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6/15/2025, 7:16:05 PM
You sit there for a bit more, toasting sausages and marshmallow sandwiches until the packets both run dry. Then you extinguish the fire and head into the tent. Phascomon's mind is still racing, clearly, for he immediately comes up with more questions.
"Hey. What's the real world made of?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's just that we're all made of data now. Right? So what's the opposite of that?"
"Matter. It's like... You know how things here are coded to have properties? Like metal, or trees, or gravity."
"Right."
"Out there, it all just exists. Nobody coded it, there's not supposed to be some underlying source code than can affect it all. It just... is, apparently."
"But that doesn't make any sense! How does it know to do all that without instructions?"
"Like I said, it just does! And there are strong theories that the Digital World is the one emulating those rules. That's where it draws them from. Think about it. Our ruleset has to have a source, right? And if you go all the way up, the instructions need to stop somewhere. So that would be the real world, where it's not actually taking orders from anything."
"I'm not following. Ugh, you sound like Squid! I can't keep up with this, tell me how it feels to 'just be' when you're out in the real world then."
That gets you thinking too. As you go along on this journey, your paths will eventually diverge. These past few weeks with Phascomon have been the most meaningful of your life. But when you reach the end of it, that'll be... well, the end. The idea of splitting up for good weighs heavily on you. Now that you've gotten used to each other, it's easy to take the temporary nature of your agreement for granted.
Even if you've become good friends now, you each want something different out of life. Will you always be able to walk that path together?
You stare at the back of his fuzzy head. He's sleeping on his side in the tent, an arm's length away. Just as you open your mouth to say something, a loud snore fills the enclosed space, and he flops over onto his back with a giant snot bubble oozing from his nostril. You stare at it distastefully and purse your lips, then roll over to the other side.
"Goodnight, Phascomon."
==
"Hey. What's the real world made of?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's just that we're all made of data now. Right? So what's the opposite of that?"
"Matter. It's like... You know how things here are coded to have properties? Like metal, or trees, or gravity."
"Right."
"Out there, it all just exists. Nobody coded it, there's not supposed to be some underlying source code than can affect it all. It just... is, apparently."
"But that doesn't make any sense! How does it know to do all that without instructions?"
"Like I said, it just does! And there are strong theories that the Digital World is the one emulating those rules. That's where it draws them from. Think about it. Our ruleset has to have a source, right? And if you go all the way up, the instructions need to stop somewhere. So that would be the real world, where it's not actually taking orders from anything."
"I'm not following. Ugh, you sound like Squid! I can't keep up with this, tell me how it feels to 'just be' when you're out in the real world then."
That gets you thinking too. As you go along on this journey, your paths will eventually diverge. These past few weeks with Phascomon have been the most meaningful of your life. But when you reach the end of it, that'll be... well, the end. The idea of splitting up for good weighs heavily on you. Now that you've gotten used to each other, it's easy to take the temporary nature of your agreement for granted.
Even if you've become good friends now, you each want something different out of life. Will you always be able to walk that path together?
You stare at the back of his fuzzy head. He's sleeping on his side in the tent, an arm's length away. Just as you open your mouth to say something, a loud snore fills the enclosed space, and he flops over onto his back with a giant snot bubble oozing from his nostril. You stare at it distastefully and purse your lips, then roll over to the other side.
"Goodnight, Phascomon."
==
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