Creator - Book 1 (Tekker)

Creator
Given the choice
By Aaron Porter
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“If I gave you the chance to have everything you ever wanted, would you take it?” An ominous voice asked.
“Everything?” I questioned skeptically.
“Anything you want, at the cost of your freedom.”
“My freedom? Is this some kind of joke?”
“Does it seem like a joke?”
“Wait, who are you anyway?”
“…Anything at the cost of your freedom…”
“Well, what if I want freedom?”
“The terms have been set. Answer now, please.”
“Where the hell am I?!”
“A blank world. You may write it to be anything you could want. But, you will in turn be
trapped here. A prisoner of paradise.”
“Stuck in a paradise?”
“Aside from me, you will be alone.”
“If you’re here with me, why can’t I see you?”
“You haven’t created me yet.”
“…What if I want to leave?”
“If you accept my offer, take the tool. I will help you to create until you no longer need it.”
“And what if I don’t accept?”
“It’s too late, Creator, you have already taken the tool.”
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Before I could ask anything else, a lush field appeared beneath my feet, sprinkled with different arrays of beautiful flowers and plants. A small, quaint, house sat near the edge of the tree line, which encircled the entire area and blocked the horizon with bright green foliage. A large stream cut through the middle of the clearing in a curvy, natural line. “What tool?” I asked ignorantly, “I don’t remember taking anything!” I then noticed the weight of an object in my hand, an ordinary pencil. “I can’t leave now, can I?” I said to myself, pocketing the writing utensil.
“No.” She replied bluntly.
“Right…….Hey, aren’t you supposed to be here?”
“My base is my voice; you need to create my body.” She explained cheerfully.
“I didn’t take your damned pencil,” I said, feeling cheated, “I was still thinking!”
“You accepted it with your mind when you started to think about what to create. Now please, write me into our new world.”
“Who is she?” I thought to myself, and then accidentally, “Who am I?” aloud.
“You are the Creator.”
I shrugged and pulled out the “tool.” I began to draw her on the air, head to toe. Because she’d had the voice of a child, I made her to be roughly eight years old. I drew her vaguely, focusing on major details first, giving her; light brown pig tails, a freckled face with blue eyes, a blue sundress to match them, and an adorably shaped head and body. She became very detailed, before my very eyes, despite my lack of artistic abilities.
“Thank you!” She giggled politely.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Well, what do you want it to be?”
“I’ll just call you whatever comes into my mind first… How about, Alyssa?”
“Alyssa is a beautiful name! Thank you, Creator!” She giggled politely again, this time with a slight bow.
“What good is another person if I can control you?”
“I do have a mind of my own, you know. You can create my body, but you can’t control who I am. You can’t make me do anything.” She wagged her finger at me, then walked over to a yellow bared swing set with red seats.
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“Well…that’s a plus, I guess.” I said quietly. “Is there any way out of here?”
“Nope! You’re here to stay. But it’s not like that’s a bad thing…” She sat in the left seat. “Now push me.”
I spent most of the day exploring the area. I didn’t go out into the forest because I didn’t want to get myself lost. For practice, I started small, drawing blades of grass, then plants, then a fence for the house. Basics, just in case I messed up.
When night came and it was time to rest my over-used brain, I drew up a notebook to catalog all of this crazy stuff in. That is what you’re reading right now, granted there’s actually someone reading this other than me. That’s today’s entry for my journal, I hope to get a few more things explained tomorrow.
Chapter one, end.

.......................................Creator: chapter 2.........................................
An “Average” Day
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I awoke the next morning groggily. I couldn’t tell why, might’ve been the fact that Alyssa was prodding my temples. “Owww….my head…” I grumbled. She greeted me into the waking world with a sing-song voice and cheerful disposition.
“Good morning, sleepy head!” She sat up perkily and went to pull open the curtains. I mumbled something rude and shoved my head under a pillow. “You can’t sleep all day, Creator! You need to get to work on our world!” She teased, skipping happily over to her dresser.
“Is there any way to make you less of a morning person?” I grunted tiredly.
“Heehee” She giggled. “Nope! You don’t have a say in my personality, remember? You can only manipulate the world around us.”
I rolled over and fell out of the bed with a *thud* and accidentally caught a peek of her getting dressed. I turned away quickly, assuming that there were age limits in this world too. “Uh… did you say that I have to make this place?”
“Yep! I bet you’ll make a wonderful world for us, Creator.” She said, hanging her head down backwards from the bed. I know how that came our, but she was lying on her back, not pulling something off right out of the exorcist. She flopped down and skipped out of the room.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I said loudly, so she’d hear me from the other room.
“’Cause that’s what you are. What do you want for breakfast?” She was mocking me… as if the answer was really that obvious.
“Make…whatever. And call me something else.” I drudged out to the kitchen where she was already frying something.
“Like what?” She was cooking sausage in rice… by frying it?
“I don’t know… make something up. I named you, so go ahead and pick something for me.” I sat down at the small wooden table.
“How about Author?” She brought over the food, which was somehow cooked in a ten to twenty second period of time. It tasted great, a culinary triumph.
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“How about something a bit more off the topic of making stuff?” She stared blankly at me, but more empty mindedly than disturbed. “You know… I have a real name. It’s Aaron.”
She thought about it a minute, then said, “Nah, I like Creator better. It’s cool!” She smiled.
“Whatever…” I gave up and started eating.
When I was finished, I headed outside for a little exploration. She threw the dishes into the sink and followed after me. “Are you mad at me, Creator?” She asked. She looked like she was about to cry.
“No,” I said, “I’m not mad at you, Hun.” And patted her on the head. The tears went away instantly. That brings me to two observations; she was easily upset, and easily cheered up.
“I think I understand now,” I said, “I can create and purge things at will, but have no control over their actions. Free will still exists.”
“Correct. Much like the butterflies you’ve just given life, they float away without recognition of your presence, even though you created them immaculately.” She explained, surprisingly serious, then skipped off after the bug, as if the intellectual moment had never occurred.
“What a weird girl… wonder who made her…” I thought to myself.
I sat there in the grass, watching her catch and release butterflies over and over. Then, in a fit of brilliance, pulled a string off a dress I don’t remember making her, tied it to a stick, and on the other end a curved rock. She trotted past me to the stream and said, “I’m gonna catch us some yummy dinner!” in that sweet, sing-song voice she uses when she does something cute. I knew full well that I hadn’t put any fish in that stream, or that any fish would ever be caught by a rock tied to a stick with a weak piece of thread, so I made a few fish and gave her a real fishing pole, bait included..
With a smile and a hug, she trotted off inside to whip up another physics defying dish with her fresh catch. I spent the rest of the daylight hours practicing my newly found powers. Vague sketches could be detailed mentally, easily making up for a lack of dexterity. As night came, I started to write in my journal and recap yesterday’s events skeptically. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe any of it.
“Creator! Dinner!” Alyssa called, poking her head out of the window above the sink. I went back inside and sat myself down at the table, realizing that I’d missed lunch. She plopped a plate down in front of me, adorned with slices of fish on a bed of lettuce and drizzled with melted cheese. Mmm… cheese makes everything taste good, not to say it wouldn’t be good anyway.
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“Eat up, Creator! Fish is brain food, so it should give you some neat ideas to make for us tomorrow.” She said cheerily.
“I asked you to stop calling me that,” I said calmly, “use my real name.”
“But…I like to call you Creator.” She whimpered with the same about-to-cry face as before.
“Sorry. I’m sorry… call me whatever you want…..Hey, don’t you need to eat?”
“I don’t like fish, so I made myself dinner already. Macaroni and cheese! I used the left over sauce for your fish.” She smiled proudly. I was right about the ‘easily cheered up’ thing.
We went to bed after dinner, I tried to give her her own room, but she said that’d make her lonely. She also said something about snuggling, but I tuned that out so I wouldn’t be urged to think of any innuendo to accompany it. She slipped into a nighty, which was actually the only non-sluttish night gown I’d ever seen, and curled up in bed. I didn’t have any other clothes, so I just lied down next to her and finished writing in my journal… note to self, make clothes tomorrow.

Chapter two, end.


Creator: Chapter 3
Not the whole truth
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I woke up peacefully this morning. Alyssa was lying next to me, looking bored, trying to be less of a morning person. Not really sure if all the crazy stuff so far had been a dream of not, I spent a little while reading over my journal.
Alyssa was quiet. She got up and got dressed without a word, then proceeded to start breakfast for us. I put down my journal and followed here. “Where’d that food come from? I don’t remember making it…” I said, peering over her shoulder.
“What do you mean?” She said slightly shakily.
“Come to think of it, why do you always call it ‘our’ world?” I had a good idea why, but I wanted her to say it.
“W-well… you share it with me, don’t you?” Her stutter made me mad. She looked like she was about to cry again, I assumed to trick me into feeling sorry for her.
“You can create stuff too, can’t you?” She burst into tears, shooting down my theory that it was just a ploy.
“You’re yelling at me! Please stop it!” She sobbed.
“Then just answer me and I’ll go back to being nice. It isn’t really that big of a deal.”
