Euphoria
Female
Sorry if the pronouns are off, I changed her gender and name at the last minute. <3
She called herself Euphoria, but that was mostly because she had no hope of keeping a grasp on her title as an Operator. Not that memory was a problem, but the number she was given, Six Quintrillion, was hardly a suitable name. She leaned back against the brick wall of a little alley, on the backside of a run-down pizzaria. Euphoria curled her tail around her ankle, just biding her time... Waiting. She looked out at the street, watching as others passed by. They would not see the female, for she hadn't allowed it. But she was the only real difference, in this world. The people would be the same, inserted into this world, perfect little copies of themselves as they had been in the First World, given the same consciousnesses, the same thoughts... The same everything.
Her world was a copy of the First World, the first universe ever founded... By none other than the First Operator, and entity that, presumably no other entities had ever seen or encountered. They knew it was there. They just didn't know anything more, which was odd given the numerous other things discovered upon one's death. Then again, they, the Operators of their own worlds--their own universes--only knew as much as the First Operator allowed. That made being the Six-Quintrillionth Operator nothing more than a receiver of common, existential knowledge. She knew how to fabricate flying fish that exhaled helium, but she didn’t know just who or what the First Operator was. And she accepted that.
She looked up, mires narrowing as the time ticked down to the very second on this October evening-- The very second she had died. Everything was set up just as the First World was, and so that meant that in this universe, she was also alive, and doomed to make the same mistakes that lead to her very death. And, the inevitable recreation of her as an Operator several billions more down the line.
She watched herself turn down the alleyway, the vibrant coat of hers making her out to be quite the little target. She'd never been the intended casualty, just an unfortunate side effect. Collateral damage. The world was not all that it was made out to be, sometimes. Euphoria had found herself stumbling upon a rather henious murder, and, to keep the witness silent, she had found herself to be another victim.
The Operator turned away from the scene, the terrible death. But it had given her this chance to grasp the Universe. She felt no anger over it. She was not a vengeful soul, she did not have time to be angry. She didn't know, however, why she'd taken such intrigue from her own death. The events that led to her becoming a god, like every other perishable soul across this vast expanse of possibilities, through each Operator’s world and the next, spawning new voids while some erased their own in one last act of boredom-turned-suicide.
A few times, she'd even bothered to walk up and risk wrinkling the fabric of her world's reality by stopping it. One thing she disliked about going back in time and changing things up was how it could have a bad effect on other, seemingly unrelated events. She’d found out that preventing her death led to the death of her neighbor Janet’s child, April, suffering brain trauma after slipping on a curb and busting her head on the cement, if she didn’t attend her funeral. This led to Janet and Stephen’s divorce, and Janet’s suicide. So, she simply went back, and she watched it play out again without interfering, to save the lives of others.
Every inch of time and space was her to touch, her will alone able to teleport her to the other side of the universe in a split second, and design an entirely different planet. Though, she didn’t do this-- not when the blueprint of planet Earth was at her disposal. Her image seemed to glitch--like an error in broad daylight, as she stood on that sidewalk, skipping ahead to the year of which was her present. Of course, the future existed as well, with things going as they were, but she wanted to walk through each second like these people did, like she used to, and sense the impacts she placed upon every day society.
Euphoria glanced at passersby, many giving her strange looks as she passed. It was funny, having the power to shapeshift into anything she desired-- real or unreal to these people. But she still chose a viscet, keeping to the traits that she would find in this world.
She could love and lose, or keep if someone was worthy of eternal life. But she hadn’t given that to anyone, no matter how tempting. This was her world-- the one she remembered, not the one she wanted, really. Sure, she could make it that way, but then she was sure she’d get bored. And that was toxic, for any power… Boredom. So she lived and struggled like any young woman did, a god living the life of a lower middle-class young adult that delivered pizzas. She was never a second late, unless traffic got in her way. Then she would be late, because teleporting was cheating.
She glanced up, spying the street corner where she perished just last year, stepping forward with a sour look on her face and sighing at the sight of the little white crucifix posted underneath the streetlight.
We love you, Euphoria. Rest in peace.
Little did they know, they’d be given their own infinite sandboxes when they died… She wondered if her mother would create a universe where she didn’t die, and where cookies were the healthiest food to eat. Euphoria wouldn’t put it past the woman, knowing she’d die in her sleep at the wholesome age of seventy-three if things continued as they were, currently. Of course, she was sad. She could channel her sadness, right now, as an individual soul in this kingdom of reality she ruled. But she would be okay. She was a religious woman, and she’d tell herself that her baby girl got to go to heaven.
But is this really… heaven? she wondered, glancing down at her hand before glancing up to find herself right in front of the family house. If she hadn’t died, she would be walking up this porch right now, groceries in hand, whistling. And then a seven year old girl would die because you lived. Perhaps she could prevent her death, yes, but it’d lead to another chain of events that’d mess with her train of thought. It’s best to just leave things the way they are. Given she was permanently aware of every little occurrence within this universe, changing things around while free will was in place tended to screw with your Second Consciousness, even if you did your best to ignore it.
She stared at the crucifix, having avoided it until now, settling into a crouch and resting a hand atop its wooden frame, her other running the pad of her thumb along the fresh bouquet of flowers. White orchids, her favorite, of course. It was painful, the first few times she decided to hover around like air and watch the devastation it wreaked upon her family. She didn’t even know why she wanted to see, but she did. And she regretted it, for a time. However, like everything else, she had come to accept the way things were, and she refused to change them in exchange for things to look forward to, even if she could already see them from a mile away-- just close the third eye.