.

In front of me the screen suddenly lights up, a message quickly flickering to life on the screen.

'Extracting: Tall & Well-Hung'

Before long the internal pressure begins to throb much like the tiles had mere moments ago, each pulsing pull coming sooner after the last. A long pained wheeze slips from my lips as I feel my insides begin to vibrate, my vision blurring as I begin to shudder at a similar pitch to the tiles. Drool falls from my open mouth, my voice catches in my throat along with my breath as the vibrations soon mirror those to the walls before there is a sudden an painful snap.

Empty, starving, hungry.

These are the only words I can use to describe the sensation. It is like something was missing, my whole body almost grumbling like the stomach of some poor starved soul. Tears roll down my cheeks as I slowly begin to regain my vision, my fingers digging into the seat beneath me in an attempt to ground myself.

The blurred words on the screen shift, deleting themselves sequentially before something new takes their place. Blinking rapidly I try to focus my eyes, the plain black text slowly growing recognizable as: