The afternoon sun was shining its beams in through the window, the alarm set for 11:00pm was still ringing, and I was still under my thick blankets hoping that reality was all just a dream. In short, once again, I had no intention of leaving the bed that helped me drive away all cruelties of life.


    Whoooosh! And off went my blanket. The heat radiating from the sun seared my skin into crisp bacon as I struggled to get away from the sun and reality. I screamed for my beloved blanket back as I shriveled into the corner of my room, like a vampire afraid of the sun. Which pretty much described who I was, change sunlight into reality and it’d describe me perfectly. But of course, no matter how I hated getting out of bed, there’s nothing a 16 year old teen can do to stop his mom from forcing him to be PRODUCTIVE.


    “Stop whining, we go through this all day, Everyday, you know you can’t just sleep through the whole day, dear,” said my mom, as she tossed my beloved blanket into the far corner of the room. Away from my reach. “Brunch is ready, it’s your favourite too, unhealthy food.”


    “Fried stuff?” I prayed as I asked.


    “Yes dear, fried chicken,” sighed my mom. “The way you like it as well.”


    “Thanks Mom!” And with those words I leapt out from my comfort zone and rushed towards the fried chicken. Within seconds I was already shoving down 2 drumsticks at once.


    This was the usual routine I went through everyday. How I yearn for those ordinary days now. Those days that I did not have to use my brain at all to get through, those days before my curiosity got the better of me.


    It was a typical Sunday afternoon brunch. My family munching down on my mother’s home cooked delicacies, my brain not thinking of going to school, my computer games waiting for me to finish my brunch. The weekends with no school were the best.


    Like any other teenager my age, I had a distinct hate for school. But like other teenagers forced to go to school, we did not hate knowledge itself, but rather the sleep inducing methods knowledge was transferred to us. If it weren’t for the boring as hell education system, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t feel this much hatred for school. Although, I don’t think I would be able to force myself to wake up so early for school, even if the education system changed for the better. This was the reason I gave my parents whenever the following happens:


    “Why do you hate school so much?” asked my Mom, “You’re grades are top notch even!”


    “Having good grades doesn’t mean I have to love going to school Mom!” said I, so many times before.


    The above happened again this Sunday afternoon. Truth be told, I wish I didn’t get grades like those, so that my parents wouldn’t have such high hopes for me. If I got somewhat average grades, maybe then my parents would accept that I am just an average Joe and let me live my life as want. But because of the great grades I keep getting, my parents now expect much much more from me. Mom says my love for books came from her side of her family, as everybody from my Mom’s side of the family is practically a bookworm. The only difference is in the genre of books they each love. I for one love reading about physics, learning about how the world works is amazing. And thanks to that physics and math were never a problem for me. But still, high expectations are a really big burden, or so I thought.


    That was my original reason for hating my exceptional knowledge. Now in this new era where knowledge literally equals power, those with the knowledge are now those who rule the world. Likewise, those who have the power are burdened with the responsibility of using it wisely.


    Now back to what changed everything, I was done having brunch with my family, done with the dishes and preparing to sit in front of my computer to waste away the whole day, but then the doorbell rang.


    “Steven! It’s the package you ordered last week!” yelled my Mom, “It’s finally here!”


    “Oh? Coming Mom!” I said as I rushed down the stairs. The pair of noise-cancelling, wireless, open, around-the-ear, dynamic stereo, Ichos headphones I ordered last week finally arrived. I couldn’t wait to test them out with the new game I bought, Leia.


    “Take good care of them son, they are your birthday gifts,” said my Mom, handing me the Ichos. “Hope you like them.”


    “Thanks Mom,” and without another word, I rushed upstairs, prepared to coop myself in my room till tomorrow morning when my Mom comes to wake me up again. What a horrible son I was.


    Shutting myself inside my room, I immediately began opening the package with as much care and caution as I could muster up. As if the simplest misstep would make the headphones explode. After 15 minutes of painstakingly slow unwrapping, I finally got it out of the package. But then I noticed something. The headphones look a bit different than the ones I ordered. And when I took a closer look, it really was a different pair of headphones. Contemplating what to do with them, I was half mad that Zalada, a rather renown online shopping site would send me the wrong product, the other half was curious as to what kind of headphones did they actually send me. It definitely was not a popular, main stream headphone at all. The design is similar to the Ichos but then at the same time, it had a different air about it, was it the leather?


    And that was when my curiosity got the better of me.


    Might as well try them on. I still have 14 days to return it to them. Maybe they aren’t that bad?


    Another 20 minutes or so, I managed to set it up and put it on my head. Finally. The instruction manual sure wasn’t easy to follow, some of the terms I didn’t even understand. But at least the diagrams were obvious enough. On my head, they felt exceedingly comfortable. And when I wore them I really couldn’t even hear a single thing from the outside world. It had some of the most impressive noise cancelling systems I’ve ever seen. Almost as if it had cancelled out the world itself.


    I turned on the computer and connected it to the computer. Works like a charm, instantly connected to the computer without even needing to configure anything. I started up Leia, the headphones played the audio inside the game so well, I had check if I was still inside my room, the audio was just too realistic.


    Guess I’m not returning these headphones anymore.


    Leia was a survival, horror, sci-fi game about a character trapped in a spaceship having to use his wits to escape. The generic “stuck in a spaceship” survival game technically. But this one with a twist, the ability to insert alien genes into the character to use the abilities of the aliens, so it wasn’t that bad. Skipping the boring introduction and character dialogues which I knew were vital to understanding the plot of the game but was not bothered enough to read through, I blazed through the introduction of the game while feeling as if I was actually in the game itself and got the first alien gene I could use, “Lift”, it was called. Allowing the alien to change the density of an object, making it denser or less dense as it pleased.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    How would that even work, you’d need to literally either decrease the mass of an object or increase its size. The object didn’t change its size so the alien must’ve decreased the mass somehow. Maybe reducing the mass of each atom in the object?. Ah what am I thinking about? I should just enjoy the game.


    And with that I ignored the rational side of my brain and continued with the game. So impressed I was in the game that I completely ignored the fact that something was wrong with the chair I was sitting on.


    2 hours of wasted time later, I finally got fed up of the game and decided to take a good afternoon “sleep”. I got off my chair and jumped into my comfy bed, head first, even forgetting to take off my headphones.


    Ahh, nothing better than sleeping in the afternoon.


    As I set my alarm to wake me up at 7 for dinner I took a glance at my computer desk in front of me. I felt as if something was missing. Computer, keyboard, mouse, table, pile of leftover homework and assignments… Nothing was missing.


    Oh well, must’ve been my imagination running wild.


    “Wait! Where’s my chair?” I exclaimed as I noticed the missing chair. Frantically looking left and right, the chair was no where to be found.


    As I thought hard about where it could’ve gone, my pupils wondered toward the top right of my eye, and there I saw the impossible.


    “What the…” I was at a lost for words, “Why is my chair floating on the ceiling?”


    Rubbing my eyes, thinking I was in a dream. Did I already fall asleep? I pinched myself to wake up but nothing happened. The chair was still miraculously floating in thin air.


    “Well, time to call Mom up,” And that was when I remembered I still had the headphones on. I took them off and turned them off.


    CRASH! The floating chair came crashing down on my computer! My self assembled computer! All those hours spent on searching for the best parts and learning how to put them all together! Gone!


    I spent quite a few minutes dealing with that little crisis of mine before I realized the shocking truth of what had happened just now. I turned the headphones off, and the chair came crashing down.


    “Impossible,” I couldn’t believe where my own train of thought was going, “The headphones?”


    “Son? What was that loud noise just now? Did you break something again? I’m coming up” said Mom from down the stairs.


    “Oh nothing Mom, I accidentally pushed my homework off the table again!” I lied.


    “I told you to finish your homework before that unstable mountain of books comes crashing down on something!” exclaimed my Mom, “Be sure to clean it up then you best start doing your homework before it literally hurts you!”


    “OK, Mom,” I said. But my mind was already occupied by the unknown device in my hands. The device that seemingly morphed reality itself.


    How could such a device even exist? How did it work? Who made it? What else can it do? Should I even use it?


    And so curiosity took control of me. I needed to know how to use the device. So the next few hours before dinner was spent by me trying to redo whatever I did to the chair.


    “Fly!” I said, pointing my index finger at the chair as I imagined the chair floating as it did just now.


    It did not fly.


    Hmm? I wonder what’s wrong with the headphones? It worked just moments ago.


    Something was wrong, the chair wasn’t flying. Was it really just a dream? I tried to recall what I did just now that made the chair float. And then it dawned on me.


    The alien from the game made the objects fly with his mind. And I tried to rationalize how it did it. That must’ve been it. You have to think of a logical way for the object to float.


    The chair didn’t fly, it’s density was decreased by decreasing the mass of the atoms!


    And when I realized that and imagined the decreased mass of atoms in the chair, the chair floated up into the air again! I had done it, I had recreated the exact same scenario.


    So you need to have a somewhat logical explanation for what you are about to do before the headphones can actually make it real.


    Next, I tried to do something different with the headphones. There was a bowl of guava slices next to my bed. My Mom wants me to eat them before dinner, but I know for a fact that my stomach will not accept fruits or vegetables unless forced to. So I tried to turn them into fried chicken.


    “Fried chicken, fried chicken, fried chicken…” I chanted as I imagined the tasteless guavas turning into delicious fried chicken. The atoms rearranging themselves to form the delicious crispy skin and tender juicy meat.


    “Why isn’t it working?” To my despair, the guavas didn’t turn into fried chicken. They remained as tasteless as they did before. Bummer. I didn’t give up though, I kept trying and trying.


    Come on! Turn into fried chicken already!


    Then suddenly, I felt more and more fatigued, as if the energy itself was being sucked out of my body, before I knew it I suddenly lost consciousness. But before I completely blacked out, I heard a voice.


    “Error, insufficient knowledge. Energy depleted, powering down.”


    Was it the headphones? Then I blacked out completely. And the chair came crashing down again.


    “Wake up dear, it’s time for dinner!”


    “Huh? What?” I managed to get those words out of my mouth, still fatigued.


    “You’ve been asleep for the whole afternoon already,” said Mom, “It’s time for dinner. And why is your chair lying sideways on the ground? AND WHY IS THAT BOWL OF GUAVAS STILL FULL?”


    Realizing I had blacked out just now, I hastily took off the headphones and put them on the desk. Then, I took a quick bath and went down for dinner.


    Throughout dinner, other than food, my mind was thinking about what had happened just now before I blacked out.


    Error, insufficient knowledge? Does that mean that if I didn’t have enough knowledge about what I am about to do, the headphones are unable to turn it into reality? Must be so. But why did I suddenly black out, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing anything even close to exhausting just now.


    “What’s wrong son? You seem to be thinking very, very hard about something,” asked Mom with a worried look on her face.


    “Girlfriend problems?” asked Dad, with a very serious look on his face.


    “No Dad!” I exclaimed, “And nothing is wrong, Mom, just my headphones were acting weird and I was trying to fix them.”


    “Oh, why don’t you just return them to the seller then?” suggested Mom.


    “No need, I think I’m about to fix them already.” I lied.


    “Ok then,” said Mom, smiling, “Tell us if you need anything to fix them.”


    “Thanks Mom.” I said.


    While I was busy pondering over the device, I hadn’t noticed the worried looks on my parents’ faces.


    After dinner, I went back up into my room again to experiment with my headphones. Though, by then, can it even be called headphones anymore?


    “Reality morpher sounds like a good enough name for this thing,” I murmured to myself, holding the delicate device in my hands. The device that defies all logic, that can bend reality to its will, that will probably launch humanity into the next era of technology.


    Those were my thoughts of the device before I realized the truth behind the Reality Morpher.


    And so I spent the night testing what else I could do with the device. This time I made sure I could clearly visualize the process and outcome of an action before even putting on the Reality Morpher. Doing it this way I managed to prevent another blackout.


    “Hmm, so you really do require in depth knowledge about the actions you are about to do before you can even hope to use this thing,” I said, concluding what I knew about the device thus far. “Guess this prevents idiots from using it.”


    I had somewhat of a grasp of how to use the device now. But the most important questions were still begging to be answered:


    Where did it come from?


    Who invented it?


    And why?


    These questions lingered in my mind as I fell asleep.


    But were pushed far behind my priority list when I suddenly woke up in an abandoned alleyway. A man in a black suit staring down at me with a gun pointed at my forehead. But the gun wasn’t the most terrifying part, the Reality Morpher he was holding in his hands were.