So, remember all those times where people would speculate that everything they saw in life was nothing more than a simulation? How, at some point in time, humanity in its entirety had been abducted by some extraterrestrial life and forced into a simulated reality, for one reason or another?
They'd run through the streets spewing prophecies and fables of "The Apocalypse"!
It was fun laughing at them. It really was. But, now, whenever I look up into the sky and see the fifth sun rise into the air and line up with the first, second, third and fourth, I'm reminded that karma is a major bitch.
Y'see, a few years ago, everything went to shit. It started with the world shaking down to its core, causing unnatural natural disasters to pop up left and right. After that, the number of suns in the sky rose from one to a whole five. And then, a bunch of things disappeared.
Trash cans, cars and buildings? Sure, why not? Those could be replaced, right? Sure there were tons of people that got lost when the last two things vanished, and even a couple that were hanging around in the trash cans, but, that's not important right now. Because the real problem came when entire countries either disappeared, or glitched into each other.
Sweden, China, India, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and a bunch of other countries disappeared. Meanwhile, the rest of the landmass shifted via constant natural disasters and supernatural, unexplainable means to form one massive "super-continent".
And with the dramatic shift in climate and general day-to-day existence, the entire world fell into a state of mass panic. You know how the whole "Beginning of the End" thing goes. Things got stolen, laws got broken, people got slaughtered and/or violated. Long story short; everyone was out for themselves and their loved ones. But, despite everyone's efforts, or maybe because of them, the whole world went to shit in the span of a couple hours.
The human population went down from over eight billion to less than half a billion, which wasn't helped by the lawless and merciless nature that took over the people that survived, might I add. That managed to take things below a quarter of a billion.
Constructs vanished out of nowhere. And monstrous versions of people arose as (what I assume is) an extra "Fuck You" to everyone trying to keep things together.
But, all of a sudden, people began manifesting strange abilities. You know, your everyday sci-fi/supernatural crap. Energy Manipulation, Gravity Manipulation, bunch of other stuff, you get the point. And, of course, this gave people a fighting chance... Sort of.
The abilities were good for hunting and self-defense and all that, sure, but when up against things that don't tend to follow the conventional laws of... anything, they may as well have been tricks to show off at a kids party in most cases. Well, not really. That would most likely end with many, many corpses. But then, I came along with my own ability. It allows me to, as you saw in the last chapter, gobble up glitches through a not-so-little creature I like to call Malware. I can manifest it wherever I want, too, so there's not much that can get in its way.
I'm basically a glitch garbage incinerator. Or, if you want to use the extremely creative alias I was given, I'm the Antivirus.
Which means, I deal with all the problems that most of the people still roaming the Earth can't. What would those "problems" be, you might ask? Well, that would be these things that we, in our boundless creativity, have come to call 'Amalgamations'. Glitched masses of flesh and bone that were once a person, fused together with various other materials like grass, metal; basically whatever was in their vicinity when they became what they did; to create what could only be described as an Eldritch horror.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I keep saying "we" instead of "I"! Well, that's because I'm referring to the organization I work for—the Order of Rejuvenation. More specifically, one of their branch organizations. Which is exactly where I'm headed as I speak... Or... Monologue? Think? Whatever...
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Speaking of which,
Say "Hello" to humanity's first, only and probably last defense against all this. The mighty sword that stands to cut through the darkness the world has found itself cloaked in! The mighty Sanguine Saber!
I'm contractually obligated to introduce it like that, even in my thoughts. Blame the arrogant pricks that made this place, everyone else does.
But, anyway, this is it. Every other post-apocalyptic type thing has its own foundation or organization and this is our branch of that.
That being said, time to introduce you to the other characters! Yay!
Which means it's time to switch to descriptive writing read by the narrator from my point of view.
----------------------------------------
The walk back to the foundation was relatively quiet, at least if you ignore the screams that always seemed to come from someone just out of your view or the fantasy-like animals running and flying around, but aside from that, regular old wasteland. If you have complaints about it, just know nobody cares - keep it to yourself and cry about it when you're on your own.
A hop, skip and jump later and the entrance to the foundation came into view. Not very hidden, despite what the designers wanted, but I guess having a reinforced door tucked in with a bunch of rocks is better than just having a giant, glowing building hanging out in the middle of nowhere.
I took a step onto the "doormat" and wound up with several firearms and various weapons pointed at my face.
Please provide a form of identification. If you don't, you die, blah, blah, blah...
'Oh, Molly's on duty... Welp, RIP to at least one person that's passed through here today.'
There's most likely a corpse somewhere around here that I'll have to deal with, but whatever.
Before I got murdered in one of several ways, I pulled my ID from my pocket and showed it to the camera above the door. All of the unsafe items turned to particles.
Oh! Hey, Mira.
"Lemme guess, Molly. You just got back from the cafeteria and you weren't really paying attention, right?"
Yeah, sorry about that. But, hey, at least you know if there's ever an actual problem at the gate, it'll get blown to pieces~! Or stabbed. Or bludgeoned. Or incinerated. Or atomiz--
"Can you just open the door?"
...Or atomized. Don't interrupt me.
'...Whoever put her on the job must have been on something strong... Now that I think about it, it was probably Alyx - no doubt she was out of it.'
Now, before I let you in, what's the magic word?
"Molly..."
Yes~?
"Open the door before I hop in there and fucking kill you!"
You said multiple words and none of them were the right one. Also,
A small tube extended from the side of the door.
Swear Jar.
"..."
...Swear Tube?
"Just remember that you did this to yourself."
Did what?
"Malware!"
Malware materialized beside me, looking just as glitchy and malformed as always. He opened his mouth wide to take a chunk out of the door, but,
WAIT WAIT WAIT! I'm sorry! Calm down, if the boss finds out that you glitched out the gate she'll kill both of us!
"Then open the damn door!!"
Okay! You don't have to yell...
After finally getting the challenged individual behind the camera to come back to reality, the massive metal doors would open up with a slight creek of gears turning.
The door opened, as always, revealing a Golem.
"-33, please. I've gotta report to Alyx."
I doubt she's in her office, so I may as well check the common room first...
As I stepped in and gave the instruction, the Golem gave a silent nod, turning to the keypad beside the door and pressing a few buttons, first entering the passcode and then the floor I requested to be taken to.
The door's closed, mechanisms came to life, and we started moving downwards.
[We are now en route to Floor -33: Common Room #3. The estimated time until arrival is 4 minutes. To maximize your comfort during our descent, please select a genre of music and/or specific song that you would like to listen to.]
"Uhm... No thanks, I'd prefer if it were just quiet..."
[Request Denied. The specified genre is not listed within our catalogue. Would you care to refer to the default option?]
"Not really, no-"
[Understood. Default playlist has been added to the queue. Now playing【Don't Worry, Be Happy】by【Bobby McFerrin】.]
"Oh, my god..."
It was a very long, and painful 4 minutes...
But, to end the chapter without at least letting you know my name would be pretty weird, so... My name is Mira Amani, and, for better or worse, in this BS storyline I've been assigned the role of main character and Amalgamation Slayer working for the Sanguine Saber, humanity's last stand against the tyranny of the apocalypse! (God, that's so corny...), and I hate my job...