The World's Word

This is the World’s Word, a collection of stories about a girl, who the World knows as Catalyst, that has the power of the World itself on her side. Not all of the stories will make sense, you may have to read inbetween the lines, and many will be as much of a mystery as when you start the story. You take over from there.

If you enjoy The World’s Word, I suggest you have a look at the other side to these stories: Fate’s Reliance, which is Order’s collection of stories.

The first story is the same in both collections, it is the mutual introduction to these two and the world they live in.

Enjoy!

At the start, there are two.

“You aren’t random, you are chosen. Both of you are."

A girl, with the world on her side, literally. She has the World’s Word. But she’s just a girl.

A boy, the only person immune to the World’s Word. Fate relies on him. But he’s just a boy.

Their names? Well, the World calls them two specific names. It does not know them by any other.

The girl. Excited and eager, she wants more than what she has even if she has it all. She doesn’t think high enough of herself, and idolizes every being. She knows what a miracle life and humanity is. She understands the importance of the World, and everything that resides inside of it. The World gives her its word, and she understands. She understands its power. She understands its drawbacks. She understands its importance.

She is powerful. She has her drawbacks, and she has an importance, like every being in this World. The World gives her its word, and she uses it.

She gets angry, like every being in this world. She fights, for life, for herself, for the boy. For the World.

She makes mistakes, like every being in this world. Her anxiety gets the best of her, she draws nothing but the negatives with every mistake.

Her biggest enemy is herself. Like every being in this world.

The boy. Watchful, considerate, and caring. He wants nothing but the best, every scribbled line in life to eventually even out to a single, smooth, and happy line. He understands the importance of health, the need for happiness. The World knows him, it gives him its approval. The World will never control nor influence the boy, he is in control of his life, like the girl is in control of hers.

He understands the World’s Word is a hefty weight, and slides half onto his own shoulder. He is human.

He gets overwhelmed, and stressed when his articulated and careful plans fail. He is human.

He hides himself, but doesn’t realize she sees him. He shines through, straight to her, like a star in a dark night sky. He is human.

His biggest enemy is himself. He is human.

The World knows them as Catalyst and Order.

A Save that would change Everything.

“She was lonely. Fate didn’t like that.”

A single pair of light, gray eyes, their sparkle having faded. She sat on a lonely bench, the only people around being two dog walkers. The hope, the usual spark, the wonder in her eyes had all been missing over the last few slow weeks. It had only been three, yet it felt like a lifetime to those watching gray eyes. Hopeless, her gaze was fixated into the distance, looking at something way past reality. Her thoughts swirled, her vision blurry, her hands clenched. Usually, the downfall would be soothing - but right now, it was simply background noise. A shaky breath surprised her, until she realized that it was her own. Too much had happened, her memories too heavy with agony. Footsteps, it was just a nearby dog-walker. A lady, she noted, but that was all.

The footsteps stopped behind her. “Are you okay?” Sounded a kind voice.

The girl looked at the lady. “I… I am, thank you.”

“There’s a church nearby, they will happily take you in. Or, you can go to the cafe, I’m sure they’ll let you sit in there.” The Lady responded.

The girl’s eyes showed a small, but certain gleam of personality. She was human, afterall.

“Thank you, I’m just… going through a rough time. It’ll be over soon.” The girl said.

“As long as you’re okay. If you need anything, I’ll be walking my pup around here maybe once or twice more.” The Lady said. This made sense. The field in front of them was only small, hardly big enough for one lap to be a good dog walk.

“Thank you.” The girl responded.

The Lady carried on with her walk, and the girl never lost that gleam of personality. Even the next time she was on a bench, hopeless, undetermined. The Lady stuck around in her mind.

She had restored her hope.

It was like a prison of her own mind’s making, she knew now. Her mind traps her, she can’t escape it. Either she's stuck in her delusion, a world only she sees, to escape, to not see the sadness and agony she feels. Or she’s trapped in a constant reminder of everything that’s wrong, though as she leant more into her delusion she felt this less. Hope was what she clung to, but at the times she’d lost her grip, she fell harder than she would have if she was free. She needed her delusion, it stopped moments like this.

She never revisited that bench, she vowed not to.

The single pair of gray eyes, once again hopeless, once again having lost their sparkle. Now a familiar feeling. A pair of footsteps, darker eyes approaching. She was watching the pond, again on a bench on a dog walk, yet a very different place.

“The ponds are nice, hm?”

The girl looks up. It's a boy, a light-haired boy with a kind voice. Just like the woman.

“Pardon?” She says. Not because she didn’t hear him, more out of wonder for his reason for talking to her.

She noticed, he also had kind eyes.

The boy chuckles, his smile also kind. Understanding. He looks at the ponds, the look of understanding now completely evident the second the girl realized it was there.

“You need to keep going.” The boy responds.

The girl stares at him for a moment, before he continues to talk.

“You can join me, if you’d like. Something to do.” He says, looking down at her, meeting her eyes. “A nice walk.”

Once again, the girl stares at him, but stands up. She takes his offer without a sound, and they begin to walk.

What the boy didn’t know is that the girl he’d just saved from her own mind would be the one girl he’d never be able to part from, even if he tried. He felt like he needed to invite her to walk, he didn’t know why. It was the best decision that could have possibly been made.

“A nice walk.” The girl whispers, repeating his words as they walk.

The boy simply smiles, a sigh of comfort leaving him.

At that moment, the World understood. A Catalyst cannot exist without Order. That would be a Cataclysm to the World and everything that exists around it.

