DN1010 Experimental Interaction

Project 1 – The World Ends With You

« The Journey – Immersive »

23 January 2096

Okay look, this is barely my second day in this weird place. I’m keeping this journal so that if anyone were to find me in time to come, at least I would have left a mark on this world – whatever world this is.

I woke up, damp. Crimson red liquid covered my arms and face. I mustered whatever amount of energy that I had and stood up. I sniffed myself, but there wasn’t a familiar scent of iron. So, it’s not blood? I looked up and realised that my makeshift tent had given way and that was where the red liquid was seeping through from. Unfazed, I just plucked some bright orange leaves (?) from my surroundings and managed to clean it off. The leaves were oddly, very circular, almost a perfect circle.

Well, regardless, all I have left with me is this journal and my trusty survival knife. Somehow, when I ended up here, all the water in my water bottle just dispersed into thin air. Poof. I’ve done my fair share of exploring, being an adventurer for about 6 years already, and this is the first time something like this has happened. I’ve always managed to last for at least 2 weeks with my supplies, but this time, without my water, I don’t think I’ll be able to last that long.

Walking outside my tent, I can see blue…rocks? They do have rock textures, but everything here just looks so geometrical to me that nothing looks natural. I took my knife and lightly tapped the “rock”. Sounds solid. I exerted more force and surprisingly, my knife sliced right through the “rock”. Wow. When I first sliced it open, there is a slimy texture to the insides of the “rock”. But the moment I came into contact with it, it broke down into a watery substance.

At this point in time, I have no explanations to any of the things happening. This is all just, really bizarre. Guess I’ll have to explore a tad bit more before I can deduce my location. Will update soon.

23 January 2096

I walked for about three hours now. Come to think of it, I don’t even remember how I got here. One moment I was exploring the mountains, and next, I’m stuck in this weird place. I can’t even retrace my steps. I’m guessing that this is a totally different world. There is still no sign of civilisation anywhere. I am starting to lose hope. I’m hungry, thirsty, and I miss home. All I see are trees, rocks and weird little glowing creatures on the ground. Damn…I’m so hungry. The glowing creatures are starting to look reaaaally appetising.

…..Fuck it.

I bent down and snatched a little (let’s call them Glowies for now) Glowie from the ground and took a huge bite, and immediately spat it out. EW it tastes disgusting!

Suddenly, my vision went blurry. What the hell? My head is starting to hurt. AGH! I shut my eyes tightly, willing for the pain to go away. It did after a while. As I opened my eyes, a strange scene unfolded before me. It’s… me. But I’m dressed really differently. Almost like royalty. I’m also talking to someone in the shadows.

“HEY!” I called out to the “other me” but he didn’t take notice. Huh. I decided to spy a little more. It might give me some clues to why I’m here and what this world is.

The only few words I could make out was “intruder”, “parallel” and my name. “Joseph”. I walked a little closer to try making out the words, but just as I was an arms length from the “other me”, I started having the same headache again. I shut my eyes and opened them again when the pain was gone.

I was back in the same empty world before. But this time, something about it has changed.

I realised that I was lying on my back on the gravel, and my chest felt weighed down by something heavy. I lifted my hands and saw them wrapped in thick cloth, and embroidered with beautiful gold thread and jewels. What in the world..? At the corner of my eye, I saw the back view of a man fleeing into a cluster of trees, clad in very familiar black shirt and slack. Wait, those are my clothes! Then the ones I am wearing must be his! I remembered how he looked exactly like me and shared the same name. Is he my doppelganger? I only heard about this in stories but never met one in real life. But why would some royalty want to swap his expensive clothes with my shabby ones? I sat up and groped around to find my belongings, and realised with a start (and fury) that they were gone. Probably that same man took them with him too.

I didn’t know what to do, or how to survive. The blue sun was setting and the place was rapidly cooling down that even the chill was beginning to penetrate my thick clothing. I’m really going to die out here, now that I lost my belongings. The thief was smart enough to leave behind the knick knacks that I kept in my bag that would have definitely weighed him down, like my diary, and some rock samples that I had been collecting. But he left nothing useful behind.

Weighing my options, I decided that the only way to live is to follow the direction that he took, and maybe find some answers. So I picked myself off the ground and followed the trail that he had left behind in his haste.

