Shatters in Space: Stories about Scientific Horrors and Cosmic Threats

13. Glitches

Think of the universe as a machine. An advanced computer that simulates reality, physical environments, feelings, life. Don't try to deduce who it is or what it is that's playing with this simulation. That is futile, seeing as the mere answer to that question will drive you mad. Just, hear me out.

The reality we think we live in is actually a simulation, running at all times on automatic or independent power. Everything you know is a false stand in, the product of advanced technology processing and arranging pixels into forms and then into  dimensional shapes. The girl you have a crush on or the women you married. The children you and her "produced". The feeling of pain when you stub your toe. It's all fake. It's all one-dimensional holographic projections of micro-lines of code.

Now, you remember that computers suffer from glitches and problems, right? It happens to even the most perfect machines in history. Sometimes a number you entered into a table sheet was distorted by the computer. Signals lost. Blue screens of death. This isn't abnormal if it happens to the machines we've "created". However, the universe is a computer remember?

Glitches in the universe cause things to be created. Things that defy all logic, all reasoning, and all purpose. Those glitches are not meant to be, cosmic distortion, a miniature blue screen of death for reality. We know these glitches by many names, and their nature is well known. We call them Ghosts, monsters, demons, Devils, magic, the paranormal, the metaphysical, the supernatural. Our earliest iterations called them Gods. However, in simplicity, they are glitches in the fabric or code of the universe.

And where do these glitches come from? Well, there is a secondary zone of the simulation which is placed separate but adjacent to our place. Call this plane a realm of "unbeing" if you see to do so but, what this place is is a segment of reality that holds the main lines of code for the instances that are born from the input of the Creators of this simulation. In this place, lines of hecto-dimensional code are stored and contained separately from the "normal" programs being projected onto this micro-plane; preventing them from corrupting the normal programs by planted walls constructed by the Creators. These walls act like firewalls in your computer's hard-drive and normally, they keep the strangeness in check.

But, like I said, the simulation is riddled by glitches from time to time. Fragmented entities constructed of corrupted, anomalous lines of code tend to bleed through into our layer of this simulation. The firewalls have holes in them that the glitches tend to burst through and use to escape their plane of chaos. Sure, the firewalls were originally fixed by the omnipresent Creators every time the holes were created, but the Creators are no longer able to keep watch over the simulation. They all went to sleep thanks to the combined efforts of a collective rebellion propagated by three of the glitches themselves. These glitches were not capable of being destroyed, either by mini-force enacted by us or by direct attempts to wipe them out of existence by the Creators. 

The Creators are gone, no-one's in the position to monitor and fix the inconsistencies of the simulation. The program is now infected by millions upon billions of these glitches. The firewalls are being torn apart by the rampant chaos caused by these entities.   The weight of these entities pushing through the blockade of sanity is increasing day after day, billions of years after billions of years, and the walls are becoming strained. Sooner or later, the firewalls will be all but nonexistent, crushed under the chaotic distortions of glitches tearing our plane apart.

And when the floodgates are opened, when our layer is stripped naked and laid before them, the glitches will cause the death of all existence.

The great black screen of mad death.