The girl was the World’s choice, and the boy was Fate’s counter to the imbalance of power.

The Prophecy

“Your fate will come, not by foe, but by friend.”

They walked in silence. Footsteps irregular, confusion on their faces, with a clear hint of fear.

“Well, that was bullshit.” Catalyst finally cut into the silence.

“Mhm.” Order agreed, half-heartedly.

“By my mates? Nah. I’ll go by somethin’ stupid, like jumping off the top of a building.” Catalyst shrugged, returning to her normal nonchalant attitude.

“That wouldn’t surprise me, you’d probably be trying to fly.” Order rolled his eyes.

Catalyst grinned at Order. “I’d convince you to come with me. Double-suicide.”

Order sighed, the smile he held seconds ago still evident in his fake disappointment. “No suicide, just you trying to fly and me risking my life to save you. Like every day.”

“You say that like I jump off buildings everyday.”

“You practically do.”

“No, I jump off the high hill of sanity.” Catalyst reached up, apparently to prove the point of the hill being high.

“This is why I don’t stay around you.” Order complained. “You don’t make sense.”

“And I avoid you. And yet, fate seems to keep us together.”

The Consequences

"All actions have consequences, sometimes ones others have to fix.”

The world that Catalyst and Order lived in was… certainly different to the one that you know as your own. It has had a different story of events from around the year 2015 and onwards, and consequently, a lot has changed. You may even call it dystopian.

Catalyst, on this particular day, had decided to go and pay Order a visit to talk to him about his impending government position - well, that was what he liked to call it. In reality, Catalyst knew that his new job wasn’t just a ‘government position’; Order was soon going to be known as the first government-recognised superhero.

Cat found this rather funny. A person in the real world was actually going to become a superhero, her best friend nonetheless. Superheroes are going to be real, and it was Order that was going to start that trend. She could just see the social media videos about him already.

With a huff, Cat steps up onto Order’s doorstep, knocking on the door in her little signature way. She liked to be known.

“Hello? Oh, it’s just you.” Order answers as he opens the door, which gains a small pout from Catalyst.

“What a pleasant greeting mate, thanks,” Cat responds with an eyeroll.

Order smiles. “Come on, get your ass in, you absolute turnip.”

Catalyst allows herself to laugh at that one, the only thought in her mind being ‘How is this the man that’s bringing Superheroes into reality?’

“Anything you want in particular, redhead?’ Order cuts into Cat’s thoughts. “Not like you to show up unannounced- or, at all, for that matter.”

Sitting down on his sofa, Cat smiles at him. “Hey, I don’t always have time to be getting your ass outta stupid situations. I always come when needed, though.”

“True.” Order nods, waiting for her to continue.

“I came today ‘cuz you’re gonna become a literal superhero.” She smiles. “I wanna know how it’s gonna work.”

Order sighs a little. “Yeah, I knew this conversation was gonna happen. I don’t understand why you always give the credit to me, because now I’m going to be the legally recognised superhero and you’re the one with the actual power. It’s exactly what I told you would happen, dumbass.”

“You dwell on the past too much,” She teases, before deciding to be a little more serious. “I don’t want to be known, you know this. For safety, first of all, for both us and the people around us. I can’t deal with that much pressure - that’s why you’re who you are to me. You’re the thing that keeps me together.”

Order’s grin widens, which earns a groan from Catalyst, and he cuts her off as she was about to speak, knowing it would be a comment about his ego. “I know, I know, but like you said, I exist. You’d be able to deal with it with me there, right? Plus, you never know, you might surprise yourself.”

“I don’t want to risk that.” Catalyst says quickly. “But also, imagine the government seeing the actual power that exists? They just think you have some sort of telepathy power, and they’re giving you the government position to keep you under their control. It’s already bad enough that they’re doing that to keep you from turning against them just for telepathy, imagine if they found out the actual power that exists? Complete control over reality won’t exactly slide with people who need to be in control of everything. Look at how different the world is now, they’d do anything to keep control over everything as they have it. And, nevermind our government, the responses from every other country would be way worse. They’re already pissed England is gaining a superhero, they’d fuckin’ nuke us if they knew about me.”

After a moment, Order responds with a chuckle. “…Okay, understood. I sometimes forget you can be clever.”

“Excuse you,” Catalyst crosses her arms. “I think the way it should work would be to set up a way for you to be able to contact me no matter where you are or what you’re doing.”

“…You mean like a phone?” Order asks, slightly confused.

“No you muppet. Imagine trying to use your phone whilst the opposition has you tied up; no, it has to be something you can always access.”

“Like what? I don’t actually have telepathy, you know.”

“Yeah I know that much dingbat. I’m talking about attempting to use the Word to link us in some sort of way that would make it so we know when the other needs help. Like, knowing each other’s panic levels or emotions or some shit.”

“Emotions.” Order decides quickly. “Perfect for both of us, you’d know when I’m in trouble and I'd know when you- uh, need me.”

Cat smiles at Order’s choice of words. He knows she hates that she’s so prone to losing control. “Okay, good decision. Now I just have to figure out how to make it work logically, but that shouldn’t be too hard…”

As Catalyst goes into thought, sorting out how to make a link between the two work logically, they hear something come into earshot outside. Voices. Many, shouting voices. Protesting voices, angry voices, voices full of loss.

“...that sounds an awful lot like a Consequence.” Catalyst whispers.

Order looks at her. “What?”

She looks up at him, making sudden eye contact. “A Consequence. The government changing everything has its consequences, and that sounds like one of them.”