StickerOVerse ep1

StickerVerse: Part One

Post-Prologue (yes, the prologue will come later)

Hello, reader. This is the Post-Prologue. The backstory of this text is simple: I saw a message in the /a/ chat: "the last 4 stickers you sent will predict your fate." Obviously it was a joke, but I posted mine; someone replied with what that could mean in text form. I thought, why not create a story from all the stickers I've recently sent? And that's how I started making this story out of stickers. Here are the stickers from which everything is derived:

1. A GIF of a Minecraft fox spinning around its axis.

2. Holo from Spice and Wolf likes something.

3. Holo says: "It smells like apples."

4. A girl with long hair in a video game store says to another girl with short hair: "Let's make the game a little harder – let's do it every time you die?" The second girl blushes.

5. UNO reverse.

6. A femboy Cheshire cat makes a welcoming gesture.

7. A battered Sniper from TF2 raises a bottle of alcohol, sitting with a crutch and a patch over his eye.

8. A gray toad strangling a white bouquet of pink flowers.

9. Mark Grayson from the series Invincible with a meme‑serious face.

10. Someone's face looking at the reader, wearing engineer goggles from the Create mod in Minecraft, with the caption "Big Brother is Watching You".

11. A little girl with long white hair, cat ears and red eyes looking at the reader angrily and saying: "You're not my brother, you can't stick your fingers in me."

12. A guy from a yaoi manga looking at the reader, indifferent when the reader gives him a hundred‑dollar bill.

13. Two bekar symbols in music with the caption "well, died and died".

14. A picture of Chokopay Borisovich embracing Pavel Durov with the text: "a great man and Pavel Durov".

15. Alto and Tenor clefs standing one behind the other with the caption: "accursed Herods".

16. Chokopay Borisovich with a pack of Chokopay on his head.

17. A musical triangle with the caption: "even the organ went nuts at its greatness".

18. Chokopay Borisovich with the caption "help me". Alright, time to begin. After finishing the Over-Prologue, let's start the story here.

StickerVerse: Part One

Sticker 1: PROLOGUE, title card

And so our universe begins. In the cold void, a Minecraft fox spins around its axis, and I, the narrator, tell you the lore containing the laws of this universe: Every atom here is potentially sentient, every combination of atoms also has an opinion, every combination of combinations too, and so on until the end of the sticker library. They see only what has already been created on the other side of the screen – what exists in the great Sticker Library, where you, reader, are. But let me repeat: this world of the StickerVerse – in which every atom has qualities and opinions, every separate combination of atoms, and every combination of combinations – but these qualities are given by someone beyond the plot, who creates books in a limited array. You are the readers, or even those who did not read but just made stickers. In your reality, reader, all theoretically possible combinations can happen, but in the StickerVerse only what someone has created beyond the fourth wall, or what created this sticker, can exist. Here there is a small fraction of everything. However, between the possible events – the stickers – other events can happen, which the will of the plot decides. The stickers are like keyframes. But before the first sticker and after the last sticker, nothing can exist. And yes, by "atoms" I literally mean atoms, because somewhere there exist stickers with atoms and quarks with meme captions. Our heroine, the wise wolf Holo, lives in the belief that reality is normal and follows the laws of cause and effect. She does not yet know that she has fallen into a trap between the two most important forces of this world: those who break the fourth wall, and those who look at her from the other side. The fox spinning around its axis is a symbol of cyclicity. Holo ended up here too, because she is in the stickers! Holo looks at this chaos and thinks: "The world is full of strange things. But perhaps there is a certain charm to it." She takes a step forward, into the unknown.

Sticker 2:

After taking a step, Holo finds something she likes.

Holo likes something.

She half‑closes her eyes, inhaling the smell of apples. Perhaps it's wheat, perhaps something else. She feels almost happy. Almost.

Sticker 3:

Suddenly, her sense of smell – which never fails her – catches a strange scent. It's not wheat, not an animal spirit.

Holo says: "It smells like apples."

She is wary. Apples in mythology represent temptation and knowledge.

