Puk by S. Tarasov (translation: Mkkt Bkkt)

Once, in the beginning of all times, in the absolute emptiness, God Puk lived. It's hard to describe it's nature, but he (it?) undoubtedly was a concious being.

Puk existed in the emptiness long and thoughtlessly. Though, this, yet again, isn't a correct description. Time itself, as a concept, didn't exist. The God sit in Nothingness, like a fly congealed in amber, watching the innerself. The glance, usually turned on the insight, sometimes emerged to the outside, and yet, finding nothing interesting, dove back inside. This cyclic, indissoluble action repeated itself again and again. At the same time this action wasn't really an action, as there was no time and thus, nothing was able to move.

However, Mind is Mind for a reason, and it can feel itself. At some moment (right then, the continuous line of Time started), Puk thought: "Boring. I should make something."

And He created. Infantile will of the God tensed momentarily, and from the smooth surface of Nothingness, as from empty, mirrorish dish, a substance formed, much like clay. He took it into his hands and started molding, kneading, mashing it with his powerful, godlike fingers. Eventually, a sphere, covered in mounds and recesses, was spinning in his hands, just a little bit flattened on the edges. He called it Earth.

The Earth wasn't to be alone and Puk created stars around it. Those shined with cold light inside the Nothingness. Contrary to these props, Puk also molded a real star - giant sphere, blazing with fire. He put Earth to it's orbit and it slowly started spinning around the fire giant. Pinching off a small piece of Nothingness, the God added a follower for the Earth, Moon.

So, what's next? Puk knew that in front of him were hundreds of possibilities. He didn't want to create something else yet, as it would take a lot of power and energy, and the God wanted to just have some entertainment. Looking at the mud ball, sliding alongside the orbit of another, spitting flames, an idea finally came up to Puk's mind. Why not create thinking creatures, just like his? he laughed, and the abyss of Nothingness shook because of his rumbling laugh. Done laughing, the god spit on the mud ball of Earth.

The gob spreaded out on the surface of it, poured itself into every crack and hollow. Something started happening there. Puk zoomed his vision in. He saw, how in created from his saliva ocean microorganisms fight and survive, they from into something more complex, evolve and improve. Over the earth, because of the evaporations, a thin membrane of atmosphere formed. A couple of minutes of terrible waiting later, singlecelled organisms evolved into infinite diversity of living organisms, covering the whole ocean bottom. Puk was sick of waiting and with tips of his fingers, he put one of them on earth, gifting him paws instead of fins.

Giving birth to offsprings, the pioneer inhabitated the whole Earth. Puk decided to lower the volcanic activity. The creatures momentarily became bigger, and filled the Earth, sticking to every stone, every pothole, every puddle. But they weren't interesting ot Puk, even though they had some germs of the Mind. They were big, stupid biotic bots with no self-awareness.

The God yawned because of boredom. Took a small rock out of Nothingness and threw it into the Earth, which was just flying by. The planet shook, it almost went off the orbit. In the igneous hell of the explosion wave, the dinosaures were dying. Puk blew on the sphere, worried that he'll have to start the experiment again. His whiff made Earth cover with ice, but he saw it - the life survived. The God breathed with relief.

Soon, the life recovered. Puk was surprised by the persistency of his spit. The organisms reproduced, populated Earth, always changing. Out of the mass of animal species, one particular kind was noticeable, possibly able to become self-aware. Puk started watching those creatures, with two hands and two legs, straight-walking primates. He had to slow the Time, to make sure he doesn't miss the most interesting.

The primate took a stick. First things first, he struck the closest to him with it. A wayward tribe, thought Puk, watching as the walking twolegs are running after each other, fight for females and survive, first n jungles, then in wide prairies of one of the continents. The God decided to make these creatures a challenge. He made a mass freezing on Earth. The primates died out almost entirely, but the ones left alive were smarter and more agile. They created various tools for theirs comfort. They created traps for the animals, stroke fire from stone shards and wrapped into animal skins to not freeze. Later, they migrated from the motherland continent to others, inhabiting the whole planet.

