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Cyber Space: The Creation

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of heavy drug use, smoking, suicide, transphobia, and other triggering topics. If this is something that upsets you, please do not read.

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“The fire… it burns, daddy… It really burns…” The voice of a little girl echoed in a dark background. She had no face, wore a pink dress, ballet shoes and held a teddy bear. Around her was fire, and above her was a woman, presumably the person’s wife. The woman wore a green dress and black high heels.

“Why did you push us in, Barney? Why did you do it? Why didn’t you save us…? Why did you let us burn…?” The woman spoke, the flames slowly starting to consume the two. The little girl screamed out in agony, fading to black. A spotlight appeared over a grandfather clock that endlessly chimed. In the background, a voice echoed like a demon’s voice.

“You ran out of time, Barney. Your inventions keep failing… Soon, you’ll die and no one will remember who you are. Just like what you did to me… But I’ll always stay around…” The demon spoke, the hands of the shadow-y demon grabbing the pendulum. The voice cackled, an old phonograph playing a song. The song was specifically “I Don’t Want To Set The World on Fire” by The Ink Spots. “You’ll one day burn just like you burned us.”

Jolting awake, Barney breathed heavily as he looked at himself. His radio was playing the song from his dreams, likely why he dreamed of the song. Sighing, he turned the radio off and got out of bed. As he stepped down the stairs, he entered the kitchen and made himself eggs and coffee, reading the newspaper. His expression was blank, he had no emotions. After the death of his wife and daughter, he grew cold to the world. The only reason Barney pushed in his wife and daughter was because he didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t, this shadow would have consumed him. The shadow of something from his past. This shadow always lurked, or so he thought.

Years ago, he had a friend (and coworker) who died in a horrific house fire. He tried saving his friend but couldn’t. Barney suffered grave injuries and burns on his left arm, forcing him to have it amputated. His grief caused him so much suffering, he started seeing things. One of the things he always saw was a shadow figure of his friend. He would often talk to this friend, but the friend never spoke back. His coworkers slowly drifted from him, thinking he was insane. He was later tested for schizophrenia, which they would later come to find out was true, given his massive hallucinations. He denied having it, continuing to act like this was completely normal.

Barney continued throughout his research on things. His endless sketches, the amount of overtime in the office. Some nights he never even left the office, clocking in days of work. This resulted in him being paid less, unfortunately. The company he worked for were scums wanting his precious money. This led to Barney getting way more aggressive. He felt like he was being treated poorly, which he was.

Regardless of anything, Barney worked for hours in an attempt to figure out a new invention that would save not just him from the mental stress he was having but also to save his family from debt. He needed a new idea, even if it took inspiration from local companies.

His company, Dead Bolt Inc, rivaled a local tech company known as The Red Vault. Their CEO was also a complete jerk, but one of the workers, Barney constantly rivaled. This guy went by Isaac. Isaac was a prick and wasn’t afraid to do anything to get his way. He was snobby, and was also a millionaire. He picked on those who were dirt poor, broke and didn’t have much. He hated minorities as well, which was the main issue for Barney. Isaac was also a racist guy, hating people of color. This rubbed Barney the wrong way, and he wanted to do something about it. However, this was the norm back then, given that people of color were very hated back in the 40’s. Barney knew that, if given the chance, he would not hesitate to end Isaac’s life. He took people being hateful towards others very seriously and lost any and all respect for those who hated minority groups.

The Red Vault ended up making prototypes of computers of sorts, using them frequently in their offices for work purposes. The internet was also gradually becoming a thing, but for businesses typically. Barney wanted to have a chance to be able to do what he had been dreaming of doing. So, he began working hard on this project. A project that allowed people to enter the fabrics between reality and the digital world. All it took was 1.21 gigawatts, xen crystals (or close replicas, topaz works just fine) and something to hold both the electricity and crystals, preferably a teleporter contraption.

Presentation day came to present all inventions to the CEOs of local companies, which is where Barney is now. Walking to Dead Bolt Inc, he entered the building and headed to his office on the ninth floor. Barney had prepared himself for this, staying up tirelessly to prepare and make sure everything was correct. The blueprints of the place on his computer, the months he spent working tirelessly.

In the lobby, once everyone was called down at around 11am, everyone showed off what they had been working on. The CEO of Dead Bolt Inc reviewed his project and laughed, thinking it was something absolutely useless. But Isaac grew jealous of what Barney had created. He needed to replicate that exactly as it was. Isaac wanted his boss to give him a raise that would pay him triple what he was being paid already, which was $100 an hour.

While Barney wasn’t looking, Isaac grabbed his creation and took it to his office in Red Vault after setting a secret small fire in the lobby of Dead Bolt Inc. Fire alarms blared as the flame quickly grew to an inferno, taking multiple innocent lives. When Barney saw his project missing, he knew exactly who was behind it. As Barney made his way to Red Vault, he snuck in and managed to start a secret fire in the vent shafts. The sound of the fire began to spark up a bit as Barney made his way upwards to Isaac’s office spot. There, Barney stood with a knife to Isaac’s neck.

“Why the Hell did you steal my project you coward?” Barney asked, pressing the knife in Isaac’s neck, a bit of blood spewing out and getting onto Isaac’s $1,000 suit. (Which, in 2025 would be about $23,000.) Isaac laughed, glaring up at Barney. “Oh so you think this is funny now, huh? You really think this is a joke?”

“The only joke here is a poor man telling a rich man what to do. I stole your project so I could become richer and better than you. Just admit it, I’m far better than you’ll ever be. You’re just a useless, lowlife minority who deserves nothing. You belong rotting while us rich make money from people like you. Even if we steal from you, you know it’s-” Before Isaac could finish, Barney held a revolver up to Isaac’s head, then pulled the trigger as blood splattered everywhere.

“I really hate people like this… This type of rich people do nothing but make poor people like me poorer and are usually blatantly racist… Glad he isn’t my problem anymore.” Barney, grabbing his teleporter, setting it down as he warped into Cyber Space for the first time. His body felt electric, like he was being shocked a million times over. Around him almost looked like an LSD trip, which felt funny but the feeling was over once he appeared on an empty highway. The grass was a bright green and the sun shined everywhere. There were already some huge buildings but nothing crazy.

Barney waited for years for someone to join him. But no one did. He waited for years in the land, living a normal life for once. His past slowly faded, and he finally was thinking straight for once. However, Barney could sense something was horribly wrong, like he missed something. Below the grounds, Isaac existed, now going by Psycho. Isaac became the Shadow Overlord. And here, Psycho would do anything to have his music top this universe’s charts. If he couldn’t exist in reality, he would exist here and bring in new people. People who needed a sense of something.

Barney slowly became an alien-like creature of pure flames that burned eternally, wanting to protect his land until he couldn’t. Once the documents were discovered for getting to Cyber Space, they flooded the internet with articles showing how to get there. Teens in need or adults with troubles entered the world, taking refuge in this new universe where they could be themselves freely. Then… came Darrius. Darrius was the first one of the bunch down in Cyber Space. Barney gave Darrius a few tips on what to do and told him how the universe was in danger, and how he needed to protect it - by recruiting musicians to work for a music group under his lead. From then on, Barney was known as Burney, and Darrius would end up getting paid loads from Burney. Then came Jay soon after Darrius, followed by the rest of the gang.