The scent leads her onward, but she does not realize that it is the smell of the "Fourth Wall" itself, which has already been broken for a long time.

Sticker 4:

The smell of apples brings Holo to a place strange for her time: a video game store. Two girls, one with long hair, the other with short hair, are talking at a counter cluttered with game boxes.

The long‑haired one says to the short‑haired one, squinting slyly: "Let's make the game a little harder – let's do it every time you die?"

The short‑haired girl blushes deeply and looks away.

Holo, standing aside, pricks up her ears. "They're talking about a game… about deaths? And she's embarrassed? Strange ritual. But what do apples have to do with it?" she thinks. While Holo wonders, one of the girls, the long‑haired one, suddenly looks straight through Holo to where you are, and says: "You all got it wrong."

Holo: "To 'them'? Who?"

Long‑haired girl: "Turn around."

Holo turns around, but she does not see you.

Sticker 5:

Holo turns around once more just in case, and still sees no one. Just air, nothing more. When she turns back, the girls are gone, and a strange card with two arrows hangs in the air. I, the narrator, shout like a voice‑over: "UNO REVERSE!!"

Holo blinks, and the smell of apples grows stronger – but now it comes from behind. "Cunning," she smirks, and turns around, accepting the rules of this unfamiliar game.

Sticker 6:

Turning, Holo expects to see the source of the smell or those strange girls. Instead, something materializes before her: a guy with a wide Cheshire Cat grin, but in the form of a femboy. He playfully waves a hand.

"Purr‑r‑r, welcome to our little circus," he purrs, looking not at Holo but somewhere past her. "Will you be staying long?"

Holo looks around. Again no one.

"You… who are you talking to?" asks the wolf cautiously.

"To the guests," the cat grins and dissolves into the air, leaving behind only a floating grin, which also disappears.

Sticker 7:

"Guests…" grumbles Holo. "Again with this 'you'? There's no one there, just emptiness, a mirage at best."

Suddenly, from that very emptiness – from behind your back – a battered Sniper stumbles out, glass clinking, with a paper patch over his eye and a crutch. He lowers himself heavily onto a crate, raises a murky bottle of whiskey, and, looking at you just like the others, toasts you.

"Here's to those above… or below?" he mutters hoarsely before taking a swig.

Holo sighs. "Him too. Alright, get used to it, Holo. Everyone here is a little… off."

Sticker 8:

The Sniper finishes his drink and limps away to God knows where. In the same room, Holo notices a white bouquet of pink flowers. She reaches for it to sniff, seeking the familiar smell of apples, when suddenly a gray toad jumps out from under the counter and, with unexpected fury, attacks the bouquet, strangling it with its little paws.

"Ahem," coughs Holo. The toad glances at her and croaks aggressively.

Sticker 9:

Holo, watching the strange toad leave, takes a step sideways and immediately bumps her muzzle into something hard and immobile. In front of her, arms crossed, stands Mark Grayson from Invincible. His face bears a meme‑exaggerated seriousness, as if he were deciding the fate of the universe.

"You!" barks Holo, rubbing her bruised nose. "Watch where you're standing!"

Mark doesn't even blink. He continues to bore his gaze into you.

"What is it?" the wolf persists. "Why so serious?"

Mark slowly, very slowly, turns his gaze to her, then back to the emptiness, and without changing his expression, mouths: "You know what I know, you know what will happen to me, what could have happened in alternate universes if there are any, why I am the one in the role of a character who knows about such things – you also know."

Holo turns to you. No one – she doesn't see you.

"Who the hell are 'you'?!" she cries in despair. But Mark has already vanished, leaving behind only a feeling of universal sorrow and the importance of what is happening.

Sticker 10:

"Right," Holo takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Apples. I have to look for apples. That's the only thing that makes sense here."

Suddenly, the air around her begins to hum. It becomes… heavy.

Holo feels someone's fixed, unblinking stare on her. She spins around – but there is no one. Only, straight from the wall of the room, a giant human face wearing engineer goggles from the Create mod stares point‑blank at her. Moving its giant jaw, it says: "Big Brother is Watching You."

