In a dark alley, a man wearing a blue jacket dragged himself along the ground.

“Grarf,” he mumbled as he put all his strength into lifting himself off the ground, but when he was half-way up his strength let out and he collapsed. Da...mn… Grarf… Aaahhh… Ugh.

He inched bit by bit towards the exit of the alley, gasping and moaning in the process, a man walked by the alley, but he didn’t see him, or at the very least, he put up a convincing enough act that he didn’t.

“Hel-” He gasped out before passing out. He descended into darkness, and ended up running into the cold and empty world of dreams, countless terrors descending upon him before it all returned to nothing and he ascended back up to the world of consciousness.

He slowly opened his eyes, the sky still dark and managed to lift himself up. He slowly limped along towards the end of the alley and thought, “Damn… How did I get here… Where am I. What on earth is going...”

He put one leg forward, then another, and finally emerged from the alley. He panted, then continued down the road. His limping shifted into a walk before he finally regained the ability to run, as the darkness surrounded him and whispered in his ear.

An old dilapidated three storey building came into view and the look of terror faded away. He fumbled around in his pocket and discovered a key and a look of relief appeared on his face. Finally... I’m back… What the hell was that… Ugh… Let’s go inside.

He stumbled towards the building, grasped the handle and pulled hard revealing a dimly lit interior with an old man watching a television with occasional static.

“The ‘God Maker Virus’ has caused 5 billion dollars worth of damages across the world over the past we-” A voice said as he stumbled towards his cell, or should I say, home. He grasped the rusty old handle and thrusted with all his strength barely managing to push the badly maintained and noisy door open. Urghhh…

As he stepped through, he stepped onto the hard concrete floor and slammed the old rotten slab of wood shut behind him. He stepped towards a dilipitated bed with iron springs poking into his skin and passed out on it. Aaaa finnallyy….

He descended into darkness before he was eventually dragged out by a piercing light, he opened his eyes and discovered the burning hot Sun in the sky. He stumbled forwards and collapsed again discovering a small metal slab on the floor, no not a slab, but… A phone… He stopped to ponder for a moment, then thought, “Oh yes, I did have one of these, didn’t I… A mustang… No… mustard… Sustang? Uragh...”

He flipped it open and waited patiently as several logos appeared showing off the creators of the phone, but he took no notice of them as a simple interface with one unread message appeared. He grunted and started hard at the interface before noticing it. M-Message?!

He tapped the screen several times before discovering the arrow keys below and hitting them revealing a long list of messages. The top one was labelled ‘God Maker App’, a thought rose up, but was quickly squashed as he clicked through. God… Maker…? What? Like making gods?

“Uarf!” He suddenly turned away and threw up all over the floor. He trembled slightly before bringing the phone back up to his face. He read the message, but it was all unintelligible to him and he decided to just click the link.

A prompt asked him whether he wanted to install an ‘app’ and he clicked ‘Yes’. He drifted off when he shaken awake by his phone vibrating violently. Tons of text scrolled down the screen at an inhuman speed and lots of little whispers gathered.

“Location identified as Terra V of Bounded Sphere Layer Zetta. No gods or other transcendent beings detected in this star system. Host device is extremely primitive, recommend upgrade. The user appears to be heavily impaired, preparing to clear status effect. Cleared status affect ‘drunkenness’.”

He mumbled and gazed at the strange symbols when a strange force descended into his body and he suddenly became much more lucid. What? What?! Fuck, it happened again. And what the hell is going? Gods? God Maker App? Clearing drunkenness?

“Hello user. We are the World App, a mysterious mobile app created by the Rae Corporation. We can’t tell you much, but we can grant you powers beyond your wildest dreams… If you cooperate.”

“An app? But this is a flip phone? I can’t install apps on that. Ugh, powers beyond my wildest dreams, do you mean you’re literally going to make me a god?” He asked.

“Yes. No. Sort of. It’s complicated. It depends on what you call a god.” Characters appeared one by one on the screen.

“I see, so… What do you want me to do? And what are you doing to give me?” He asked.

“I don’t want you to do anything. You do what you do. You live if you live. You die if you die. But, if you want to further your… ambitions, you might want to make use of our services. First. Gestik Minkin.”

“What?!” He asked.

“You say that every-time you want to enter your ‘world’.” It said.

“My world?” He asked.

“Yes. It’s one of the World App’s voice commands. Say it. Now.” It said.

“Okay. Gestik Minkin.” He said and the world blurred revealing an endless white world. A white floor formed below him, as did a ceiling above and four walls forming a small white room.

“This is your ‘world’, it’s very primitive right now, but before long, it’ll be just like a real room. And that’s not all… Well, you can figure that out yourself.” A disembodied voice said.

“What?” He asked.

“Right now, you can only come in spirit, but soon you’ll be able to shift your body in for… Limited durations. This’ll help you survive fatal encounters and other problems, also you’ll be able to customise this area beyond your wildest dreams.” It said.