After what seemed like hours of hearing the same rhythmic thud of my boots, I heard the faint thundering of hooves. All of a sudden, elongated creatures burst out from between the dense foliage. They were graceful, more beautiful than stallions, and and seemed to shimmer in the dark. On top of these unearthly rides, sat masked men whom promptly and silently slid off and walked towards me. “Go away! I…I mean no harm! I’m lost, please!” I pleaded, hoping that they were not robbers who robbed lost people in the wilderness.

But things did not go as I expected. One by one, they knelt down. The one in the centre, who was more decorated with medals compared to the rest, saluted and said,”Your Majesty, don’t worry. Just come with us. You are safe now.” I hoped what they said was true, but I peered into the slits of the mask, and I don’t like what I saw. The man had yellow eyes. Yellow, feline eyes that glinted with malice.

24 January 2096

So in the span of 24 hours, what I’ve gathered is that:

I have a lookalike in this world.
I’m now stripped of all my adventurer’s gear and clad in royal clothing.
I’m now a Prince.

All I have now is my journal and the geometrical rocks that I had been collecting before I passed out and ended up in this castle. Just 2 hours in this castle and I feel suffocated already. All I’m made to do is sit on my throne and be waited on by the countless attendants. I’m an adventurer, not a Prince. I need to get out of here. I want to get out of here.

Did all of this happen because I decided to give in to my hunger and munch on a god damn Glowie? Sigh. I stared at my hands. The rocks. If the Glowies and the rocks came from the same place, maybe drinking the substance in the rock can trigger another effect and at least bring me back to my own world? But what if it doesn’t and instead, get me into a more messed up scenario? Damn, but who cares at this point, anything is better than just sitting here and doing nothing. Exploring is in my bones!

Without my knife, I have to find another way to cut these rocks open again. So I ordered the servants to bring me the best knife they have in their possession. I mean, might as well make use of my authority.

Without questions, they responded pretty quickly and handed me a golden knife with a Lapis Lazuli embedded in the handle. Wow, seems pretty exquisite. Weirdly, it looked like my trusty ol’ survival knife, just that mine was bronze with a Ruby embedded.

Carefully, I excused myself from the throne and headed into my resting quarters. I swiftly cut the rock into half, and the familiar blue slimy insides revealed itself. Well, here goes…

But before I could drink the slimy rock juice, the same guy with the yellow feline eyes burst into my quarters. He was armed with a knife similar to what I had, but his was silver with an Emerald embedded in the handle.

I pointed the knife at him, expecting him to attack me. But instead, he removed his mask and revealed himself. It was… me? Okay, this is already the second variant of “me” I’ve seen in just 2 days. Just how many me’s are there?

He looks like me to a very large extent, but the difference is that he has yellow feline eyes, pointy ears, and sharper teeth (somehow like a mutant version of me). So this guy explained himself, saying that he is me from another world known as the “Abstract World”.

Abstract Joseph said, and I quote: “Geometric Joseph is actually a notorious thief in his world. He’s wanted by the Geometric People, and somehow, he found a way to travel between Worlds. He stole my clothes, which is why I am now in my battle gear. After I sent my men after him, you conveniently appeared and he took the chance to ditch my clothes and swap them with yours because clearly, those excess jewellery weighed him down.”

Okay okay hold on, this is a lot to digest at once, so I’m going to break it down slowly once again. From what I understand, there are 3 parallel worlds existing in one universe, the RGB Universe.

“Organic World”, which is where I came from.
“Geometric World”, which is where I fell into accidentally at the beginning, and where the other me came from.
“Abstract World”, which is where all of the Josephs are in right now, and where all the weird creatures exist in (like those graceful elongated creatures) because well, it’s… abstract.

The RGB Universe is the main universe encompassing all of our worlds, and the knives each of us have are the Treasures of the Universe. I found my bronze and Ruby knife in a cave on my very first exploration. Abstract Joseph said his silver and Emerald knife was passed down to him from his ancestors. Then I assume Geometric Joseph stole the gold and Lapis Lazuli one, but he dropped it while escaping from Abstract Joseph yesterday, which is why it is with us now.

In my Organic World, I’m an adventurer. In the Geometric World, I’m a thief. And in the Abstract World, I’m a Prince. Simply put, Geometric Joseph is a wanted man and somehow he dragged all of “himselves” into this, and for us to revert everything back to normal, the Red Ruby, Green Emerald, and Blue Lapis Lazuli must come into contact with one another to create a massive reaction. Wow, just what have I gotten myself into?