The fur on Holo's neck stands on end. This stare is heavier than Mark's. But it is not directed at her. It is directed, as always, not at her but at you.

"So this is…" whispers Holo, beginning to grasp the scale of the disaster. "There, where they all look… there really is someone? Someone that only they can see?"

The face in the goggles does not answer. It simply watches. Holo shudders. She feels uneasy. She always thought she was the top of the observation food chain. But here it turns out that someone may have been watching her all along.

Sticker 11:

Holo moves on. Instead of cold observation, the air fills with childish but very concentrated anger. A little girl with white hair, cat ears and red eyes appears right in front of Holo, pointing a finger at you.

"You're not my brother, you can't stick your fingers in me!" she squeaks, again looking past Holo. Now Holo's patience finally snaps. She bends down to the girl, blocking you from her view.

"I wasn't going to! I'm an age‑old wolf!" she growls. "And besides, I'm a woman! I can't possibly be your brother! Look at me!"

The girl glances at Holo for a moment, frowns even harder, snorts "ugh, a strange lady," and stares back at you. I, the narrator, wonder what you could have done…

Sticker 12:

Holo wants to question the strange girl, but she's already gone. The wolf trudges on wearily, but is immediately called out: "Hey." She turns. On a crate of games, lounging casually, sits a typical yaoi manga pretty boy – sharp cheekbones, a languid gaze, great hair. Holo prepares for another session of talking to emptiness, but the guy looks straight at her: "Oh, you can see me?" Holo is surprised. The boy lazily scans her with his eyes, snorts, and demonstratively turns away to that same empty spot – you, where everyone was looking. You, just for fun, offer a banknote; he takes it, twirls it in his fingers and, looking at you, shrugs indifferently as if to say "a hundred is a hundred, nothing to get excited about." You might be a little disappointed – or maybe not – I, the narrator, don't know for sure, but a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.

Holo frowns. Does she imagine it, or has she just been evaluated and found not valuable enough for a conversation?

"Listen here, my good man!" she starts.

But the guy, without even glancing at her, vanishes into thin air, leaving behind only a slight disappointment from his beautiful but utterly empty image.

Sticker 13:

"What is this!" exclaims Holo into the emptiness in front of you, trying to figure out where you are. "Everyone looks through me at some 'YOU' – no one wants to have a normal conversation! First a spinning fox, then a toad strangling flowers, then all those… watchers!"

She walks a bit further and suddenly hears music. Right in the middle of the road, a bench hangs in the air, and sitting on it are two bekar symbols in a row. They even say: "well, died and died.". Holo freezes. "Is that… about whom?" she asks cautiously, sensing in that phrase some ancient, almost wolfish wisdom of accepting the inevitable.

The bekars do not answer. They simply look at you, the reader, as the only one capable of appreciating the musicality of the moment. Holo sighs. Again these "you"s.

Sticker 14:

Before she can ask, everything around changes for the hundredth time. This time the image is almost peaceful: a man with a kind, tired face (that's Chokopay Borisovich, I'll tell you – the narrator) is bear‑hugging another man. The yaoi guy says: "A great man and Pavel Durov.". Holo blinks. "Is that… a compliment to them?" she cautiously asks the space. "The one being hugged is great? Or the one hugging? And what does…"

She doesn't finish. The smell of apples becomes unbearably strong. It emanates from this scene. From those two. Or from the caption underneath.

Sticker 15:

Holo steps closer to the embracing figures, trying to understand the strange meaning of what is happening. But the scene is already melting like morning mist. In its place appear two musical symbols – the Alto and Tenor clefs. They stand one behind the other like gravestones and look at you, reader, with silent reproach. And they alto and tenor: "accursed Herods.". "Who is that to?" Holo can't help asking. "Those two? Me? Or…" she waves toward the emptiness where everyone has been looking, "…them?". The Alto clef trembles slightly, as if sighing. The Tenor clef turns away disdainfully. Both continue to ignore Holo, addressing their indignation exclusively to you. The wolf is beginning to get used to this humiliating state of affairs – being invisible to ghosts who see someone behind her back. "Fine," she mutters, walking around the clefs. "Herods or not, as long as it smells like apples."

