Bogleech.com's 2016 Horror Write-off:
The Collectiveness of Reality
Submitted by
Anonymous
Have you ever heard of the multiverse?
If you haven't, let me catch you up to speed. Quite simply, you live in your own respective reality. Everyone, whenever you like it or not, shares that reality, albeit from a different perspective. This collective reality makes up the universe.
Now, imagine, for an instant, that this universe is built on the back of choices, no matter how big or small. All of the decisions you've made, from simple ones to the complex, influence the universe you reside in. And it's not just your choices either. Everyone's decisions, throughout history, impact the past, present and future of your universe.
At first, this seems like common sense. You're you and you make choices that impact those around you. Other people follow that same narrative. The entirety of humanity acts this way. It is only natural that everyone's lives affect the universe, even if it's in ways that are too subtle to detect.
The problem arises when you consider this: What if you chose to do something else?
What did you eat this morning? Eggs? Bacon? Cereal? Now, change whatever it was into something else. Perhaps you decided to eat nothing at all. Maybe, you only drank milk. No one knows but you, safe within the recesses of your mind and the confines of your body.
It doesn't seem to be all that threatening, knowing there are infinite alternate yous in alternate universes, but it gets truly terrifying when you regard bigger decisions in history.
What if America was never discovered? There's an universe for that, if not multiple. What would have happened if Germany won World War 2? Somewhere out there in the numerous realities that encompass the multiverse, this has happened many times over. Every possible choice that has been averted in your timeline is currently being lived out in another.
In the universe, there are many yous. Luckily, you are unique in the sense that every other you differs from you, even if it is slight. You may be one inch taller, have a different hairstyle, or something utterly mundane that separates you.
However, on the other end of the spectrum, the other you could be an alien, a world famous singer, or an assassin. You would never know. All you can assume due to your newfound knowledge is that what I have just described is happening in another world, parallel to ours.
Or maybe that is a lie. Our universes might not intersect at all. There is nothing, really, to suggest that our worlds are connected beyond you reading this story. There is nothing that somehow prevents me from being you or you from being me. And you'd never know either.
I suppose that is the beauty of the multiverse. You have your thoughts, your views, your reality. And I have mine. Somehow, we accept that we live in the same universe without any sort of proof. It is funny, in the end, how blind we all are to the truth.
There is no multiverse. There is only our thoughts, nay, our delusions, and the futile hope that there is more out there when we are utterly and completely alone.