A mechanical voice echoed across the destroyed Earth.
"Condensation... correction. Compression of Planet XB-24747 has been completed. Cube construction rate at 78%... 84%... 92%... Complete."
The strange voice that seemed prone to alliteration paused. A loud jingle like that of a store opening rang out.
"Congratulations contestants! You have survived the Crushening. You select elected are eligible for elimination entry. Please proceed passively to a Portal."
*Click*
Someone hung up the intercom.
Looking around, I saw desolate earth in all directions. The blood seemed to have seeped into the ground, coloring it a dark rusty red. Still, it seemed to condensate in linear directions, pointing the scattered remnants of humanity towards gleaming portals.
Backdropped by an ominous twilight, each gateway was a monument of the dead. They were massive congregations of obsidian surrounded in endstone as tall as an above-ground garage.
'I guess, all garages are below ground now.'
Some seemed to be larger than others, ones to the north especially, which were closer to the city center. They seemed to warp in pleasure from the boundless nutrients that had been provided.
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*Pu*
I pinched my nose, gagging.
"My dude... I think I just shit myself."
Since the Crushening was over, I back-crawled away from the punk who just skunked my face.
"Holy shit. I mean Shit. With a capital S. What the actual hell is going on? Like, I was just admiring that dinosaur's swiping capabilities, and then the world ended. Fuck. I forgot to cancel my cable."
"Are in incapable of talking normally? I can't believe I wrote a moron like you.."
I whispered the last bit to myself, but the jerk heard it anyway since we were now in an eerily desolate wasteland.
"Ha!? What'd you just say you little squirt? I've shot loads bigger than you."
I couldn't help myself.
"Wow~ Have you seen a doctor about that?"
"You!"
He closed the distance with his massive gorilla legs and picked me up by the scruff of my shirt, shaking me like he was fluffing a pillow.
Before he got too rough with my fragile physique, a screen appeared before us.
[Please proceed to a portal. Violence is prohibited outside.]
The bully ignored the omniscient warning and shook me some more. We both received another, more personal, message.
[You may fight to the death inside. Weapons will be provided.]
"Oh. That changes things. Say, squirt. Let's settle our grudge inside. At least there's some entertainment in the apocalypse."
A grudge? Already? Even in my own novel, I can't stop my mouth from running.
The ogre dropped me and turned around without seeming to care anymore. He followed the morbid markers to the closest portal without looking back.
I noticed a few other scattered survivors, sorry, I mean competitors, converging at the same location. Sighing heavily, I dusted myself off and trailed behind them, lost in my thoughts.