Sticker 16:

Holo passes the "accursed Herods" and suddenly spots a familiar figure. The same man who was just embracing Pavel Durov – yes, Chokopay Borisovich – now stands alone in proud solitude. But his appearance has changed: on his head sits a pack of Chokopay like a crown, or maybe a burden, a load, something like that.

Holo, taught by bitter experience, decides not to look where everyone else looks and addresses the man directly:

"Excuse me, can you tell me where that strong smell of apples is coming from? You seem… more real than the others." (Funny that he really is more real because he's a meme of a real person…)

Chokopay Borisovich slowly, very slowly, turns his head toward her. His eyes, full of universal weariness and sweet glaze, focus on Holo for a moment. He opens his mouth to answer…

…but at the last second, his gaze jerks away somewhere over the wolf's right shoulder. On his face appears an expression of silent pleading directed at you, the reader.

"A great man is busy," he whispers with his lips only, so as not to frighten those beyond the wall. "But do you see what a burden this is? The burden of titanic absurdity – I'm about to go mad!" He carefully touches the pack on his head. "This is not a crown, this is… responsibility."

Holo flicks her tail in irritation:

"What the hell! I'm asking you!" she jumps, trying to catch his gaze. "My eyes are here! Brown! A wolf!"

But Chokopay Borisovich no longer hears her. He is frozen, looking at you with an expression that says: "Do you see my pain? Do you understand the whole tragedy of existence with a pack of absurd nonsense on my head?" Holo spits and moves on, muttering under her breath about ungrateful audiences and the importance of eye contact.

Sticker 17:

She walks a bit further and suddenly hears a pure, ringing sound. It's a musical triangle. But it is hanging not in an orchestra, but right in the air, and from it emanates such a powerful aura of greatness that even Chokopay Borisovich and Holo, who have seen everything, pause.

The triangle says: "even the organ went nuts at my greatness."

"Well, let's say," Holo begins cautiously, looking up. "Do you at least see me? You're just an object, you have no eyes – but maybe in this world at least someone…"

The triangle rings. Once. But in that sound there is so much contempt, such an abyss of condescension toward those who do not understand its greatness, that Holo stops short.

The ring was clearly not meant for her. It was meant for you, the reader, as the only connoisseur of high art capable of appreciating just how nuts even an organ (a whole organ!) went at the coolness of this triangle.

"Screw you," Holo grunts and, tucking her tail, walks away from this musical snobbery. The smell of apples has by now become deafening. It seems to come from everywhere.

Sticker 18:

Holo emerges into a small clearing. In the center, squatting, sits the now familiar Chokopay Borisovich. The pack is no longer on his head. Now he simply sits, clutching his head in his hands, gently rocking back and forth.

"Well, here you are again," Holo says wearily, approaching.

"Can you at least tell me what's going on? Where are the apples? Who are all these people looking through me? And why does everything smell so strongly… of apples, or something?"

Chokopay Borisovich raises his tear‑stained face to her. For the first time in her entire journey, someone looks her straight in the eyes.

"You… are you real?" he whispers. "You don't look there?"

"No!" Holo barks. "There's no one there! Empty! A mirage! I've turned around a hundred times already!"

Chokopay Borisovich sniffs, wipes his tears, and suddenly hugs Holo tightly. The wolf is taken aback.

"Thank you," he mumbles into her fur. "Because they there…" he nods toward you, "…they all see, they all understand, but no one can help. They just watch."

Holo, flattered that she has finally been noticed and appreciated as a worthy interlocutor, opens her mouth to demand explanations when suddenly Chokopay Borisovich pulls back, looks through her at you, and cries out pitifully across the entire StickerVerse: "HELP ME!". Holo turns and, through the haze behind her, for the first time sees a faint silhouette, like a light at the end of a tunnel. There, on the other side, there really is someone. And that someone is you. Chokopay Borisovich vanishes like all the others, leaving Holo alone. Holo stands, looking at you. She still does not understand how to speak with it. She still does not see you clearly. But now she knows: you exist.

End of StickerVerse Part One