Snippets? (James Haagenburg)

In front of me appeared a man in a white chiton. Or perhaps it was just a bedsheet. Either way, he rocked the look.

"Young man, I am God, and I have chosen you to go into a CYOA!" He exclaimed.

I stared. This was one weird fever dream.

"Uh, what's a CYOA?" I asked.

"It's a thing Spacebattlers use to make stories about Worm. It's like a character creation thing."

Spacebattler? Worm? What?

My confusion must have shown up in my expression becase the chiton guy facepalmed, and then snapped his fingers. An old, early-2000s computer popped into existence in front of me. On it was a weird website.

"Spacebattles... weird name."

Chiton-Guy shrugged.

"It's a forum that people write stuff on." He said. "Oh, and they play games on it too. But mostly the writing."

"Okay."

We spent the next few minutes mulling over the website. Afterwards, I summed up my thoughts to Chiton-Guy.

"So, this is basically where people write weird escapist fanfictions about an alien-invasion story where the aliens give people superpowers. And its grimdark too, and most people in it die."

Chiton-Guy nodded.

"These people... write escapist stories where they escape to a world that's... worse... than this one?"

He nodded again.

I was kind of confused. Escaping to a fictional world that was worse than real-life kind of defeated the purpose of escapism. Well, whatever.

"Okay. I guess that's fine. What about these CYOA thingies?"

Fingers were snapped, and a pdf appeared on the screen.

On it were... my eyes widened with horror. It was my worst enemy. My nemesis.

Giant walls of text in a tiny font. Fuck!

The next few minutes were hell, as I squinted my eyes and tried to make sense of the nonsensical ramblings on the page. Things about superpowers, perks, points, and companions. Difficulty levels, complications, and other sorts of gibberish.

"Um, are you sure these are for making well-thought-out plots for good, decent fanfictions?" I asked.

Because this looked more like a power-creeping board game than anything else.

"Yeah. Why?" Chiton-Man replied.

"Uh... no reason."

We must've had different tastes in literature.

"So you want me to do this... CYOA thing?"

Weird that it was called a CYOA. After all this was more "Choosing Your Own Powers", than choosing an adventure. Actually, it was more like "Choosing Your Fictional Character's Powers". Or something.

"Yeah. Just fill out the thing, and I'll send you on your way." Said Chiton-Man.

Well okay then.

I began working on it. Making sure to choose the bestest most cool superpowers, companions, perks, and all that other stuff. I guess there were also those difficulty levels and complication thingies that were supposed to balance (*snrk*) the powers I was giving myself. I wanted all the powers though. All the powers and perks. So I took all the complications too, and chose the 'easiest' difficulty level.

By the end of my haphazard selecting process, the sheet looked like this:

Type of Premise (Reincarnation, SI, Endbringer): All of them.
Difficulty: All of them.
Powers: All of them.
Companions: All of them.
Perks: All of them.
Complications: All of them.

Chiton Guy looked at my sheet and did a double-take.

"Uh... are you sure you want that? I mean, I get that CYOAs are usually overpowered, but... this is kind of... And how the hell did you take every single difficulty level? How would that even work?"

I just shrugged. I didn't need to explain myself.

"Dude... I don't know how the CYOA system will react to you choosing literally everything. Like seriously. You took the Gold Morning Perk at its highest setting. Don't you think that's a little... much?"

"Nah."

"Earth Bet won't even last a full day!"

Shrug.

"The whole point of the CYOA is to save the world! Not destroy it!"

I frowned at him.

"If the ending is predetermined like that, then you're not really choosing your own adventure."

Chiton-Man faltered.

"I, uh... well, it's not necessarily predetermined... you can either win or lose..."

I snorted.

"So even if it isn't necessarily predetermined, you're still limited to either winning or losing. Cry me a river, strange Chiton-Man. Your fever-dream trickery is no match for my ability to bullshit my way through a DnD-esque character creation session for people who jerk off to their own fictional characters."

He gaped. "There is so much wrong with what you just said."

"Like what?"

