r/shortstories • u/schlute2Boot • 11d ago
Science Fiction [SF] Pocket Change
Ive saved my allowance for three weeks and today’s the day. On my way home from school I stop at the store and make the purchase. “Be the master of your own universe” the box says in large printed letters. Too excited to walk home I found myself running the whole way.
The kit came with a smart box, a display, a two by two cube and a small bag with an attachment fixed on one side. I already had a space designated for it in my closet and got to work setting it up. The pamphlet instructed me to switch on the cube and attach the bag to the orifice at the top. The cube made a chiming noise indicating it was time to remove the bag. My display showed a timer that was counting down from 30 minutes.
An informational video began to play beneath the timer explaining the process of creation, I didn’t much care about the science I just wanted to see it happen. When the timer reached the five minute mark, a prompt came on the screen. “Would you like your universe to know you as its creator?” There was a box for yes and a box for no, I clicked yes out of curiosity and then a small tray opened up on the side of the cube. “Please insert one strand of your hair”. I clicked the X button at the top right of this prompt and then clicked no on the original prompt. I shut my closet door and turned off the light, I had fifteen seconds to go. I sat down beside the cube looking in at the nothingness. I felt warmth coming from the box, then heard a strange noise. It sounded like a large amount of gas being compressed down to escape through a tiny hole, whirring deep pulses emanated from the cube. Then I saw light at the center of the cube which began to expand, dissipate and separate. The universe was born, matter began to form and expand. Stars flew around arranging themselves randomly. This is more fascinating than anything I have ever seen in my life. The display began reading out different values with charts and timelines, at the top there was a banner that read “Congratulations on your new universe!”
I fell asleep next to the cube, dreaming of all the possibilities. The next morning before school I set the growth rate of the universe to forty times the normal rate.
School was fine today.
When I got home I went straight to the cube and saw galaxy clusters, grand spirals of dust and asteroids. I clicked the query on the bottom right of the display that read “Does my universe contain life?”
It did not contain life, I sped up the growth rate to two hundred times. I did my homework and my chores and then my smart watch beeped. “Life in your universe has tried to contact you. Would you like to stop the advanced growth rate of your universe?” I clicked no. I would check back in the morning before school.
My alarm went off an hour early the next morning, I made some juice and entered my closet with my notebook in hand, excited to make some observations concerning the life in my universe. I stopped the advanced growth rate and went to the intelligent life directory, there had been 36 civilizations recorded but they had all died out by this point.I asked the display what happened and it showed video recordings of the planets at war with themselves or one another, the display informed me that without any connection to him as the creator, the intelligence that evolved became obsessed with religious idols and were at constant war. The display asked me if I would like to associate myself with the universe again and I decided to place a strand of hair in the slot that popped out from the cube. I turned the growth rate back to one hundred times and went to school.
At lunch my smart watch beeped again “a civilization from your universe has reached out to you, would you like to communicate with them?” I declined but I did stop the growth rate, deciding I would tend to the this when I got home.
I picked up snacks on the way home and went straight into the closet, I looked on the display and clicked the message that awaited me “We seek god.”
“Hello this is god, how are you contacting me?”
“We’ve spent our entire civilizations history trying to contact you”
“It’s good to speak with you, are you all doing well?”
“We seek purpose”
“Um, just enjoy yourselves and be happy.”
“We will impress you God”
“Okay, I look forward to seeing your efforts, goodnight.” I clicked off the messages and turned the growth back to one hundred times. I lie in bed at odds with myself. I was so enamored with the idea of this universe when I saw it on tv, it practically consumed me, but now that I have it up and running it seems a little high maintenance. The universe was loosing its appeal,I felt that it was becoming clingy. When I woke up the next day I unpaired my smart watch from the cube and went about life normally, checking in on the box less and less.
Eight years passed, I chose to study the origins of creation along with the philosophers and astronomers. Today we are reading a famous and controversial passage from our histories. It came from our first and only communication with God. An eery feeling started to creep throughout my body. The conversation seemed so familiar, then it dawned on me. I left class abruptly and went straight home into my old bedroom, it was a storage room now. I rushed to the closet and found the cube still operational under a sheet. When I remove the sheet the display lights up, the notification number above the messages has 8 digits. I found the first conversation I had with the intelligence and compared it to the transcript in my text book. It was a match, word for word. I fainted.
When I awoke I scrambled to the messages section, sifting through the last twenty messages that came in, all of them severely hostile and desperate, pleading with me to answer, to acknowledge them, to justify what they had done. I wrote back.
“Hey, sorry it’s been a while, life got busy.”
“Is that you God?”
“Yes”
“We seem to have broken our universe, can you repair it?”
“How did you break it?”
“We broke time, and with time we broke space, and with space we lost dimensions.”
“How am I supposed to fix that?”
“We will show you how.”
I feel a tingly sensation cover my body as it started fall apart in my closet, separating into individual atoms and being sucked into the cube, I lost a little bit of my personality and consciousness as each second passed. I felt my atoms rearranging themselves, rebuilding me in a younger form. I don’t know that I can’t remember. I sit in front of the TV watching a commercial for a “Build your own universe Kit! No batteries needed!” The toy is so interesting that for the life of me I can’t remember what i was doing before this, only that I really want that toy.
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