Hmm... Puk saw them praying. The shamans of primitive religions would praise gods for good prey and strong offsprings. People (that's what they called themselves) domesticated animals and started breed fat herds.They lived not in the caves, but in tents, and even in buildings out of stone and trees. Time passed, and the pastoralists separated themselves from the rest, more ground-bound tribes, which started raising the crops of rice, millet, and wheat, fertilizing it with their own fecies. Their buildings they would guard with earthen shafts, processed fusible metals, forming sharp weapons of them, went onto each othe rwith war, and created new and more poweful coalitions, living on specified territories. The peole had variable languages, variable cultures, traditions and even god pantheones. Having mind, these, most interesting species, felt fakeness of the surrounding world, and the hidden mystery of all creation. That is why from earliest moments of their existence they were trying to solve it. Shamans would picture mysterious symbols and pentagramms on the animal skins, in the improvised chapels, thousands of cults gave sacrifices. Alchemists were looking for the philosopher's stone and astrologists were constantly watching the starry sky.

Noticing these spectators, Puk decided to decorate the firmament. He took some more free matter off Nothingness and blended  some planets. He let them fly around the central sphere, Sun, and even scattered remaining shards across the newly formed Solar system. He shook off his hands and stared onto his creation.

Somewhere down below, curious people were screaming of joy, painting their star maps. Specifically for them Puk stretched Nothingness and made the perspective appear. Now, upon looking there, a feeling of huge and endless University appeared, and it wasn't possible to guess that it's nothing more than a skillfully made imitation. Although Puk enlarged the space around the Solar system and even made another star system, later named Alpha Centauri. Around Centauri, some more lifeless stones spinned, and it itself formed a complex system of three stars. Puk was even pityful about this new product, as stars of Centauri moved via unpredictable trajectories and sometimes burned him, appearing too close. But it doesn't really matter, he left those hanging alone.

Puk was so tired of his stupid hobby, so he decided to dream a little. He slept a little in comfy cover of Nothingness. He dreamed of past tranquility in Neverwhere, and now he's disturbed all the time..

Explosions! Explosions, to hell with them! The God awakened, not understanding a thing. His hearing, tuned to perceiving Earth's events was literally blown out by a cannonade of explosions and wars. The Planet was furrowed by tanks, metal monstrosities with tracks. The artillery screamed. Soldiers with rifles and sharp bayonetts in hopeless attack, died in clouds of suffocating gas, screaming of unbelievable suffering. They fought for pitiful shreds of earth, of which there were thousands there anyway. Puk didn't understand, what insanity was going on there, and neither did he want to. One of the countries suddenly mutated from constitutional monarchy into communist system (resulting in socialist system instead), and senseless war ended in deaths of millions and division of several lost countries. Puk chuckled. His head was still crackling off this awful awakening but he saw, how far the world went during his sleep. It was funny, that one of the philosophers, Nietzsche, said "The God is dead." No, Freidrich, the God isn't dead. He was just sleeping.

Slowing Time down a little more, Puk stared at what was going on. So many things were happening that he couldn't recognize all the changes in time. So, during his sleep, people invented four main religions - buddhism, judaism, christianity and islam. In particular, these beliefs were some of the reasons to happening horror. It seemed, that in christianic commandments, they said "Don't kill!", but the adherents of the religion were killing left and right. Funny, yea. Puk liked Buddhism more than other religions. It's adept, Guatama, surely made himself closer to solving the riddle of the universe, a key to which was then sleeping Puk. Was he concious, he'd make sure to get in touch with the prince, but sadly, Puk wasn't able to turn back time. Oh, that fact made him doubt his God entity. Who is he and where did he come from?

While Puk was thinking about this simple question, not making an appearance in his head before that, the Second World war started. In German, a crazy fuhrer came to power, creating a strong war machine. It easily cut through half of the European countries, but stalled on Russia (during that time, finally mutated into USSR), citizens of which were perseveringly opposing the aggression. Puk was terrified by arbitrariness happening on previously peaceful globe. People were killing each other not because of vengeance or profit, but for no reason at all. Millions. At the same time, war research was going far and beyond. Strangely, people progressed even faster during wars. One of the scientists, Einstein,developed the Relativity Theory, questioning existing ideas about the world, after which also helped developing quantum mechanics theories. German scientists started development in the field of atomic energy, and after the end of the war, Earth was continuously shaken by experimental explosions. Atomic powerplants appeared across the whole surface of the planet. Even though, the global war ended, local conflicts formed across all corners of the world, mainly because of hatred and contradictory beliefs.  Jews somehow ended up in Israel again, a wall was built in Germany, Korea ended up being separated into two parts. What the hell is going here?