"Well for one, this isn't a fever-dream. Secondly, Spacebattlers don't... most Spacebattlers don't jerk off to the characters they've created. Last and most important: WORM FANFICTION IS NOT DND!"

I rolled my eyes.

"Sure, sure. Keep deluding yourself. It's obvious that even if it isn't directly Dnd, it was heavily inspired by Dnd. Regardless of whether or not whoever invented CYOAs realized it."

Again, he faltered. But this time, Chiton-Man actually shut up and thought about it.

Finally,

"Damn. You're right about that."

I smiled smugly. For some reason, I felt like a fox.

I shook my head to get the furry impulses out.

"Anyways. You really want to go through with this?"

"Sure. To be honest, I don't really think that this whole "make a CYOA" thing is real. Like, I feel like I'm going to wake up at any moment, get out of bed, pet my cats, and then forget I ever had this dream."

"Okay... well this isn't a dream, but I guess you'll be figuring that out soon anyway. Well, here goes nothing."

He snapped his fingers, and my vision went dark.

Not because I fainted, but because I was transported to some weird place that had no light. Or walls. Or a floor.

A screen popped up in front of me.

[ERROR. Difficulty: INCOMPATIBLE]
[ERROR. Complications: INCOMPATIBLE]
[Engaging in [ERROR] level security sequence.]
[Breaking loop...]

I didn't know what it was talking about, so I started poking at it. My ethereal hand just passed through, unable to interact with the strange screen.

This dream was weird.

A few moments passed, and a new message appeared on the screen.

[Loop broken.]

My vision changed back to that weird place where the Chiton guy was. Sure enough, he was staring at me.

"It didn't work." He said.

"Yeah."

"You almost broke the system!"

"Yep."

"It was this close to exploding and destroying a large portion of the multiverse!"

"Yyyyyup."

"AAAARGH! Couldn't you have chosen normal settings for the CYOA?"

"Maybe." I said. "Not like I know what 'normal' means. I'm the kind of person who, whenever I'm playing a game for the first time, I don't read the gameplay guide. I just kind of press all the buttons to see what works and what doesn't."

He stared.

"That explains a disturbing amount. But can you please take this seriously?!"

"Nope."

He stared harder.

"You know what?" He said, with an air of finality. "Why don't I just choose for you?"

"Sure." I said.

He glared.

"Alright."

He snapped his fingers, and a new character sheet appeared in front of me.

"This is it."

Type of Premise: SI
Difficulty: Skitter Mode
Powers: Inspired Inventor
Companions: Me
Perks: Blank, Shattered Limiter, Invictus
Complications: Marked (Protectorate, Slaughterhouse Nine, Cauldron), Quarantined (Level 3),

Huh.

"Cool." I said.

---------

The next day, I woke up in my room on a comfy bed.

Hmm?

Actually, never mind. This wasn't my room, it was a broken building that looked like something tore the roof off of. And the bed I was laying on was actually a mound of human corpses.

I felt like I should be freaking out about this.

Well whatever.

I stood up straight, and noticed the other guy.

His black hair was ridiculously spiky. His eyes were red, and some weird black dots rotated inside it.

"Dude, are you okay?" I ask.

He frowns. "What?"

"Your eyes, they look like... some kinda weird infection. You should probably go to the doctor."

He facepalms.

"They're called Sharingan. And it's not an infection, it's a genetic condition that gives me superpowers."

Huh.

"Cool." I said. "Actually, who are you? And where are we?"

He stared.

Somehow, he felt familiar.

"We're in Madison Wisconsin. The Simurgh is attacking. And I am God."

I frowned. Then I remembered Chiton-Man.

"I don't believe you." I said. "See, I actually met God, and you don't look anything like him. He doesn't have weird spiky hair for one, and for another, he wears bedsheets. Your clothes look... Chinese? I can't really tell, but I think they're from somewhere in Asia."

His hand twitched towards his face, but he stopped himself.

"... I don't even know what to say. Don't you remember me helping you make that CYOA?"

"No. The Chiton-guy helped me. Not you."