“Fatal encounters? What?” He asked.

“Like people trying to kill you.” It said.

“Why the hell would someone want to kill me?” He asked.

“Because of your godlike power.” It said.

“...Fuck. Fuck! Right, what else then?!” He urged.

“Your power is roughly proportional to your knowledge and mental power. Two things which you will find… Many ways to increase. In other words, knowledge is literally power. As you accrue ‘power’, you can open new areas and abilities. And as you go on… More options will open up.” It said.

“Well, I never was a genius...” He said.

“Don’t worry, we have ways to improve that, although you would be comparatively weaker at the beginning in comparison to someone smarter.” It said.

“I see, so what can I do with this space right now and what else can I do?” He asked.

“Double time. Humans waste vast amounts of time sleeping, but in this space, you can stay here while you sleep without wasting a single moment of speed, although there is a time limit at first.” It said.

“Great, so I don’t need to waste as much time, but… What can I hope to accomplish by staring at a white wall?” He asked.

“Look inside your pocket,” The voice said and he reached into his pocket and discovered a phone.

“It was slightly primitive, so we upgraded it with… Internet capabilities. You can look up information on the internet and study. Or chat to people, we really don’t care.” The voice said.

“Ah, that would be great. Wonderful. What else is there?” He asked.

“What else? You defeat sleep and that’s all? Tch. Next up is your mobile. Your primitive phone has finally entered the current decade. Behold!” The voice shouted and the mobile shed it’s skin revealing a shiny glossy one.

“Wow, great… Although, that’s kind of crap compared to the whole… Awake all the time thing.” He said.

“So demanding… Alright. Onto the main event, I saved this one for last, as it’s the most useful to you right now.” It said.

“What is it? What is it?!” He asked.

“Haha, I call it ‘Psion Analysis’. Psions are the essence of minds, souls, all that boring stuff. Some call it ‘datons’, other call it ‘mana’. It forms the basis of many of your abilities. You can read the traces of psions which leak out of other people and you can see ghosts.” It said.

“I could care less about becoming a medium, what do you mean by traces?” He asked.

“Emotions. Thoughts tied to strong emotions. If you manage to resist particularly strong psion storms, you might even temper your soul, another way of improving yourself.” It explained.

“Wow, that’s a lot more useful than the no sleep thing. I mean, it might be useful later, but certainly not that useful now.” He said.

“I know right, not only that, but you have the ability to bolster your mental prowess for a short time, basically making your smarter.” It said.

“Great, how do I improve my mental power or whatever? What are these ‘storms’?” He asked.

“Storms are rare. Usually when a large mass of psions condense, vast amounts of resentment and other emotions can gather into powerful storms, usually controlled by a phantom of some sort. The most effective method… I hesitate to tell you.” It said.

“What? What is it?” He asked.

“You have… You realise that psions are the essence of minds and souls, right? In other words...” It said.

“You mean… Taking it from someone else?” He asked.

“Yes, and in most cases, this leads to… Death.” It said.

“Death… You mean I have to… Kill people…?” He gulped.

“If you want but… That’s not the only way, just the most effective. Other ways involve gathering vast amounts of negative emotions to temper yourself. Also, using your powers a lot will eventually strengthen you, it’s like exercise, although you might wind up mentally drained a lot.” It said.

“Better than killing someone, alright. I’ll do just that then.” He said.

“Haha, the la- Mm, okay. Anything else you want to know?” It asked.

“What… are you exactly…? I thought you were a computer program at first, and then...” He said.

“A RaeI, an artificial intelligence of sorts. I can’t say too much about that though.” It said.

“RaeI…” He muttered.

“Anything else? I’ve explained what I can, but if you have any further questions....” It asked.

“No, even if I asked, you probably wouldn’t tell me, would you?” He asked.

“Mm, alright my business is done here, let’s drop out of here. To leave, you repeat the same phrase as to enter. But, let’s skip that this time.” It waved its hand breaking down their surroundings and returning them to the room. W-We’re back…

“The tutorial is complete. Welcome user… Matt.” The blinking screen said as several options showed up, he turned to look at them, but they were instantly obscured by a window and violent vibrations.

“Warning: A world virus has been blocked.” A world virus? What the hell is that?

“Hey, what’s a world virus?” He asked but no one answered. Tch, it left… Damn it. What’s this world virus?! Ugh…

He sighed and held his head. Ugh, what the hell is happening, first that power, now a world virus… What the hell is going on…

His hands dropped down, rose up and walked towards the door. He pried it open and stepped through into the musty hall of doom. As he walked, he could hear various people crying or flying into rages… No… It wasn’t through his ears but… Through a different sense… Something higher… This is the leakage then… Damn it, is there a way to turn it off?

He focused within himself, sensed a cloud of psions and managed to push it away. That’s it… Wait, how did I know how to do that? What the… Ugh. None of this makes any sense.

He walked towards the gates of purgatory… And stepped out into the outside world.