Alright-alright.. Puk tried to intervene and provoked the breakdown of Soviet Union. By his predictions, this should have cause USA to hegemony upon all earth and somewhat stability. Instead, the americans occupied the newly formed Russian Federation with their groceries and industrial brands, and emerged oligarchs plundered the whole country. One more flash of local conflicts on the territory of CIS. Devastation and hunger. Vauchers, free market, bulk alcoholism and drug addiction, dancing djigits around the streets. Cursing, Puk found a bald agent in current government, more or less adequate, and put him into the president's chair. Although he was a thief, there wasn't anyone better than him. The situation stabilized somewhat.

Across the rest of the globe, terrifying things took place. In Africa, after final decay apartheid epoch, negros were going crazy. In Mexico and Columbia, drug cartels imagined themselvess as autonomous countries. The States bombed Irac. People continued to torture self-alike, killing and stealing, murdering publicly. The nature groaned, hardly disposing of all the waste products of human production. In Indian and Pacific ocean, litter lakes contained hundreds of millions of trash. Grey clouds of smog filled the sky, on the poles, the holes in ozone layer grew. The humanity population grew day by day, and other living beings were dying out. Puk realized, the scientists were arguing, whether the universe is a hologram, a giant fraud, and were сonfused why there is still no signal from other civilizations. Freaking people, they turned out to be too clever and hyperactive.

Puk began the mass debilitating of the society. In the later times, humans, as social creatures, were too involved with internet and social networks. He didn't like this very fast development of humanity, he didn't like this game, where characters play by their own rules. On the other hand, he didn't want to destroy this genius creation. In the second half of the century, the progress slowed down, people buried into their smartphones and later, into neuroimplants. Only some represantatives of the human race still invented something, but Puk continued to stall those beginnings. Organizations guarding the environemnt started to clean the planet of litter and dirt, the birthrate fell. Propaganda of homosexuality, invented by Puk, beared fruits, and new people were only born from test tubes. He breathed, wiped off his sweat and layed to dream a little more. Somewhere in Nothingness, the fake stars gleamed.

He had a strange dream. He was standing on the coast of the river with an old, but still tough, gray-haired man, clothed in a strange overalls and military stripes on his sleeves. He was holding a space suit helmet under his armpits. He had sad eyes, which have seen a lot of sorrow and pain.

"Who are you?" - asked Puk.

"I have the same question for you. We developed to the highest technological level, we overcame the speed of light, reached stars and saw that they all are empty. But here, in this scary void, we found you. Tell it then, are you God?"

"I don't know who I am", - admitted Puk, - "but yes, I created you and everything around."

The man sternly nodded and clicked his fingers. Puk awakened, cold and chilled, in absolute darkness. Around him, squadrons of space ships flew. They were forming intricate zigzags. Puk was to move his hand, but noticed that he's in a giant net of powerful lazer beams, like Gulliver. It burned painfully, and Puk screamed, ashing nearest dots, which stung and bitеen him like a swarm of mad bees. He heard their communications  (people, barely reminding of their ancestors, talked via mental connections and were more like thinking energy clots). They furiously screamed in unison, again and again attacking their creator, and Puk wriggled in his trap of fetters, screaming of insane pain.

Until he awakened again.

***

- User Puk, God Simulator is over. Please put your clothes on and go into the conference room.

He bewildered moved his head. He was laying in a comfortable chair, all in wires, from head to toe. There was something heavy laying on his head. Some kind of a helmet, it seems. White soulless room and mechanical voice, appearing right in his head.

- User Puk, we ask you to immediatedly go into the conference room.

- I got it, I got it..

Plucking catetters and thin wires from his wrists, he put the uniform laying nearby the chair on. Quietly prissing, the pneumatic door opened. He went through a long corridor with flickering signs everywhere. Around him, people scurried, anxious and unfriendly. None of them noticed him.

In the conference he saw a lot of people, and it was noisy. He sat on the free chair and took a cup of coffee from the table. A man on the tribune coughed into the microphone, gathering attention.

- So, testers, gentlemen, you just had an obility to see beta version of the game "God Simulator". What are your impressions? Speak out.

Hubbub rose in the room. People were shouting louder than each other, rose hands into the air. Puk suddenly recalled everything - who and where he is. The young man grabbed the armrests. He nauseated right onto white pants, but nobody paid attention.

A wild discussion of the new game in virtual reality was going, but a young man lacked from it, with his burning, sick gaze. He was turned inside out in the toilet. Vomiting the last remaining bile, Puk raised his eyes upon him. In the mirror, a pale man, thin as a stick, uglified by the neuroshunt connections on his temples, loomed. He had nothing in him that was godlike.

Author: https://vk.com/ai_taasou (S. Tarasov)
https://vk.com/wall-123805118_6843 original in Russian.