Reality Hopping
In this story you can hop between realities following these rules:
No more then
- 1 a Day
- 6 a Week
- 20 every 4 weeks
- 50 every 12 weeks
- 180 every 48 weeks
These measurements are based on your home reality.
Your home reality is the one where you start your journey from.
When you hop to another reality you switch your mind with anybody who is there already.
If you hop to a different reality then your home reality from another reality then:
Reality 3 contains you.
Reality 2 contains the person from reality 3
Your home reality contains the person from reality 2
If someone dies then the person whose reality he/she home reality changes to that of the person who died. (Using the example above , if the person in your home reality dies your home reality becomes reality 2. If the person in reality 2 dies then the home reality of the person from reality 2 becomes
3.)
Written by Catprog on 22 August 2004
Lazy day
A fly buzzes around your head, and you angrily swat at it, wondering how it got in the room. As your hand connects with it, satisfyingly flinging it against the wall, you hear a loud shriek from the other room, nearly making you fall off the couch.
"WHAT are you doing?!" You hear your sister yell as she storms into the room. As you wonder how she saw you from all the way in the kitchen, she stomps over to the little fly and cups in in her hands. You scoff as she walks over to the screen door and lets the little bug go free, then angrily turns to you. "You KNOW that could've been a jumper, you idiot. Why on Earth are you so careless!? What if you were in some other dimension and some big giant fly smacked you against a wall?!"
You sigh and roll your eyes, glaring at her. "That'll never happen because I don't ever plan to jump. There's too much risk involved. Who knows what I'll end up as? It's not like I get to choose."
Apparently you gave the wrong answer, indicated by a pillow being thrown in your direction. "But what if someone switches into YOU?"
You grumble and leave the couch, apparently not going to watch TV after all. Ever since the government made the 'Jump Start' known to people, life hadn't been the same. Although in practice for most, society had just found something else to argue the morality of.
The Jump Start was when the first person 'jumped' realities. Turns out the person he replaced was some governor in Wyoming. People noticed right away, and the guy was sent over to some secret base for testing. Luckily, despite everyone's worst fears, he wasn't some kind of supervillain or anything, and he came clean about jumping. Basically, people were able jump realities and switch bodies with another person, animal, or any living thing. A lot of people don't do it because of the risks involved, and some even went so far as to get 'mind-locked', a secret procedure used by the government to keep them from getting switched into. Only rich people could afford to be mind-locked though, so a lot of the population had to live in fear of suddenly being zapped out of their bodies without warning.
You walk to your room in a huff and slam the door, just sort of mad in general. At the situation, at your sister, everything. It's not like you stabbed someone. Just swatted a little fly.
Right as you're about to fall into your bed, you feel a strange pulling sensation all over your body. Like your soul is getting sucked through a vacuum cleaner. Before you can even scream for help, you feel yourself plopping in a chair and falling forward. Quickly trying to catch yourself, you slam your hand into a bar table, spattering a nearby group of people with booze and food. As your vision becomes cloudier, you see the faces start closing in around you. Whoever zapped you here better have had a damn good reason?
Written by Zorpix on 29 October 2014
Bar Fight
As the faces close in around you, you suddenly realize why someone might have wanted to switch out of here. Bastard. Maybe there's a way to talk yourself out of this.
"Hey! Hold up!" You yell, surprised you still have your old voice. The other guys seemed surprised too, as the stopped dead in their tracks. Good. At least you have their attention. "I'm not? whoever you?re looking for. He just switched realities with me. I just wanna get home, and then you can beat this guy to a pulp all you want."
The burly guys look at you like they still really want to hurt you, but somewhere in their drunkenly glazed eyes, you see a bit of understanding.
"One of our buds got switched a few weeks ago. Get lost, asshole."
Nodding curtly, you stand to dash out of the bar. However, your feet catch on each other and you feel your head start swimming. With a loud crash, you fall to the floor of the bar, invoking the laughter of just about everyone in the room. Apparently drunkenness doesn't transfer bodies. That bit stays. Giving a cheeky little wave to everyone else in the room, you pick yourself up and stumble out of the bar.
The place you've been taken looks fairly similar to your reality. Normal looking buildings and skyline. It looks like you're in some kind of city, with buildings stretching up high above your head. People line the city streets, but you can't make out any distant figures due to your drunken vision.
As someone bumps into you, you hear them call out "Watch it, scale face!" Scale face? What the heck was that supposed to mean? Looking down to your body for the first time since transporting, you realize what has happened. The body of the guy who switched with you was a lizard man! It wasn't your legs you tripped over in the bar, it was your tail!
As people bustle about you, you realize you have to get moving, else risk being run over. Looking left and right, you don?t see anything particularly helpful for getting back to your own life, so either way is going to just be a gamble.
There are some differences though. To the left, you see more city-like buildings, tall and bright. To the right, you see a more residential area that looks a bit quieter. You weight the options in your head. There might be places in the city that specialize in this kind of thing, but you?re not sure you want to risk wandering around in a big city you know nothing about. As for the residential area, there may be people who have had to deal with things like this before, and they may be more welcoming as well.