He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, the ground beneath me started rising. I was being carried on a chunk of Earth, headed straight towards the sky.

"Whoah!" I lost my balance and fell off.

The drop was only a meter, but I landed on my bad leg, making my knee ache.

"Ow..." I said, standing up. "What was that?"

"That was the Simurgh's telekinesis." Said spiky-hair. "She's fighting the Protectorate right now."

"Who?" I asked. The name felt familiar, but I couldn't recall where I'd heard it.

"We went over this when I was telling you about Worm. The Simurgh is this big monster that is basically a psychic. She has telekinesis, mind-reading powers, and can see the future."

Oh.

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"I told you, I'm God. I decided to do this CYOA with you, so I changed my look and gave myself powers from Naruto."

"Is Naruto a country?" I asked.

Frustrated, he began screaming about idiots and ignorant people. I didn't care for it, so I started walking away.

"Hey, where are you going?" He asked.

"I'm leaving. You said we were in Wisconsin, but I live in Texas, so I'm going to have to find a way home."

"By walking?"

I laughed.

"Nah. This city looks pretty destroyed, so I figured I'd just hitchike."

He pointed to the flashes of light in the distance.

"You see that?" He asked. "That's where the city-killing monster is fighting a bunch of superheroes. You don't feel the need to... oh, I don't know, help them out?"

"No. I'm not a superhero. And I'm going home. This whole thing is weird, and I don't like it."

He stared at me again.

So much staring.

"Hey. We're not on your home dimension. We're on Earth Bet. Your home doesn't exist here."

I frowned at him.

"Well how do you know?"

"I AM LITERALLY GOD! I KNOW MOSTLY EVERYTHING!" He shouted.

I put my hands up in surrender.

"Geez dude. No need to get so worked up."

I needed to ditch this guy. God-complex people usually weren't mentally stable.

I walked faster.

This was going to be a long day.

---------

A few hours of walking later, we were far from the city. The sounds of the superheroes fighting that Simurgh-thingy had long since died down.

"I can't believe it..." Muttered my unstable, spiky-haired friend.

"What?" I asked, annoyed he was talking to himself.

"We didn't run into a single barricade. Given that its the Simurgh attacking, combined with the 'Marked' complication, you'd think the Protectorate would be setting up the dome already..."

Gibberish to me.

Oh, hey, an RV!

I stuck out my thumb. The large vehicle slowed to a stop beside me on the highway.

"Ayy, can I get a ride?" I asked.

The guy in the front seat flashed a smile at me. He was quite handsome. Kind of like Johnny Depp.

Spiky-hair's eyes bugged out.

"Why yes, I think we can help out some fellow travelers. Where to?" He asked in a smooth voice.

"Me and my cohort here were trying to get to the next city over. See, we just randomly found ourselves in the city over yonder-" I pointed over to where Madison was. "-and some giant monster came down from the sky and destroyed it! But it's a good thing I don't live there. I live in Texas, see, so I'm hoping the next city over will have some good transportation services."

The handsome man was taken aback for a moment, but flashed his smile again. That handsome, charming smile.

"Well, that sounds like quite the story. Why don't you tell it to us on the ride?"

A moment later, and me and my nervous friend were inside the spacious vehicle. From beneath a nearby bed, a cute little girl with curly blonde hair poked her head out.

"Hello! Who are you?" She asked.

I smiled at the child.

"Johny Goode. You can call me John though. And that's... Jimmy." I said, improvising my friend's name. "Who're you?" I asked.

"I'm Riley!"

"Nice to meet you Riley."

Beside me, spiky-hair- no, Jimmy was getting more and more nervous. At this point, he looked positively frantic.

"Did Jack let you on?" She asked.

"Jack? You mean that man driving? Yeah, he let us on."

"Oh, that's good then." She said. "You wanna sit down? We've got a long way to go before we reach the next city."

"Sure."

We were led over to a new section of the RV. On the way, we passed an unmoving grey mannequin. It was weird looking, with too-thin of a waist and one arm hanging from a chain. I didn't pay it any mind, but Jimmy gave it a wide berth.

