Darkness. Chaos.

It is dimly aware of Its existence, no different than the rest of the primordial entropy that comprises Its universe.

Suddenly, after what could be an eternity or a single instant, the universe begins to change around It.

Matter forms itself from the fathomless anarchy, far away from and all around and inside It all at once as reality weaves itself into a comprehensible form.

And then, as if waking from sleep…

It exists.

It blinks with Its beady eyes, both new and unfathomably old, stretching the newly-formed limbs of its quadrupedal body, acclimating Itself to Its new existence.

Objects float in the void around It, It notices, while also resting upon the solid surface It Itself stands upon.

Several of these objects, standing upright upon the ground, yet fully two-dimensional, are words.

It cannot read the words- for It does not think- but It grasps their meaning all the same:

"Wall is STOP".

"Rock is PUSH".

"Flag is WIN".

It understands these simple phrases to be rules, although It does not understand why.

There is a fourth phrase, though, that puzzles It.

"BaBa is YOU".

It feels a connection to the word "BaBa". The word "YOU", though, confuses It. Though It understands its definition, there is an underlying meaning to the word, an unfathomable truth that Its mind fails to grasp.

As a result, It abandons its pondering, and touches the flag.

After a short while on what It discovers to be an island, there are two, and only two, constants It has learned.

It knows that It is called BaBa, and the corresponding word refers to It.

It also knows that nothing on the island is as it seems.

Space does not work as it should on the island.

The integrity of the fabric of reality is tenuous, folding in places, twisting in others.

A small cave is revealed to be the entrance to a sprawling forest, lush with greenery, yet utterly silent.

A pond is discovered to be not a pond, but a lake the size of a small sea, with a solitary island resting at its center.

Within these pockets of space, the areas forsaken by Euclidean geometry, there are the vortexes.

They stand out against the landscape, great tears in the fabric of space and time, reality's protest made manifest.

Within the rifts, the world is as it was before, composed of arbitrary objects controlled by disembodied words.

And it is within the vortexes, where the universe is at its simplest, that BaBa learns to twist the fabric of reality in ways It had not thought possible.

It makes a boulder HOT, using it to MELT a river of skulls into bubbling sludge.

It makes lava PUSH, rolling up a roiling pool of magma as easily as a carpet.

It transforms the stone bricks of a mighty fortress into thousands of copies of itself, which quickly topple under their own weight.

It also learns of the importance of YOU, and the nature of Its dependence upon it. Anything that is YOU, BaBa discovers, is imbued with life, much like BaBa itself. Skulls, wooden crates, even the words that define reality itself, spring into life upon being made YOU.

Without a word to give it purpose, however, BaBa is inert, a lifeless husk. To BaBa, however, this is of little import.

Arranging the fibers of reality just so, BaBa learns, positioning them within the void like thread upon a loom, possesses the power to weave reality back together, rifts mending as easily as cloth.

Sealing all the rifts within a dimensional pocket will cause it to collapse, and a great lotus to grow in its place, its stem stretching up, up, up into the clouds, so high one might expect a golden goose to reside atop it.

BaBa has no true reason for Its quest. However, It feels an urge deep within Itself, a call from beyond the fringes of reality, driving It to solve puzzles and seal the rifts. It chooses to act on this urge, traveling far and wide across the island, sealing vortexes wherever It goes.

But suddenly, after countless vortexes sealed, countless puzzles solved, countless mysteries unraveled- an eldritch secret is uncovered, an abominable truth discovered, that flips Its entire outlook on its head.

It has been several weeks since BaBa was first born.

BaBa is mired in yet another vortex in a seemingly endless procession, busily tweaking the intricate fibers of the universe to suit Its needs.

It comes more easily to BaBa now, shifting existence around It.

Its mind is a machine, precise and methodical, steadily and persistently dissecting the mysteries of the island.

It pushes words with practiced efficiency, navigating through complex sequences of phrases and actions like a spider weaving its web.

It finishes Its task, feeling the familiar sensation of gravity going haywire around It as It is hurled from the void and the vortex closes behind It.

It is back on the island, as It has come to expect, standing in a field pockmarked with the wormholes.

However, before It can enter another, there is something that gives It pause.

The earth is rumbling around It.

It only has time to register this before a new vortex tears itself open.

It happens suddenly, without fanfare.

The earth simply caves in, a new gash being ripped in the fabric of existence before BaBa's eyes.

The resulting rift is odd, however, seeming to resonate with a powerful sense of foreboding.

Nevertheless, BaBa fearlessly takes the plunge.

The vortex's interior is much like the others- clusters of words and assorted detritus within the void.

One of the words, however, stands out amidst the clutter- one that, for the second time in Its short life, leaves BaBa confused.

"LEVEL".

BaBa does not understand. Although "YOU" confused It as well once upon a time- and the word's true meaning still eludes It- its clear purpose and effect on its surroundings made its use easy to grasp. This new word, however, lies dormant, clearly separated from its brothers, leaving its nature an enigma.

Overtaken by curiosity, BaBa sets to work implementing it into a phrase. It pilfers a spare "IS" from a completed phrase nearby, brings the word "LEVEL" over to the phrase declaring BaBa's own existence, arranges the words to read "LEVEL is BaBa"...

….and it is there that things stop making sense.

The change is instantaneous, but no less bizarre despite it.