Your head starts swimming from your drunkenness and all the thoughts running around your head. Leaning back against the bar a bit, you wait until your vision clears before making your final decision.
Written by Zorpix on 29 October 2014
Grungy Furs
You decide your chances of finding someone helpful will be better in the city. More people, more opportunity, right? Still stumbling a bit, you realize it may not have been drunkenness that was causing you pain, but the weird feelings your stomach gave from the switch. After all, some people's hearts couldn't take it, and they died while switching. If you were drunk though, you'd still be feeling the effects. Your headache and dizziness were slipping away, though.
As you walk further in the city, you realize what really sets this city apart from your own. It's full of animal creatures! You couldn't really tell back in the bar due to your blurred vision, but now that you were in a busier area, it was impossible to mistake the foxes, skunks, dragons, and other creatures that surround you. Feeling a bit awkward in your new body, you pull your tail closer, still getting the hang of working the muscles. At least no one will think you look too out of place.
It's easy to get sidetracked by all the strange beings around you, but with some effort, you manage to retain your focus on finding someone to help. Back in your reality, there was only one way to return to your own world. People had developed a machine that dealt with some kind of space-time mumbo jumbo. Whatever it was, it brought people back into their own bodies, usually successfully. However, that was expensive as hell.
The crowd around you has thinned out a bit, and the lights of the city have grown a bit darker. The smell of garbage and wet fur reaches your nose, and you feel bile rising in your throat. The air is hotter, and the atmosphere has a certain grunge to it. It's painfully obvious that you've reached the bad part of town. You don't really see that many other people (or furs, or what have you), but there are shadows coming from alleys, and intermittent weird noises coming from a few different directions.
Dirty neon signs and shop names line the street on either side, grime so thick you can smell it from where you stand. Who could ever help you in this place? As you're starting lose hope along with your lunch, you feel like turning back any second. Suddenly, as if by magic, a large neon sign flickers to life that reads: "Stuck in Reality?". There's an arrow pointing down below it toward the building it's attached to. Running over to the place, you glance in the windows, hoping you find something useful.
Sadly, all the windows are blocked by large black shades, preventing any knowledge about the inside of this place. Is fixing reality jumping illegal here? Maybe it's some kind of occult magic? You press your ear to the door, trying to hear anything you can. Faint music is all your ears can pick up.
At any rate, you wonder if you should enter the store or just keep wandering around, preferably in a different direction.
Written by Zorpix on 22 December 2014
Dusky old books
With a heavy sigh, you push against the rusty handle of the door. This place is your only lead on getting home. Besides, if it seems too sketchy, you can always duck right back out.
Even before getting a look inside, a dusky smell almost pushes you away from the door. It’s an odd mix between old books and nose burning stench. Resisting the urge to plug your overly sensitive reptilian nostrils, you tentatively take a step inside the building.
The look of the place is better than the smell. The black curtains actually had swirling blue and yellow patterns on the inside, giving them some life. The place was definitely messy with books and papers stacked on various shelves and desks around the room, but it looked like it could be an organized mess to someone who was used to it. Surprisingly enough, this place felt more like someone’s basement than a store.
A bell had rung when you walked in, yet no one could be seen at first. After perhaps a minute or so, you start nervously walking toward a big desk toward the back of the room. This was the only one with chairs by it, so you figured it must be the one where most business was conducted.
As you walk closer to the desk, you notice a little note on it. It reads "Please take a seat". Seeing no harm, you plop down in the red chair facing the desk. Another minute or so goes by before you hear a faint voice and a shuffling of some kind of feet. Finally, a door near the back corner of the room opens up, making you jump a bit. A large and beautiful creature emerges, but it’s one you’re not quite familiar with. It has the head of a human, but its body is replaced with that of a lion. Whatever it is, it definitely looks like some sort of mythical beast.
"Greetings!" The creature trills, stretching out its front paw to give you a little bow. "Lost look in your eyes, confused aura, tail dragging in the dirt, I've seen it all before. You got switched, didn't you boy?"
Whatever this thing was, it definitely knew what the problem was. "I… Yes. Yes I did. And I really have to get home" You say, words almost falling over each other as you try to speak.
With a wave of its tail, the lion man chuckles. "Slow down and take a deep breath. I'm sure you've been through a lot today." Pouring a strange liquid into a glass, he continues "I can help you most certainly, but there is only one creature that can switch back to its original body in this place. And that would be a sphinx like me."
A sphinx, huh… So that’s what he is. "How do I turn into one?" You ask almost a bit too eagerly.
"Well I can do it easily, but only in reward for something you can do for me." The creature smirks, giving you a sly look from across the table. "I need something of mine… reacquired… from certain people around this part of town. You interested?"
Written by Zorpix on 23 December 2014
The end (for now)