[ IP ] Nebulous Nightmares [ x-post from /r/creepy ]

We thought we knew everything about the universe. Heh. That's a little funny, in retrospect. Not only how wrong we were, but how cliched that sentence is. A little terrifying, too. You'll understand why in a bit. 
 
 How proud we were of ourselves! Faster than light travel had been accomplished. We had absolute spatial and temporal control; the laws of the universe bent before our might. We could assemble objects from virtually nothing and annihilate them just as quickly, harness the energy of the very stars. We were gods of our own personal little worlds. 
 
 We did n't notice it when things first started to change - nothing threatened us, not anymore, so why bother looking? The thought that there was something new happening did n't even cross our minds. Small errors and miscalculations were dismissed as simple mistakes, malfunctioning equipment was attributed to minor mechanical faults. Nothing to worry about. 
 
 But things became worse, see. Fifty years. The errors became too big to ignore, not only because of the problems it caused, but because of how blatant they were. There was a day when two plus two equalled five, heh. 
 
 We could count to four just fine, but we could n't add two and two to get it. Can you imagine? Look at your own fingers. Raise two fingers on each hand and put them together, and try to imagine, just for a second, what it would be like if a fifth finger manifested between your hands, and your brain tells you your hands have always been like that - until you take your fingers apart. 
 
 Heh. Not easy, is it? 
 
 We did n't understand what was happening - not until we got a call from fifty light years away that showed us a picture of our planet. The nebulae around us had changed - they're humanoid, now. Alive, hell if I know how. 
 
 You know what's the bad part? That's what our planet looked like fifty years ago. We do n't know what they're doing now, and our communications and ships have n't worked since we got that message. All we know is that things are getting worse. Everything is breaking down around us. We do n't follow the same rules anymore. 
 
 That's why I'm a little afraid of cliches. Heh. Who's to say those things do n't take inspiration from stories, after all? 
 
 I'll be right back. There's a little rabbit here that says he's late.
