Challenge #00631 - A266: Corrupt File

C:> Cannot find Reality.sys. Universe Halted.

There was no other word for what was happening than Glitch. People went to sleep one colour and woke up another the next. And frequently with a change in their social status and standing.

And it wasn’t just their colour that changed. There were all kinds of alterations. People would go to sleep as a man in a mansion, and wake up as a woman in a slum.

Buildings began to show segmentation faults. Infrastructure literally crumbled.

Death rates skyrocketed. Chaos and outrage abounded. People tried to stay awake, hoping that that would prevent the changes, but their world simply altered around them anyway.

When analysed by the intelligent, it seemed to be a very specific kind of chaos. Those in power -and who were arrogant about having it- found themselves on the bottom rung of the social ladder. Everyone stayed within their own country.

The abusers found themselves at the hands of their former victims, staring up at themselves in absolute terror.

God, they said, had taken matters into Hir own hands.

Survivors fled to untouched areas, trying to find solace in what little was unglitched. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

*

The tutor had come to peer over hir shoulder.

“Yhvh…” the tutor sighed. “There’s a reason why I only gave you one planet. And this is it. Just look at the overall mess you’ve created. None of their infrastructure is going to hold.”

“But they weren’t following my rules,” Yhvh complained. “Even when I completely revised it to one rule and stopped doing so many miracles, like you said.”

“I see you’ve been messing around with the root code. Did you save a backup before you did that?”

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh…”

“You wanted them believing in you again, didn’t you?”

“Uuuuhhhhhmmm… maybe?”

A groan. “Yhvh… you really have to learn that the best interference is the subtle kind. Remember the incidents near the equator? All that smiting? Your heavy-handedness is going to be the death of these beings. What do I keep telling you? Gently. Gently. Gently.”

Sigh. “Yes, Teacher Lusfir…” Yhvh droned.

“Now. Let’s see what we can do to repair this, hm?”

Moaned, this time, “Yes, Teacher Lusfir.”

“It’s a good thing I stopped you before you could bottleneck the population again. Open up the root file and highlight the most recent changes…”

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