The night ripped open like an expired film reel tearing across a projector, shrieking with static. The sky was no longer sky—it was a massive translucent door, veined with blood cracks. Behind it loomed the Realm of Death: a stage littered with bones, whispers, and absurd rituals.
At first, people mistook it for a freak natural disaster. TV anchors forced cheerful tones:"Don't panic, citizens, it's just temporary stratospheric distortion."
But when the first residents of Deathrealm strolled out—carrying scythes as umbrellas, skateboarding on human bones—the illusion of optimism shattered.
"Is… is this cultural exchange?" someone stammered.
The emissary grinned."Something like that. We bring you advanced death-arts and soul-harvesting jobs. We heard your young people like to 'lie flat'? Well, we can provide eternal flat-lining."
The absurd diplomacy lasted less than three days.On the third, the "cultural envoys" converted a shopping mall into a crematorium, posting a sign: "Grand Opening Sale—Spend $100, Get Free Hell Notes."
—
The World Gate was not just one door. It was countless.
A blood-red gate split open atop Beijing's CBD.Tokyo's subway tunnels now exited into endless graveyards.From the Statue of Liberty's eye sockets in New York stretched a corridor echoing with synchronized wails.
Each city became a showroom window, like a global franchise in grotesque funeral services.
Governments unraveled instantly, and their responses looked sillier than the nightmares themselves:
The U.S. founded a "Cross-Domain Cooperation Department" to retool death scythes into high-tech harvesters for agriculture.
Europe convened to debate whether Deathrealm migrants should receive welfare cards.
One small nation's president declared: "Since Heaven has no immigration policy, Hell must be our strategic partner!"
—
On the edge of a half-nightmarized city, Ethan and Carl stood among skull-shaped traffic lights. Their mouths opened and closed to say "Go" or "Stop," yet no one obeyed anymore. The air reeked of ash and barbecue, impossible to tell nightmare from street food.
"So this is globalization?" Carl sneered. "They used to call it world integration. Now it's straight-up death integration."
Ethan laughed coldly. "A free upgrade. We weren't just swallowed by nightmares—now Death itself opened branch offices."
A broadcast drifted on the wind, magnetic and funereal, like an inescapable dark ad:"Dear living customers, please note: The World Gate is now fully open. Sign a soul contract to enjoy our Eternal Slumber Package. Includes a complimentary one-day Nightmare World tour. Limited offer."
Carl clenched his fists. "You really mean to let them take over?"
Ethan lowered his gaze to the bone-veins crawling across the street, like cables linking the gates. "Take over? They're just exposing the truth. We brag about being alive, but we've been dead all along. It used to be slow disease—now it's a swift blade."
Below, Deathrealm merchants had set up stalls, selling cheap coffins and "limited-edition soul cans." Humans actually lined up, weeping as they swiped their cards—like bargain hunters at a fire sale.
Carl's eyes flickered with unease.
Ethan suddenly grinned, a wind-cut crack across his face:"The World Gate isn't for us to run. It's for us to choose—whether we're still human, or something else."
The sky convulsed. The colossal doors swung wide.A vast shadow crept through—Deathrealm's true master preparing to step onto the stage.
The end's theater was finally set.