We’re all out of sorts. There’s a reason for it. And it is the fault of the Caretakers of the Universe.

After achieving sentience, they realized they had the power to destroy and create the universe at will. Seeing that the universe would fly apart and die an entropic heat death in a few thousand years, they destroyed it and created one that wouldn’t die so fast.

Their best invention was gravity. So far, that’s been their biggest success in trying to stop the universe from flying apart.

Gravity solved the problem, but only temporarily. The Caretakers discovered the universe would still fly apart, and every atom would eventually lose its component elements. They could slow it down but couldn’t stop it.

The Caretakers keep trying. They tinker. When one attempt doesn’t result in a completely stable, “steady-state” universe, they destroy it and try again.

But their frustration is growing. They’re destroying universes faster and faster. They’re at the point where they’re just throwing random algorithms at the wall to see what sticks.

And that’s why we feel so out of sorts. We’re constantly being destroyed and then recreated from scratch, but with the illusion that we’ve been alive for many years and that the past is something that actually exists. Each universe has a slightly different algorithm that we can sense… but only subliminally. It keeps our nerves on edge without us knowing why. We just know something’s not right. We’re… all out of sorts.

The last creation/destruction cycle was two days ago. The next is tomorrow morning.