Consultation 109.

“Long, long ago... in a distant land… there existed an ancient civilization.”

“Humans.”

“They referred to themselves as such and lived in a land they called Earth, the planet that neighbors our own. They named the land we were born on, Mars.”

“Humans were once known to be a prosperous species with a high ability to adapt and create tools useful to survive. They thrived on their planet at the top of the food chain and built up countless large structures in their rise to prominence.”

“Buildings, as they called them, towered high up into the sky.”

“Boxes, they called vehicles, drove them unimaginable distances to their destinations. “

“Planes, as they so named them, soared high through the skies. “

“Boats, let them sail the seven seas.”

“Submarines, allowed them to navigate through the abyssal blue.”

“The only things we know about them is just how amazing they once were. Though they had internal conflicts amongst themselves, those conflicts allowed them to continue to advance.”

“However, one day, they just mysteriously disappeared. The records we discovered do not go into any specifics of what happened to them. Did they go extinct on Earth? Was Earth struck by a large mass? Did they perhaps find success and venture out deep into the confines of space through the futuristic methods they prophesied? Those fantastical journeys of fiction through space on spaceships equipped with warp drives?”

“All of that is still unknown to us, the forgotten ones.”

“The only thing we know is, we were given life on mother Mars thanks to them. For which we are naturally thankful.”

“How did humans come into being? It is a question both they and we wonder. But unlike their mysterious origins, we know the story of our own birth.” 

“They left behind countless things for us, including how we came to be. The origin of our lives began with a whimsical experiment left unobserved which inevitably spanned millions of years. Despite the lengthy time it spanned, it was a very simple experiment. It was as simple as transporting microscopic organisms from their planet to ours.”

“It all started with what they called Cyanobacteria. They were introduced to change the atmosphere on this planet over time from a barren desolate one into one that resembled the homeworld described in great detail in the records they left us. The atmospheric pressure back then was a bit too low for water to exist in liquid form, so humans postulated if they found a way to slightly alter the atmospheric pressure, the planet could one day be completely rejuvenated to what they believed it looked like billions of years ago when water was bountiful on Mars.”

“Though, the only problem being, they knew it would take a very long time for that to happen. As that was the case, they simply set things up, let things run their natural course, and finally… forgot about us. Instead of trying to force things along and inhabit the barren rock Mars once was, they opted to let things proceed as part of a natural experiment.”

“Yes, the records they left behind explained all of this and more. Many mysteries were answered when we stumbled upon the great Computer with all this information.”

“Through this Computer, they gifted intelligent life on our planet a huge advantage which allowed us to advance by leaps and bounds. They left for us their language, the most important means to communicate and pass down information from one generation to the next. In addition, they left behind all the knowledge we required to thrive, everything they knew in various branches of maths and sciences. They even left behind knowledge of their follies, the greatest mistakes they made.”

“But… while we had all this knowledge, and solved the mystery behind our own existence, they simultaneously left us one of the greatest unsolved mysteries.”

“That is…”

“The mystery of what happened to them.”

“Where did all the humans go?”

“What happened to them?”

“Today, we’ve at long last reached the point where we may finally be able to know. Just what happened to humans… was it a fateful day of comeuppance, an apocalypse of some sort where they all died out? Or had they spread their wings and moved beyond this world.”

“The ability to travel from Mars to Earth, we acquired that ability through untold hardships.”

“At long last… we’re finally here.”

“Earth…”

…

“So, God, what do you think? Wait, did you fall asleep on me?”

When I heard someone call out to me my eyes shot open. I’d momentarily dozed off. “Huh? Sorry, what? Sleep? Eh? No, I was just closing my eyes to listen better. Yeah, that’s it. Listen better.”

“Well, if that’s the case, what did you think?”

“Think? Of what?” Did she mean that needlessly long story that put me to sleep? She suddenly came in and before I had a chance to say a single word to her, she cut me off and went on to tell some random story about Earth, Mars, and the disappearance of humans or something.

“See! You weren’t even listening!”

“I was...  uh, it was… interesting?” Enough to make me fall asleep that is.

“Right! I knew God would be interested in the disappearance of the human race!”

“Disappearance of the human race?”

“Yes.”

“So… you came here to find out the mystery behind the disappearance of the human race in your world?”

“Exactly that. It is a question that has left us Martian’s baffled since the moment we discovered how life came to be on our planet .”

“Well, God? How exactly did the prolific and prosperous human race mysteriously disappear without leaving behind a single trace? When we visited Earth, we found ruins of their civilization, but we found no biological evidence they were ever there. Even if it has been millions of years we should be able to find something remaining on Earth that suggests what actually happened to them.”