In one moment, the vortex is collapsing around BaBa, the ether shuddering as the nature of its very existence is altered.

In the next, BaBa is back on the island, blinking bewilderedly at terrain that suddenly seems much smaller than before.

The magnitude of what BaBa has just done slowly dawns upon It. Presumably, It has transformed the vortex into a massive duplicate of Itself.

"LEVEL is BaBa", indeed.

It spends the next hour or so playing, elated by Its new stature.

As It wades through ocean water that comes up to only Its knees, however, It comes upon something that stops It in Its tracks.

There, half-submerged in the inky brine and as large as BaBa Itself, stand two phrases.

"BaBa is YOU".

"Flag is WIN".

BaBa is utterly dumbfounded. As far as It knows, it should not be possible for words to appear

on the island. Yet here they are, as plain as day.

...It briefly wonders what would happen were It to "WIN" the island.

It removes the word "FLAG" from "FLAG is WIN", uses the remaining two words to declare Itself "WIN", and…

...is promptly launched to the skies, flying off into the wild blue yonder.

BaBa is launched unceremoniously upward, catching a brief glimpse of the infinite before suddenly being left gazing up at an unfamiliar sky.

Gravity takes hold once again, BaBa landing spread-eagle on foreign ground.

It has landed on a new island.

The gargantuan landform is easily twice the size of the original island and shaped like a massive flower, its terrain stained a deep, floral magenta.

Behind BaBa sits another vortex, slightly larger than its brethren, the island visible at the bottom.

What also draws BaBa's attention, however, is the massive, yawning chasm occupying the face of the flower-island.

The pit appears to be bottomless, extending down, down, down into the earth with no end in sight.

Something beckons to BaBa from the depths, however- faint, yet very present.

It is a feeling akin to the call that has brought BaBa thus far, the urge that has driven It here.

So It throws caution to the wind and takes the plunge, diving headfirst into the unknown.

Its journey quickly descends into madness.

The pit is, in fact, no simple chasm, but instead the gateway to the framework of existence itself, each subsequent layer more twisted than the last.

The words are the only constant on these bizarre planes, a feeble beacon of order against the sea of chaos.

And it is here, where reason means nothing and sense is an inhibiting factor, that BaBa questions everything It knows about the world at large.

One level of reality is wholly empty, leaving BaBa to hunt for the exit.

Another forces BaBa to write its own rules, arranging massive letters to form words.

One particularly warped layer is nothing more than a massive vortex with vortexes held within it, objects and words existing alongside the blemishes peppering the void.

Logic, order, even reality itself is degrading.

But still, BaBa perseveres.

It burrows through the twisted tunnels of existence, manipulating the mangled remnants of reality in ways that make its head spin, peeling the increasingly- distorted layers of reality away like an onion.

The corruption worsens as BaBa delves deeper, all it has ever learned, all It has ever known, falling away, dissolving as it dives deeper, deeper, deeper-

And suddenly, everything ends.

After layers upon layers of worsening lunacy, reality falling apart around It, BaBa is suddenly met with darkness, gravity finally failing as the ground disappears from under Its feet.

BaBa has reached the bottom, It knows- the core of reality itself.

Here at the end, there is next to nothing.

A few clumps of debris- the last remnants of what was once the universe- floating listlessly through the void.

A few final words serving as the last feeble thread holding reality together.

A single word, however, stands out from the others.

"DONE".

The word does not resonate like "YOU", or hum with power like "LEVEL". It simply gives off an aura of… nothing at all, and it is this property that seems to hold power in and of itself- far greater than the likes of any word BaBa has encountered before.

It is a vacuum given form, a complete absence of anything that hungers for all existence.

It is not an object or entity, but an inevitable force.

It is the end.

BaBa does not think. YOU is the only thing gifting It with a consciousness. But deep within the heart of Its being, it knows this is what has called it here.

And it knows what it must do.

It sets to work, furiously working the last tattered scraps of reality around it.

It loses itself in its work, time losing its meaning as it pushes words, arranges phrases, shifts debris, steadily untangling what it knows is the last puzzle it will ever solve.

The final word snaps into place.

"ALL is DONE".

The effect is instantaneous.

A deafening explosion, loud enough to instantly rob anyone with ears of their hearing, sounds throughout the void as the universe finally reaches its event horizon.

Gravity goes haywire, the surface of reality cracking apart under the strain.

All that exists on the face of reality is annihilated, crushed and decompressed and torn apart by gravity, blasted with unfathomable heat and unyielding cold, their atoms returning to the dross.

The lower levels of reality begin to dissolve, nothing exempt from the breakdown.

BaBa does not hear it, but instead feels it, an earthquake shaking existence itself, the collapse not having reached the Center yet, but the shockwave tremendous enough to be felt across dimensions.

And yet…

It is not afraid.

In moments, the end is upon It.

The abyss pours in like water infiltrating a submarine, crushing all that remains under the weight of the unfathomable, leaving only destruction in its wake.

Words and objects alike are torn apart by the encroaching entropy, the order they represent dissolving with them.

Space envelops BaBa, smothering It within its deadly embrace, the compression of all that ever was propelling the void to impossible temperatures in its final moments.

And BaBa ceases to be YOU, Its sense of self finally fading as its atoms are rent asunder and it too returns to chaos.

All characters belong to Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari, creator of 2019 video game BaBa is YOU.

BaBa is YOU, in turn, belongs to Hempuli.