(Yes, we all look similar)

To be honest, I find all of this very entertaining because it is like the biggest adventure I’ve been part of to date. As an adventurer, I can’t just leave this as it is, I want to see it, the massive reaction. I want to know what will happen when all 3 of me meet. So I’m going to work with Abstract Joseph to find Geometric Joseph. Will update regarding our journey to find Geometric Me. So weird for me to document all of this, but this is actually happening. Unbelievable.

31 January 2096

It’s been several days of recovery and Abstract Joseph has already dispatched his men to scour the lands for Geometric Joseph. I have been waiting patiently, letting Abstract Joseph to take charge, but all efforts are still fruitless, as of now. I think our dimensions existed on separate planes, and when he forced them to overlap so that he could dimension-hop, he accidentally dragged the different Josephs together into one plane. And now that Geometric Joseph is wanted in both the Abstract and Geometric world. So there is only one possible dimension that he may be trying to escape to: Organic dimension, my world! But what does he want from each of the worlds to go through so much trouble to pull me out of my own World (I remember being forcefully teleported over to this foreign place, although I wasn’t doing anything significant to warrant a random time-travel. My theory was that my appearance here is accidental.)?

I asked Abstract Joseph about that a few days ago, but he wasn’t forthcoming about it. I think there is something more than just thievery that is going on here! But I am the only one who seems to be in the dark.

And then it suddenly occurred to me that maybe, I was the key to this puzzle. Maybe they wanted something from me. That’s why Geometric Joseph came for my belongings. That’s why Abstract Joseph was so keen to keep me close to him, but refused to let me go, or let me in on the events that is happening around me.

I think I need to do some exploring on my own. After all, aren’t I the famous explorer in my own land? I discovered new planets and charted unexplored corners of space. I am capable of a little sleuthing on my own to gather information on this weird mess that’s going on around me.

With a little charming, I managed to get my hands on the floor plans from one of the head palace guards. Despite the abstract symbols, I managed to decipher it relatively quickly with my excellent map-reading skills. I looked for loopholes in the floor plan. Usually castles have secret passages and rooms that are not shown in the floor plan. I had explored the castle grounds frequently enough (out of boredom) to remember the dimensions well, and I realised that at the west wing of the castle, there is a room that is shaped a little differently from the one that is shown on the plan.

Something’s fishy. That’s where I am going to explore first, tonight, when the whole castle is sleeping.

It is now dark, and I slinked my way over to the west wing, pressing the walls and decorative panels to find anything that seemed out of place, more worn out or less dusty. I came across a random woven tapestry that was draped at the end of the corridor, at the corner leading to a room that was shaped differently on the floor plan. Lifting it up, I found myself staring at a lock. It seems to operate via face detection. For a while I was panicking. Then I remembered that all three of us Josephs essentially look the same, except that Abstract Joseph had more angular features and feline eyes. I am not sure how progressive the technology here is compared to my own world, but I know my own phone could be unlocked by my brother’s face even though we don’t look alike, so there is a possibility that it might not be 100% foolproof here too.

Here goes.

“BEEP” the sensor blinked green, and the wall slipped to the right to reveal a room. I quickly walked in, and the door slid close quietly just as quickly.

Man, that worked. Now it’s time to find out what the hell is going on here.

31 January 2096

The room was dark and creepy. There were sparks of lights going on and off from each corner of the gigantic room. I couldn’t see anything very clearly to I decided to go closer to the lights. And there, I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.

It was another me.

But he’s asleep. And his features look slightly different from mine. It’s almost like he has my face, Abstract Joseph’s ears and teeth, and Geometric Joseph’s hair. It’s a combination of all the three of us. His eyes were closed and he doesn’t seem to notice my presence. He also has tubes hooked up to his body.

What in the world is going on? I continued looking around the room to look for more clues. There were strange documents in a different language and some other experiments going on in the room at the same time too. I walked to the other side of the room, towards another spark of light. This time, what I saw was even more shocking. It was a giant tank filled with ME!

All sorts of me..some taller, some rounder, some uglier and more deformed. There were probably about 12 or so stuffed into that one tank. They didn’t seem to be responding or even alive. I was absolutely horrified. These might be failed experiments. It’s so creepy to see myself like this, even thought it’s not technically me.

I stepped a little closer to get a better look, then I heard a noise coming from within the tank.

“Save us…”

One of the many failed Josephs whispered. I was so creeped out I jumped backwards and knocked into something from the desk behind me. It was a tube bottle which crashed onto the floor and released a fire. Soon, the fire alarms rang and I knew I was in trouble.