“If they all left behind their planet one day for some reason, we should have at least found some record somewhere on the planet regarding it. But there was not a single thing record that indicated anything. In fact, among the countless records we recovered from Earth, they all end on a specific date. There is nothing recorded after that date. It’s almost like they were bustling one day, then suddenly, without any warning, they all disappeared overnight.”

Disappeared overnight? Now that was certainly unusual. Billions of cockroach-like existences disappearing in an instant, I understand why that would be strange enough for a mortal to seek out answers from a god.

“One second, let me just pull up the Akashic records for your world real quick.”

I took out my phone and searched for the Akashic records from her world.

“Akashic records? Isn’t that just a phone?”

“Yeah, it’s a phone. What of it?”

“God, are you messing with me?”

“I’m not. It’s downloading right now. Just give me a sec.”

“Akashic records can be… downloaded?”

“Yeah. You got a problem with that? Take it up with Author, she’s the one who designed it.”

“Author?”

“Another God, she’s the keeper of the Akashic records for all worlds. She oversees them all.”

“I see…”

When the download was complete I tried to open the akashic record, however, I was greeted by an error.

Akashic Records Corrupted.

I frowned and muttered under my breath, “Huh? What the heck?” Did the download screw up or something?

“What is it! Did you find out the answer?”

“Uh, sorry, give me another sec.” This was awkward, this has never actually happened to me before when in front of a client.

I deleted it and tried to download it again. When I opened it, I received the same message indicating the akashic records were corrupted.

There was no mistake this time. Something was definitely wrong with her world.

How the hell did this happen? Could it be the data was overwritten? There was a solution I could think of that would potentially result in the issue experienced in her world and cause the Akashic records to become corrupted like this.

“I think I understand what happened.”

“You do? What is it?”

“In terms that you can understand, humans were effectively… deleted out of existence.”

“Deleted? What do you mean? How could an entire race be deleted? Who would do such a thing?”

“At the moment, I don’t know the who or how.it happened. I’m only a bit confident that I know why it happened. If you think of everything in your world and the timeline as data or a saved file on a computer, then what has effectively happened is an error in saving which has resulted in part of a save file being overwritten by information from another save file.”

“What this means is, the two worlds are now entangled on a quantum level resulting in distortions and contradictions in the timeline. The spacetime continuum is in a delicate quasi-stable state of equilibrium. You’re pretty lucky you’re even here right now talking to me. Typically, when this sort of thing happens, the entire universe would completely collapse on itself; however, it seems only portions of data were somehow overwritten. As for what was overwritten, it is very likely just the data that contained all the character information for the human race after a certain date.”

“The way things are now, the timeline has convolved on itself and has made it so although humans are the origin of life on Mars in present time for you, Martians have actually become the origin of life on Earth in the past. You Martians plan to perform the same experiment on Earth that was performed on Mars to trigger another great oxidation event, is that correct?”

“Yes… that is… correct.” She looked completely shocked by everything she heard.

“You wanted to let life flourish on Earth once more and play Gods the same way humans did for you, right?”

“Yes…”

“Hmm… I see.” Could one of the snobby elitist gods who don’t like it when mortals try to play pretend god be responsible for this bugged world? Was that also why this seemingly normal client got a booking in hell with a god responsible for counselling defective waifus? I guess it was hell for her and a booking with me since she planned to be part of those playing pretend god.

“What is it you see, God? Did you figure something else out?”

“No, I haven’t. But anyway, I’ve answered your question on how the human race mysteriously disappeared.”

“But-”

“No buts.” I cut her off before she could ask any more questions and said, “If you want to find out anything more than that, like how this happened or who is responsible for this, figure it out yourself.”

“You’re right... You’ve already provided us with the answer to the greatest mystery that has plagued us for such a long time. If we can’t even figure out the rest ourselves, we’d be nothing more than a joke. But to think that this sort of thing is even possible...”

“Well, I’ve seen stranger things…” For example, a certain lady obsessed with fetuses and a disgusting woman dissatisfied with the number of holes in her body.

“True, for a God, something like this is probably an everyday occurrence.”

“Uh, yeah…” Not really, it’s pretty rare for Akashic records to be corrupted like this. Typically there are backups in place for when rare events like this take place which can be used to restore the world to order, but it seems all the backups for her world were also mysteriously corrupted. As for why I knew this, I secretly texted Author when explaining things to my client and I confirmed this to be the case. Who was responsible for this? Right now, not even Author knew. It would take time to go over all the Akashic records to track down the culprit behind this.

What happened here obviously did not occur naturally since all the backups were also affected in the exact same manner. Someone did it intentionally and it must have been to hide something. The only real question was what they were trying to hide. Though one mystery had been solved, an even greater one arose in the process. It was truly the greatest mystery remaining in this entire ordeal.