But she didn’t answer, she just ran off crying. Now I felt bad… I decided to let her calm down before asking her again. I killed some time making little bunnies, birds and things of that sort. It made me feel a bit godlike. I chuckled to myself when I first thought that. God is infallible, always given credit for the big plan we’re all a part of. But I was just winging it. I’d hope God thought things through a little better than I was.
I found out that I could create things without the crutch of the “tool” fairly easily, so I decided to see if it was breakable. To my surprise, it was. This was just an ordinary pencil. I’d need more practice before I went on without it, so I put it back together. I was glad I wouldn’t have to try drawing another one.
I didn’t see Alyssa that night, so I drew myself a cheese burger, wrote in my log, and went to bed before she got back home.
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It turned out that she wasn’t very good at sneaking around, waking me up when she got in bed. I ignored it, letting her rest, until tomorrow at least, before interrogating her again.
I woke up at a normal time the next morning, but she was still sound asleep. That worried me. I shook her awake softly. “Alyssa… Alyssa, wake up.”
She rolled over to look at me and sang “Good morning, Creator!” tiredly.
I got right to it. “Alyssa, can you create things like I can?”
“N-no… of course not.” She said with that same stutter. She was lying again. She got up nervously, dressing quickly. I wasn’t going to let her leave and avoid me again.
“You’re lying to me.” I got up out of bed, when she was clothed, and followed her.
“I would never lie to you.” Nervousness racking her voice.
“Then where’d you get all the food you’ve been cooking?”
“It was already here!”
“No it wasn’t, I raided the fridge on the first day and it was empty!”
“You must’ve made it and forgot…”
“Stop lying to me!”
“Please! Be nice, Creator! Why bother thinking about things like this? You should be focusing on making your own wonderful paradise.”
“Why would you bother hiding it? Is this really a gift or is there some huge downside to it?! Tell me the truth!” n hindsight, imprisonment and amnesia seem like pretty big downsides.
She took off crying, without even making me breakfast. I’d almost forgotten how little she was. I went to look for her this time, but I couldn’t find her. I began to wonder if she’d made her own world somewhere… I didn’t want to risk getting lost, so I waited here for her return.
I expanded our tiny stream into a small river, then made a nice hardwood walking bridge across it. I made the water deeper, giving room for the new sparkling rainbow colored fish to live. The water itself was shining in the sunlight, the almost permanent cloudlessness of the days ensuring its constant beauty. I embedded the ground in and around the water with clay, figuring that Alyssa could sculpt some nice decorations for our empty house. That might make her happy.
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When I went back inside that evening, Alyssa was there, frying sandwiches. My dinner depended on her mood… like having a wife. “…Good evening, Creator.” She said quietly. I sat down at the table.
“Where did you go today, Alyssa? I was worried about you.” I asked. She laid a plate of grilled cheese in front of me and sat down. “Answer me.”
“I don’t want to… You can’t make me!” She said brattily.
I stopped eating. “You shouldn’t hide things from me.” Her eyes teared up yet again.
“Why can’t you just accept things the way they are?! What’s wrong with just being happy having our own world?!”
“You’re getting pretty upset for only wanting me happy. You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
She shot to her feet and shoved my plate, food and all, off the table. The plate shattered on the wooden floor. Then she ran out the door, crying into her hands. Did that make me a bad person? Under these circumstances? No, I don’t think so. Maybe she’s just insane. It’s not like I was hitting her. Something was going on, and considering the possibilities this place had, I’m guessing it’s something big.
I cleaned up the dishes, both on the table and on the floor, made some clothes for tomorrow, wrote in my journal and went to bed. Tonight I sleep alone.
Chapter three, end.

Creator: Chapter 4
Another world worth ruining
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After a lonely, yet oddly peaceful, night of sleep, I got dressed and went into the dining room. Eggs were easy to make, because all I had to do was draw the shell. Today I thought I’d focus on our sky. I made several birds that I can remember from magazines (though oddly enough, can’t remember much of anything else before I came here) an a few new ones with rainbow colored feathers. I figured the prettier things were here the less upset Alyssa would be.
Around noon, or what looked like it, she came home. I didn’t see her, but I could hear her humming along the same tunes as our new feathered friends. The birds have given me an idea, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise right now, so I won’t elaborate. I approached her with a smile, but when she saw me she went inside.
I waited until dusk to go in after her. She’d changed clothes since she’d gotten home. I could smell lasagna cooking in the oven. Did this mean she wasn’t mad at me any more? We both sat down to eat a few minutes later. Neither of us spoke a word until she’d finished eating. I didn’t want her to go hungry if she took off again. “Alyssa,” I asked. “Where do you keep going?”
“If you don’t stop it, I won’t come back home!” She shouted, jolting up to her feet and knocking over her chair.
