The Left Sock

This story takes place on the very same Earth you're probably familiar with. History is as you learned it in school. Society is complex and unforgiving. The moon creates the tides. Carbon-14 is radioactive. And there are 4 perpendicular axes of directional motion. Wait... What?   Undoubtedly, there are three dimensions of space in which humans can maneuver, or put more generally, there are three pairs of directions of motion: up-down, left-right, and forward-backward. These pairs of motion are how ancient humans, and indeed all life as we know it, evolved in order to survive, feed, and reproduce. But what of the fourth dimension? Trust me, this isn't in reference to time as the "fourth dimension of spacetime". I mean, a completely unimaginable, invisible, but entirely possible direction of spatial motion, as real as the abstract concepts of left, up, or forward. It's the w-t-f value of an x-y-z coordinate graph. It's the asylum of the enigmatic hypercube.   However, imagine not a solid shape with corners and edges, but instead imagine a sphere within a sphere ad infinitum which calls itself home to the (anti)randomly complex sandbox of cosmological, geological, and biological events, consequences, and systems, totally unknown and unviolated by Man's sordid nescience. Now, take the mental leap equivalent to a two-dimensional stick figure, whose whole life has been experienced on a giant two-dimensional circle, imagining an "outside of my subjective plane of existence" object, that is relatively "near, but out of mental or physical reach" and then push that mind fuck one level further to identify yourself as a three-dimensional stick figure living on a hyper-spheroidal celestial mass of ceaseless activity and hyper-mathematical topology. Now imagine, without analogy, the state of Absolute stupefaction and cosmic angst felt by God when Hugs first discovered how to travel along the third perpendicular line...   Oh, Hugs. He was the man who started it all, the first man to spearhead through the mental blockade of both super-trimensional translocality and, even more momentous, human divinity. Overcrowded, overconsuming, and overbearing, humanity needed a miracle and Hugs provided it in the nick of time. From his discovery came new resources and more space to dominate. But conflict was not far behind. Even Hugs couldn't save the new world from its own wars and self destruction from beyond the grave.   Some say that the war started the moment his heart stopped beating. So, naturally, that's where we'll start our story...