"Life is a constant process of dying."
― Arthur Schopenhauer
What a boring life. Exhaustion gnawed at my bones. College at night, work during the day. By month's end, bills swallowed my paycheck. No more anime, no more gaming. Just a soul-crushing routine.
A tinny melody echoed through my bus ride. "R.E.M. - It's The End of The World As We Know It" blared through my worn headphones as I fall sleep.
Suddenly, panicked screams pierced the air. People scrambled, throwing themselves at windows.
Confused, I jolted awake. A monstrous visage pressed against the windshield, its gaping maw filling half the glass. No eyes, just a horrifying mouth devouring the driver.
Terror locked my limbs. What was this? Instinct took over. I joined the others, leaping out of the moving bus.
"What the hell is that?"
Frantic figures swarmed the streets, abandoning vehicles. A colossal eye descended in the horizon, raining down giant, grotesque creatures. Their fall shattered the sound barrier somehow.
The bridge became a scene of carnage. Creatures unlike anything I'd ever imagined tore through the crowd. A vile liquid sizzled, dissolving cars and flesh alike. Pure, unadulterated terror.
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Driven by the primal urge to survive, I sprinted alongside the fleeing masses. A thunderous roar announced the arrival of jet fighters, their deafening screeches a futile challenge against the encroaching darkness that the 'eye' was spreading to the sky.
Bodies littered the path ahead. In my desperate run, I tripped over one, the metallic tang of blood filling my senses. A car exploded, the force throwing me into the path of a fleeing woman.
Pain erupted as we collided. I broke a few bones, my ears pounded with a deafening silence.
A grotesque deer head, inverted and impossibly elongated, emerged from the burning car. Black limbs twitched, its gaze fixated on me.
Just as the creature lunged, three shimmering yellow boxes materialized in front of me.
{The God of Earth bestows a final blessing upon humanity…}
{Blessing of the Labyrinth: Choose your path. The greater the challenge, the greater the rewards, except for 'Hell'. However, beware, some paths lead to oblivion.}
Below, six options pulsed with an ethereal glow.
A searing agony ripped through my leg. The monstrous deer's gnashing maw found its next target. My scream died in my throat, a strangled gasp lost in the cacophony of the collapsing world.
Time stretched, each tick of the mental clock an eternity. My vision swam, the once vibrant world dissolving into a nightmarish kaleidoscope. The creature's fetid breath washed over me, a harbinger of oblivion.
The yellow boxes before me blurred, a beacon in the encroaching darkness. Through the haze of pain, the word "God" mocked me. Was this some twisted joke, an offering the very worst before the inevitable end?
My fingers, slick with a horrifying wetness, twitched uselessly. My arms, once the tools of mundane tasks, now hung limp. Had the creature begun its gruesome feast? The answer was a chilling indifference.
With a last surge of defiance, a primal urge to cheat the inevitable, I focused on the glowing box labeled "Hell." A Pop-up appered. I just aceeped my fate.
The world dissolved into a blinding colorless color. What a boring life.