Oh shit!! I quickly grabbed some documents from the table which could come in handy later on. I better get out of here quick before security comes in. But I can’t go through the front door!

I spotted a vent on the ceiling which I could climb into. I quickly pulled myself into the vent just as the front door opened and a swarm of guards came rushing in to put out the fire and look for the intruder. Man, that was close.

1 February 2096

I’m now stuck in this vent, with the documents and the golden knife. The guards are still down below so I can’t exactly go back the way I came. I lost the map while in a rush to hide from the guards. I don’t remember exactly where this vent will lead based on the map, but I guess I’ve got no choice to follow through the route now.

I finally got out the other end of the vent, and I think I know where I am. I should be at the east wing of the castle, and this should be Abstract Joseph’s resting quarters. Abstract Joseph told me yesterday that he would be out with his men on the expedition to look for Geometric Joseph so I should be fine for a while. However, with all the commotion that is happening, I’m sure that word will get to Abstract Joseph pretty soon. It’s weird though.Why would his resting quarters have a tunnel connected to that creepy place just now? Just who, or what exactly is he up to? I’ve got no time to waste. I need to find out what exactly is going on.

I’ve laid out the documents on the table:
“Oeprtaoin Creatson: Mkae Jpseoh to rlue the uivnrese”
(Operation Creatson: Make Joseph to rule the universe)
I could vaguely figure out what the document was trying to say. At the end, it was signed off as “Jhaokb Dcik Riarchd” (Jahkob Dick Richard). Sounds familiar, but who…?

Before I could finish going through the entire document, the door opened slowly, and a familiar head peeped in. It was Abstract Joseph. Before I could ask him anything, he gestured me to keep quiet. He told me that he will explain everything to me later, and that I should pack all the necessary items and get ready to leave.

I got on the sparkly elongated creature and followed Abstract Joseph as we escape from the castle discreetly. Why does it seem like he is escaping from the castle like a fugitive?Regardless, my best bet was to follow him since I did not have any leads as to what was going on, and he seemed like he knew something. Once we got far enough from the castle, Abstract Joseph dismounted from the creature and I followed suit. He then led me into an underground cave (that looked quite secretive), and I got a bit wary, so I readied my knife, just in case anything happened. Abstract Joseph noticed it and said to me, “Calm down, I won’t attack you. I need you.” How very confusing.

As we proceeded deeper into the cave, I noticed that the place was quite well-furnished, for a cave at least. The place was well-lit, with candles along the walls. At the end, there was a chest, a table and a few chairs. Seated on one of the chairs was a familiar figure. To my dismay, it was Geometric Joseph, and he did not seem very hostile at all. Even Abstract Joseph seemed like he was on good terms with him. Again, before I could ask any questions, Abstract Joseph gestured for me to take a seat as he laid out what seemed like the floor plan of the castle on the table.

Okay, so it seems like I have had a whole misunderstanding of Abstract Joseph. Abstract Joseph told me that King Jahkob Dick Richard, his father, is a greedy man. On top of ruling the Abstract World, he also wants to take over the Geometric World and the Organic World. The King wanted Abstract Joseph to help with the conquest, but Abstract Joseph didn’t like that idea, so he declined to help. But his father is very determined for his only son, Joseph, to eventually become the most successful ruler ever, and since Abstract Joseph didn’t want to, the King went ahead and did all the illegal experiments in the hopes of creating a Joseph who would do his bidding. That is also the reason why Abstract Joseph went through all the trouble to find Geometric Joseph and I before his father did, because if the King were to capture us before Abstract Joseph did, we would have been experimented on and brainwashed into following his commands, since we all looked relatively the same.

Now Abstract Joseph’s plan is to stop the King’s plan, and he needs our help, with the use of the knives. The thing with the knives is that if all 3 knives were to stab something (or someone) at the same time, it would create a reaction similar to a black hole, and that something (or someone) will disappear without a trace. (We tried it on a rock that we had outside, and after a bright rainbow light, the rock actually disappeared completely.)

Abstract Joseph said now that he has betrayed his father, the only way to stop the conquest is to kill his father, because if he doesn’t, his father will capture and brainwash all of us. With the power of all 3 knives in his father’s hands, there is no doubt that all 3 worlds will fall under King Jahkob’s rule. So now it is up to us, the 3 Josephs, to end this tyranny. I don’t know how I got myself into such a conspiracy, but I’m always up for an exciting adventure.

– END –