“Wow!” Roger said.

“I know!” Billy replied.

“It won’t work.” Sneered Sam.

Gordon said nothing.

They were seated around the table they always sat around. Billy’s usual mess spilled out around them, the table top worn out by their constant fidgeting. Roger’s organized pile of useful materials sat neat and waiting. Sam had their prepared list of war crimes for the session. Gordon had a dusty book of scribbled notes. Everyone had dice.

“You can’t just pretend that a country doesn’t exist and have that stop them from dropping bombs on another country. You can’t just pretend that a state no longer exists and then suddenly they will stop killing their citizens!”

“How many people need to pretend that a country exists for a state to emerge?” Countered Billy whose box of infinite useless solutions was still over half full despite offering bad advice to countless problems more times than his loved ones were polite enough to count.

“It just takes one person to launch a bomb.”

Gordon began scribbling in his notebook. Roger began being helpful.

Billy and Sam had been intermittently arguing about whether the impending collapse of the great states could be steered away from involving them for quite awhile. Sam was certain you had to kill enough people to make a state disappear while Billy held out hope that killing each other could be kept to a minimum.

Eventually, Roger intervened to let them know the game was beginning. A few hours and a few prevented pretend apocalypses later, Billy, Sam, and Roger left Gordon’s house and headed for their cars.

Then the world ended.

----------------------------------------

There was a 'SLAM' as everything that sort of had a roof disappeared. Then there were words floating in the air and being spoken in their heads.

Five minutes after the slam found the three of them were walking towards the nearest light they could see.

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“That was wild!” Said Roger.

“Do you think it was someone pretending a state existed?” Asked Sam.

“Well, they would need to feel like something pretty magical existed if they were willing to kill so many people.” Said Billy

“The message said they were mining the planet.” Sam said, “I think they just wanted money.”

“Yeah, what’s more magical than that?”

“Than money? Money’s real!”

“Not anymore.” Billy said.

“Well maybe not the dollars we used to kill each other over, but they probably have space money. Money is still exists.”

“As long as they believe it does, yeah.”

They walked in silence for awhile. It was past midnight. It was cold but not blistering and none of their cars were so reliable that they would risk being stranded in their rural town without some good layers. Apocalypses weren’t something they were experienced in navigating as themselves and their characters were still sitting safely on sheets in their backpacks.

“Shame about Gordon.” Sam said, eventually.

Gordon’s mom’s was the house they had left. After the slam that announced the apocalypse had faded and all the houses and cars and fire hydrants had disappeared into the earth, the three had started looking around where the house once stood but had gotten distracted with the flying words detailing what they had to do in order to survive and possibly regain some of earth’s wealth.

“He will be missed.” Agreed Sam.

Billy nodded.

After five more minutes of walking with nothing but the crunch of gravel and whistle of wind to accompany them, Roger asked what they had all been thinking:

“Do you think we are going to be awesome at this dungeon thing?”

“If whoever is running the game is as kind as you,” smiled Billy, “we’ll do just fine.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“Then we’ll kill them!” Said Sam. “Them, their children, and the guy that served them ice cream on that one weekend they weren’t being a complete asshole. We’ll kill all of them!”

They laughed. There hadn't been a discussion about going into the dungeon. Of course they would. What else were they going to do?

“Do you think they’ll be nice?” Asked Roger.

“Well, the people running the game stand to gain the world’s wealth if we fail.”

“Sounds like we need to get killing.”

They spent the first half of the rest of the way fantasizing and playing out the different ways they would kill whoever had forced them into this exciting revenge porn.

The second half of the walk to the doorway was filled with sobering thoughts comparing the discomfort of their blossoming blisters to the probable discomfort of being hit in the face or being stabbed.

“I hope there’s snacks.” Said Sam.

Everyone agreed.