“That might be a plus, actually. I won’t have to hear you crying all the time or deal with your lying.”
“Why are you so mean to me?!”
“Because you’re too much of a bitchy little brat to just answer me!”

She stood still for a little while, then fell to her knees crying. “Tell the truth.” I said kindly. “If you do, I promise to stop being mean to you.” She looked up at me through her tears.
“Promise?” She sobbed.
“Yeah, I promise.”
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“What if it’s bad?”
“I’m assuming it is, or you’d have told me by now. It’s ok, I won’t be mad.”
“Well… I don’t know how you got here. I don’t even know how I got here! I was just trying to make it sound better than it really was. Now we’re both stuck…” She looked at me worriedly, judging my reaction.
“It’s ok, it wasn’t your fault.” I knelt down beside her and put my hand on her head. “Don’t worry about it.” Come to think of it, the voice that offered my the choice wasn’t the same as hers..
“I was a creator before you got here… After a while I got lonely… I….I-I tried to draw people but…. b-but…” She shivered and terror filled her eyes. They reminded me of the look children get in movies when they see their parents murdered or something.
“You alright, Hun?”
“I just don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”
“Then I won’t. It’s that simple.” I said, running my fingers through her hair. “See? It wasn’t that hard.”
“You can’t create human souls, only animals… I think the soulless bodies start to decompose alive… they go insane.” She laid her head against my chest.
“You mean like zombies? That seems unoriginal…”
“Not zombies… I made a whole city for all my new friends to live in before I tried making them. I tried a lot… That’s why I was so happy when you showed up! I’m sorry I ruined your city…”
“It’s alright, I don’t need a whole city… Is that where you keep going? To make someone nicer than me?”
“No, I keep going there to try and make another you. I don’t know how I made you before but-“ I cut her off.
“You didn’t make me, Hun. I must’ve got stuck in here the same way you did. But… why didn’t you have a body like I did?”
“Well….I died.”
“You what?!” I was shocked.
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“It hurt… and being dead was terrible too! Floating around myself, watching them tear me apart! There were lots of scary things there…” She started to shake again. It must’ve been like hell if she’s this scared. “I just wanna leave!”
“Why don’t you just ‘create’ your way out?”
“My powers are really really weak now. I think being dead drained them away.”
“What if I write you a way out, then?”
“I already tried that before they killed me.”
“I can try anyway. I mean, you tried to do it to yourself. Maybe it’ll work on someone else. You can’t just add a third arm onto yourself, now can you? But if you gave a bunny a fifth paw it’d work.”
“No! Then you’d be here all alone! Besides… if I died here does that mean I’d be dead if I left?”
“You’re right, I guess. We don’t know enough about this place to try anything too drastic.” She nodded.
I finished eating while she got ready for bed. By the time I’d cleaned up, she was already under the covers. “Creator, you know you don’t need the tool to make things, right?”
“Yeah, but it makes things much easier.” I slipped under the sheets next to her.
“Yep. That’s why I made it for you.”
“You made it? I can’t imagine creating things without it… must’ve been hard for you when you first tried.” That made me think of how hard it must’ve been before she learned she could even do that. Wilderness survival didn’t seem to be one of her skills.
“Tomorrow I wanna show you the city. Maybe you can help me get rid of the monsters. I tried before but I was too little… and it sorta seemed like murder.”
“I’m ok with murder of anything that isn’t human.”
“Yeah, me too now. Once something kills you, you sort of get mad at it.” She giggled. I didn’t think anyone could joke about something like that.
“I came up with an idea earlier today that might help with that. I’ll work on it tomorrow morning.”
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She kissed me on the nose and cuddled up to me. I knew it’d take more than one morning to do it, so I got up out of bed. I was going to have it ready when she woke up as a surprise.
I’ve decided to dedicate my logs to anyone else who gets trapped here like us. If someone other than me is reading this, than either Alyssa’s snooping around way too much or you’ve been lucky enough to find this little guide. I’m sure the story so far has alerted you to the rules of your new home. If we ever find a way out, I’ll brand it to the cover so you don’t waste your time reading. Though I guess if you’re reading this than we didn’t make it out… or maybe you just took the book with you? My mind’s wandering and I’m rambling.
It’s also important to know that I forgot to write in my journal the day you just read about. This is actually sometime ahead of that. I went back to log that and add that warning. But, if you already know the basic rules, and I plan to leave them in list form in the first pages, than please, don’t read any more.
From here on our story gets creepy. You’re probably better off not knowing anything else about this place and just hiding out somewhere until you find the way back home. I don’t know how else to put this, stop reading! I write more for the sake of my journal and your curiosity. I warned you though.