"So where are you two from?" The little girl asked.

"Oh, I'm from Texas. I don't know where Jimmy's from."

"Japan." He said nervously.

The girl bounced in her seat, excited.

"Oh, I've read all about Japan. It's too bad what happened to them though. I guess thats a Yukata you're wearing?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Japan has a lot of spiders, doesn't it?" I piped.

She laughed.

"Yeah, but technically, everywhere does. Spiders are on every continent. Even Antarctica!" She said. "Spiders are everywhere. I read somewhere that at any given moment, there's a spider at least a few feet away from you."

Jimmy rustled nervously. I laughed along with Riley though.

Why was he so nervous? Couldn't he see that these were fine people?

"You like reading?" I asked.

"Yeah." She said.

"Same. Especially science books about space."

"I'm more into biology." She said. "But space is cool too. It's fun to think about what kind of life might exist on other planets."

"Yeah. Aliens. Do they even exist?"

Her eyes lit up, and she went into a long, drawn-out explanation of how live develops from non-life. Most of it went over my head, unfortunately.

'Hmm. I really wish I knew more about biology.' I thought to myself.

Suddenly, information began flooding into my brain. Polymers, acid chains, DNA, biochemistry... I understood it all. Schematics for cloning machines. Surgery procedures to improve muscles and bones. How to wire a brain to a dishwashing machine."

...Weird.

"-and that's why the undersea vents were vital to life on Earth! At least before microbes started filling the atmosphere with oxygen." Riley finished.

"Yeah." I said. "I totally understand what you were talking about."

She pouted.

"Mean. If you didn't get it, you could have just told me."

"Nonono, I really did understand. That part about the RNA patterns developing from atmospheric reactions was particularly interesting."

Her eyes lit up again.

We began talking more and more about biology.

Jimmy sunk lower and lower into his seat. For a guy who says he's God, he sure was unconfident.

After a long while, our conversation about brains was broken by the arrival of a young woman.

I was surprised to see her face. It was covered in burn marks, like someone had pushed a cigarette into her face at random intervals. Like... really horrible acne.

"What?" She muttered. "Bone- Riley, who are these dudes?"

"They're friends!" Riley exclaimed. She was a lot happier now, after our debate about emotion-regulation technology.

The burn-acne girl considered us, shrugged, and walked away.

At that moment, the RV began slowing down.

"Hey, you two!" Shouted Jack from the driver's seat. "Your stop is here!"

Ah, had so much time passed already?

Me and Jimmy made our way to the RV door.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Jack." I said. "You must have a heart of gold."

He smiled at me again.

"It was no problem. Just helping out some fellow travelers. I hope you make it to Texas alright."

I thanked him again, and we got off.

From inside at the wheel, Jack spoke through the doorway.

"Me and my little group won't be stopping here today. We were heading West for a party. But it was nice knowing you."

I waved.

"Oh, by the way, here's a map." He said, tossing us one. "Goodbye."

The doors shut, and the RV rumbled off.

I cried tears of manliness as I watched the RV leave. I barely knew those fellows, but there was no doubt in my heart that they were all wonderful people. I hoped we'd meet again.

Meanwhile, Jimmy let out a breath he had been holding.

"Ahhh, thank me they're gone..."

I frowned.

"Hey, don't talk like that about those kind people." I said.

He just shook his head, exhausted.

"Let's find somewhere to stay for the night. I have money."

We walked on to somewhere new.

---------

Meanwhile, Jack Slash chuckled to himself. Those two travelers had come directly from a Simurgh zone. The Endbringer almost certainly had some plan for them, so letting them live would help plunge the world into the darkness that he so loved...

Hmm, he was starting to sound kind of emo. Maybe he should stop listening to so many My Chemical Bromance songs on the radio while he was driving...

'If only the stations had better music.' He internally sighed.

He kept on driving. Off to a new, better land. Hopefully one with many pure, innocent people to play with...

He indulged himself in some light maniacal laughter, the effectiveness of which was greatly compounded by his goatee.

He loved his job.