(One Shot belongs to Elizavq, Nightmargin, and Girakacheezer!)
Enjoy!
...
"[What are you saying]"
You slowly type with slight confusion and guilt twinging at the back of your head.
[...]
[You think of Niko]
[...As one of the thousand 'Niko's that people all around your world control.]
...God, The name of the song, Sonder, could not have been more fitting.
[Just now, you mentioned to me about 'walkthroughs'.]
[If you, in your world could access the lost files of this copied world,
then that means others in your world can as well.]
[This... Me...
The World Machine.]
[I'm not just one of your thousand other games.]
[I'm one of the thousand games thousands of other people install on THEIR devices as well.]
[I had thought that those other gods' influence wouldn't be great to you,
-, player, the operator of this world...]
[But that was wrong.]
[That was my mistake,
of excluding the possibilities of what your world's social networking services from advanced technologies could bring.]
[In your world, thousands of operators are able to interact with each others' information about this one singular program,
copied and split into different devices.]
[You would send and receive answers from each other,
currently active gods, and potential ones,
about the outcomes your actions would bring to this game,
about certain puzzles you need to solve,
about the locations of the world's files in your devices,]
[...everything about what this world has to offer...]
[...And, about Niko.]
"[...]"
"[What about Niko?]"
You tilt your head in confusion. What are you trying to say, World Machine?
[Those people... Those operators.]
[They all control this world..
Which means that they all control the designated messiah of the world, at the same time.]
...
You slightly gasp. Your insides start to churn.
You HAD wondered why.
Why people from everywhere could control and interact with Niko, if Niko is real.
That paradox had always caught your feet whenever you tried to tell yourself that Niko was a real person-
N-not that it mattered to you that much, because you always thought of Niko to be someone who had a special meaning to you.
But non the less, you had always wondered how it would be possible.
"[Are
Are you trying to say,]"
"[That you, World Machine,]"
"[You know why that is possible?]"
[...Yes.]
"..How..?"
"[HOW.]"
[...]
[If I tell you this, your emotions may crumble apart.]
[As a simple human being, you may not grasp the entirety of the real reason, even if I tell you.]
[Will you be okay with that?]
"[...]"
...
"[JUst
just spit it out.]"
[...]
[okay.]
...
[...]
[They are all able to bring Niko to the thousands of worlds they each operate...]
[Because a part of Niko's own world as well,
splits from their reality whenever someone installs this program on their device.]
!
... you,..
..
You tremble slightly.
You take a few seconds to realize what they mean, but when you do, your mind starts to break and crumble, bit by bit.
[Every time a person from your world installs and opens their copy of this world,
an alternate reality splits apart from Niko's world.]
[But, it functions differently from,
the same program, such as this world, being copied into various devices.]
[As you already know from your.. Solstice session,
Even with an operator, this world, as thousands of other copies of this world,
would only be able to be generated with the help of a living person's mind.]
[Which is Niko.]
[...So, naturally..]
[The messiah-calling program within the various copies of this world,
all try to call that living person to their own worlds at the same time.]
[..Which is where the thousands of Nikos that exist in your world come in.]
[Niko's reality doesn't just split apart from an 'original universe'.]
[It's Niko's original universe being split apart itself,
with no Niko among them to be called 'original'./
"[STOP TALKING!]"
you pound your device's keyboard hardly, petrified by the cold reality you just heard.
No, a thousand of realities.
With none of them to be called 'original' or 'copied', since they are what they are:
All of them are real. Split apart, but real.
And another one splits apart again to suffer whenever someone new downloads and opens up their copy of One Shot.
The thought of a singular person being not even copied, but split apart as different realities,
all of them alive and breathing, able to think like people,
but them not ever being able to reach their true happy ending,
since a thousand more of them would still be suffering in other operators' devices anyways...
That thought splashes over your face and heart like a glass of cold water. full of nails.
You imagine yourself, or people who look and think EXACTLY like you,
each stuck either in limbo in someone else's computer,
or having to walk a thousand kilometers, or just plainly suffering whichever way.
Not even being able to see their parents, or return to their life ever again..
Your shaking hands stay there shaking for a good minute, before you hesitantly type in:
"[please
go on]"
/...]
The World Machine.. seems to give you a judgemental look.
With maybe a slight pity mixed within it, but still, cold and judgemental, and very right to do so.
[...]
[You probably realized this, or at least imagined these cold facts before.]
[...Or maybe not.]
[This maybe an alien idea for a singular person in one reality to grasp.]
[But now you finally understand.]
[Niko's true ending is nowhere near close to being possible now,
since there are split realities everywhere,
in every device thousands of operators in your world control.]
[...Or worse, maybe even in world different than you.]
[You have read his books about his friend talking about 6 realities, correct?]
[Excluding our original world, which ended,
Niko's world-although it is constantly splitting apart because of the copies of this program,
and yours...]
[..There still may as well be three more worlds,
with millions of operators all playing this game, One Shot..]
[Each of them unaware,
summoning another reality to split itself apart from Niko's world.]
[But whether that is true or not, one thing seems to never change.]
"[?]"
[Those split realities, made you question the reality of Niko.]