Chapter Text
Years in the past, but not many, there existed a small unregarded blue-green planet.
On this planet existed a race of lifeforms so amazingly primitive that they considered the art of video gaming to be the pinnacle of creation. Of course they were not necessarily wrong on this count, but as all enlightened species know, the number-one indicator of an evolved society is the denial that video games are, were, or ever will be enjoyable, and the profuse insistence that tedious things like “fine wine” and “meaningful discussion” are more valuable.
But though these people were in fact correct in their assumption that gaming was the ultimate form of entertainment - far superior in every way to reading, human interaction, and sex (though just barely) - this insight soon created a problem. The problem was that the people of this planet, despite their barely evolved consciousnesses, never quite felt immersed enough in the experience. Improved graphics and audio nearly indistinguishable from reality, though these rapidly became the leading cause of induction into mental hospitals and prisons, were never quite enough for the average human. They wanted more.
Of course, as tends to happen with species as proud and thoughtless as humanity, the solution to this problem was not well liked at all. That is to say, the half dozen or so earthlings that managed to survive the sudden upgrade generally regarded it as a bad move.
This is the story of that upgrade, those earthlings, and a wholly remarkable book.
The book was called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and despite its wild inaccuracies and occasional dip into the approximate format of rap verse, it came to be immensely preferred over more scholarly sources of knowledge and wisdom for two reasons:
First, it was slightly cheaper; and second, it had the words ‘Don’t Panic’ inscribed in large friendly letters on the cover.
But the story of this disastrous upgrade, the story of its incomprehensible consequences entangled in causality and paradox, and the story of this remarkable book, begins simply.
It begins with a boy stuck in his home.
The aforementioned house was not a lot to look at, but it was also not little. The inhabitants of this house observed it to look exactly the same as every house surrounding it, almost as though an omnipotent and appallingly overworked artist of some sort had lacked the ability, on this neighborhoods’ creation, to invent a varied and interesting background for the scene that was their lives. However, the other houses probably contained far fewer clowns than this one.
The house was completely white and lacked any kind of railings on its stairs; a health hazard that was never really addressed.
On this day, the thirteenth of April, a young man stood in his bedroom, having just awoken from an unsatisfactory sleep to find a multitude of cakes strewn about his room. He of course ignored these, as he had come to expect an assortment of baked goods even on regular days – and today was the young man’s birthday.
His name was John Egbert, and the excitement of the previous night that had caused him to lose sleep was not from the impending threat of one more year of existence. It was because today he was going to receive a new video game.
John was short and freckled, and had spiky, unruly black hair. He spent the majority of his time making good friends on the internet, a practice which was considered by the real-life humans around him to be a bit sad, and which was considered by his good friends on the internet to be not only sad but also super duper lame, generally unhealthy, and “dude you could not be more of a loser if you somehow merged with matthew mcconoghauhahey and starred in a romcom that was about other romcoms”. John was the kind of person to either reply to these accusations with an unconvincing fake laugh or an even more unconvincing impression of someone who was offended by that kind of thing.
On this morning, John’s unironic excitement for the game he would receive was dulled by his lack of sleep. He therefore walked blearily to the hall, stepped on another of his fathers’ cakes, descended the stairs, greeted Dave (“Dave,” he said; “Egbert,” the boy replied without concern), left his house, opened the mailbox, grabbed the package inside, and then stopped to stare wistfully at the sky for his daily round of introspection.
As usual, but this time with a genuine cause – though he wasn’t to know it yet – he got the feeling that this was going to be a long day.
John reentered the house, greeted Dave again (“Dave,” he said; “Egbert,” the boy replied with even less concern) ascended the stairs, stepped on the same cake, reentered his room, opened the package, popped the enclosed disc into his computer, and activated Pesterchum in order to message his friend Dave Strider, who of course lived hundreds of miles away and who he had never seen before.
There was a problem with this. John thought about this for a moment, and then a moment later had descended the precarious flight of stairs again with practiced awkwardness and stumbling.
“Dave?” he said incredulously to the boy at the table, who was wearing a familiar pair of shades and an unfamiliar set of red pajamas, and was eating cereal with something that was definitely not milk.
“Egbert,” replied Dave for a third time and with the least concern of all, flipping the pages of a newspaper that was clearly upside-down - a fact of which John knew the other boy was painfully aware.
“Do you, um,” flailed John, “want to explain anything? To me? Uh, right now?”
“Dude you’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”