[001] - The Day of Realization

 First, a preface, this blog is for a continuous record of a writing challenge on the Writing Prompts subreddit on reddit.com.  It's goal is to write daily.  As the writing I've done so far has been on paper instead of the computer, it will initially appear that I'm behind (as I've not yet typed those written word up yet).  This first entry is a response to an older prompt (http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/1ra74f/wp_everything_was_normal_in_this_world_but_today/), which in simple terms, asked to describe the world 50 years after fictional characters appeared on Earth.

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    50 years ago, the world went to shit.  Some might argue it had already started down that path, but the Day of Realization changed the world irrevocably and almost instantly for the worse.  Of course, I don't have to tell you that--you're living in this world, too.  Even if you hadn't been born at the time, you have to admit our current living situation is far from ideal.  Hell, if you weren't around at the time, you're part of the problem and your damned parents likely broke the law to have you, regardless of what a paragon of morality you might have turned out to be.  I digress.  I'm supposed to be looking back, not angrily ranting about how we now live.  If you knew how things were before, you'd do the same.

    No one would ever have thought it possible, and I'm sure in the initial days some of us might have thought the events of the day could only have existed in our imaginations.  Not a day goes by that I don't wish they had stayed there.  But here I go again, assuming you have some knowledge already of the events.  I'm supposed to be writing an account of my recollection of events, not about my feelings stemming from their consequences.

    The Day of Realization.  The day every fictional character ever conceived popped into out reality.  No one knows what caused it, and no one ever thought of a feasible theory for how it happened.  It initially caused some moments of awe and excitement, but reality quickly set in.  Now, there wasn't an abundance of chaos from wanton battles between superhumans or the like, but the effects, in my opinion, were so much worse.

    Sure, the characters had come into our world, so you might expect them to try and exert their obvious dominance over us, but our world remained bound by the same rules it always had. Things that were impossible remained impossible. Some entities died immediately in the transition to our world whereas others merely went insane.  I shouldn't have said merely--that implies they caused little trouble, which is far from the truth.  Whatever damage they caused did help (in an admittedly infinitesimal way) with the major problem that arose from their arrival: the sudden, dramatic, and catastrophic increase in the world's population.

    When I previously said every fictional character came into our world, you probably assumed that was just every main (or if you're smarter, maybe even just every named) character.  You'd be wrong.  Any individual depicted in any media came through.  Crowds on streets in movies, comics, all the nameless background people that served as scenery to sell a particular scene.  Populations of entire cities that hadn't even existed before.  All of them came.

    Whatever caused the Realization did an admirable job of avoiding overlap, but it didn't succeed entirely.  You may already have seen some of the grotesqueries that happened when one or more fictional characters materialized within preexisting objects or individuals, but if you haven't, I don't recommend you seek them out.  Instead, look for the amusing instances of people's doppelgangers meeting each other.

    That, reader, is why I previously judged you for being part of the problem.  Once the world governments realized just how severe the new overpopulation problem was, they set severe penalties for any unauthorized new births.  Some went further, launching genocides and slaughters, and that wasn't limited to the countries where one would expect that sort of action.  They justified the killings by stating the new additions to our world weren't real, but they cried out in pain, panic, and fear just like any of us.  Nor did it seem like those responsible for the exterminations made much of an attempt to separate the newcomers from those of us that have always resided here, and in the few instances where they tried, those previously fictional people were often protected fiercely by those already here.

    As you must be aware, their efforts had little impact.  People, like all creatures are driven to reproduce.  Mandatory sterilization dictates were imposed, but the governments had already started to collapse and lacked the ability to enforce their laws.  Each individual was forced to rely on themselves for their own survival.  Somehow, we've managed to eke out an existence, but it's far from pleasant.

    Cramped and dirty slums, no real food to be had anywhere.  Just this limited supply of synthetic, bland, textureless crap with the bare minimum of nutrients required for survival.  I'd kill for a nice, juicy steak again.  I know a number of people who have, but the steak they got isn't any steak I'd be willing to eat, as it certainly didn't come from any sort of cattle, if you catch my drift.

    The overpopulation crisis was just the worst of it, and the driving factor that brought the world down.  Certain aspects of fictional characters carried through, mostly those plausible enough to fit within the known natural laws of the universe.  So we saw a good share of plague carriers, some exceptionally twisted serial killers, some genius-level intellects that created goods that caused trouble (as well as some for the greater good).  I won't even go into the details of the religious wars that started when self-proclaimed gods and the like appeared with the rest.

    If you were smart (or even just lucky), you partnered with one of the more talented of those that came over and hadn't gone insane.  Whether it be physical prowess from the likes of a Batman or Jason Statham type character or the more cerebral a la Moriarty or similar manipulators, they remained key to surviving without too much harm.  Even so, it could never be described as easy, and far from guaranteed.  I'm only alive now because of the sacrifice of the man who befriended me and the skills and intuitions he passed along.  The Doctor was quite intelligent, if a bit exuberant and quick to rush into danger.  I'd half expected him to bounce back to life after saving me based on what little of his history I'd learned, but sadly he did not.

    I'm not really sure what else to say at this point.  The world has gone to shit, an overpopulated dirty globe hanging in orbit around the sun.  Those on the surface are struggling the best we can to get by.  I'd imagine that those from fiction who inhabited extraterran domains received shocking, if quick deaths as out world lacked whatever physical bases they'd had in their own worlds (assuming their worlds even existed in ours in the first place).  Fiction did not become reality, as many had optimistically hoped.  No, only the denizens of the land of fiction crossed over, and the nightmare that caused hasn't stopped since.

    In any case, if anybody could undo the Day of Realization, I'm certain they would do so in a heartbeat.  We as humans are too stubborn to give into this hardship, though I'm sure that one day, blessed relief will come for each of us.  I've never been a religious man, so I'm even less certain now of what will happen at that point, but it will certainly trump this current existence.