It all began in the late 2010s when the Ethiopian kid genius Tariku Negasi launched Development (Dev). It was a 3D real-time virtual world, a replica of the actual world as we have it.

As with every new piece of technology, people started to spend more time in this virtual world. It became so bad that Global Health Organizations warned against prolonged use of the uRetina and invariably Dev. However, during the COVID pandemic, businesses and corporate bodies moved their interactions to Dev because of the global lockdown.

But Negasi, being the visionary, was not satisfied. He and his team created a device called the Mass Decompactor (MaDe) – basically a teleportation machine. The only difference was that this was created to actually take humans to a digital world. MaDe was designed to transmit human consciousness to the digital world.

This new digital world was an upgraded version of Dev. Life on Dev was as close to perfection as it got. There was no sickness, death, aging, hunger, wars, and all the other challenges we face on earth.

But every great invention comes with its own side-effects. To keep life on Dev under control, there had to be sacrifices made and ultimately a form of hierarchy.

The time tales is a series that chronicles the events that led the world to adopt Dev. It also reveals the interplay of power and control behind the entire system. Together, these form the ‘World Stories‘.

The tales also contain ‘Letters‘ – people’s stories about how the transition to Dev affected them. The stories cover a range of topics; from relationships to religion, education, healthcare and more.

Read more stories here.