Kazuo had never been popular in his life.
Sure, there was that one time in middle school when he briefly became "the Pocky Guy" after bulk-buying a discount case and selling them out of his locker. But aside from that, no one ever blew up his phone, nobody knocked on his door (unless they wanted money), and his email inbox was as barren as his fridge.
That all changed the day his Prayer Inbox came online.
He woke up—not from sleep, but from a half-doze beneath his kotatsu—when his ears started ringing. No, not ringing. Dinging. Like a thousand notifications all firing at once.
Kazuo sat up, scratching his head. "Did I leave Twitter on again?"
A glowing window popped into existence in the middle of his apartment, hovering over the kotatsu. It was shaped like an email inbox, except instead of subject lines from "Hot Singles Near You" it was filled with:
[URGENT PRAYER]: My crops are dying, please send rain
[LOW PRIORITY]: Lost my left sock, can You help?
[ALL CAPS]: SMITE DAVE HE STOLE MY GIRLFRIEND
The counter in the corner read: 99,999+ UNREAD.
Kazuo blinked. "Oh, hell no. This is Gmail with extra guilt."
Seraphina popped into existence beside him, carrying a clipboard thicker than a phonebook. Her eyes gleamed with bureaucratic delight. "Ah! Finally, your Prayer Interface activated! Took long enough. Now we can—"
Kazuo pressed a button labeled DELETE ALL.
The world went quiet.
Outside, in the distance, there was a faint pop.
Seraphina's head whipped around so fast her halo tilted. "What did you just do?!"
Kazuo squinted at the floating screen. "I deleted the spam folder. Half of these are just people praying for their favorite soccer team to win."
The window blinked: 'Prayer Deleted: Sovereign Nation of Lichtenbourg.'
Kazuo frowned. "…Wait. What?"
The news ticker on Seraphina's clipboard updated instantly: BREAKING: Small European nation mysteriously ceases to exist. Scientists baffled.
She dropped the clipboard, feathers scattering. "You didn't just delete a prayer. You deleted an entire country."
Kazuo rubbed his chin. "That explains the loud pop."
Seraphina lunged forward, grabbing his shirt. "Fix it. FIX IT NOW!"
Kazuo sighed and hit Undo. The pop reversed. The country blinked back into existence on the map.
…Upside down.
Mountains were now roots jutting into the sky. Rivers flowed straight upward into floating lakes. People walked around screaming, their houses dangling from inverted ground like chandeliers.
Seraphina shrieked. "You just folded reality like origami!"
Kazuo shrugged. "Looks artsy."
The inbox chimed again. Thousands more prayers flooded in. A farmer begging for potatoes to grow. A college student praying to pass their math exam. A man crying out for his missing cat.
Kazuo dragged them all into a folder labeled Later.
Seraphina's left eye twitched. "You can't just mark prayers as spam!"
"Why not? Half these people are asking for Wi-Fi to stop lagging. If I answered every one of these, I'd basically be tech support." He scrolled lazily. "Oh look, someone's praying to win the lottery. Declined."
Another pop echoed. Somewhere, a man tore up his losing lottery ticket and sobbed.
Seraphina snatched the clipboard, waving it in his face. "Every prayer you touch changes reality! You can't treat them like subscription emails!"
Kazuo leaned back under the kotatsu, resting his mug on his stomach. "Watch me."
It got worse.
The more he fiddled, the more bizarre the world outside became.
A girl prayed for a pony. Kazuo clicked Approve. Ten thousand ponies materialized across the globe. Herds galloped through malls, airports, and one particularly unlucky wedding.
Someone prayed for "a hot girlfriend." Kazuo hit Forward. Suddenly, three new dating apps appeared, run entirely by angels catfishing humans.
An old man prayed for "one more good year of fishing." Kazuo accidentally gave him dominion over every fish in the Pacific Ocean. The coast guard was not happy.
By evening, the inbox counter had climbed to 999,999+ and smoke was pouring out of the floating window. Kazuo clicked Snooze Notifications and flopped onto his pillow.
Seraphina paced back and forth, clutching her head. "This is unsustainable! Mortals can't handle this kind of reality-warping chaos!"
Kazuo closed one eye. "Then tell them to stop praying for dumb stuff."
As if on cue, the inbox dinged again: [PRAYER]: Please fix my printer.
Kazuo smirked. "Decline."
A distant scream echoed through the cosmos as another office printer spontaneously combusted.
Seraphina slumped to the floor, defeated. "…We're all going to die."
Kazuo reached for another bag of chips. "Yeah, but at least my inbox is organized."