The Egg (2009)

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge.

That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person.

It's basically a devil's brew of nihilism and determinism that frames existence as a solitary, predetermined journey toward an abstract goal (maturation into godhood?!) that renders individual lives expendable and morally ambiguous. And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying.

It's especially funny as the author, with very little awareness of what he was writing, tried to strike positive "we are all one" notes... And ended up with something that would give Ligotti nightmares.

> And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying.

Horrifying to whom? The character isn't suffering. They aren't aware of the passage of those trillions of years. There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation.

And so what if you're the only one? That's not really true in a functional sense. Every human you interact with is indeed a truly conscious individual with a discrete personality and life. You only become integrated as a single organism when the egg "hatches" and you join the broader society of adults.

If it were true, the idea that I was Hitler and everyone that worked at unit 731 is pretty horrifying.

> There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation.

Under that wouldn't I be one of many going through some different lives? Rather that there is only one person ever who goes through all lives.