The world on the other side hit him like a physical blow.
No golden light. No soft hum of safety. Just ash-choked air and the acrid stench of decay. The sky was a perpetual gray—clouds thick with fallout or something worse, blocking out the sun in a way that felt permanent.
Ruined skyscrapers loomed like broken teeth, their windows shattered, vines of some mutated plant crawling up the sides. The ground crunched under his boots, glass, bone, debris mixed into a gritty paste.
Earth-Z.
But the zombies were dead. All of them. What remained was… this.
James stood on what had once been a bustling street—maybe Times Square, judging by the tilted billboards half-buried in rubble. Faded ads for Stark Industries peeled in the wind. A rusted Iron Man helmet lay cracked at his feet, its arc reactor long dark.
Silence pressed in—broken only by distant echoes. A scream? A shout? He couldn't tell.
He started walking.
The first sign of life came ten minutes in.
A group of shadows darted across an intersection—three figures, ragged clothes hanging off skeletal frames.
They were chasing something—no, someone. A woman, stumbling, clutching a bundle to her chest. She glanced back, terror etched into her dirt-streaked face.
One of the pursuers—a man with wild eyes and a makeshift club—lunged. He grabbed her arm, yanked her down. The bundle fell—canned food rolling into the gutter.
James froze in the shadows of a collapsed storefront.
The men—three of them now—pinned her. She fought—nails raking, legs kicking—but they were stronger, hungrier. One ripped at her shirt. Laughter—harsh, broken—echoed as they held her down.
Rape.
In broad daylight. Or whatever passed for daylight here.
James's hands clenched. Fire sparked in his palms.
But he waited. Watched.
This wasn't zombies. This was what came after.
The woman screamed—once, sharp—then went silent as one of the men clamped a hand over her mouth. The others took turns. No mercy. No hesitation. When they were done, they rifled through her pockets, took the food, and left her there—broken, bleeding, staring at the sky.
She didn't get up.
James moved on—jaw tight, stomach turning.
Twenty minutes. He'd give it twenty minutes to see if this world was worth saving.
The next horror came around the corner—a playground, or what was left of it. Swings creaked in the wind, chains rusted. A group of survivors—five adults, two children—huddled around a fire barrel. The kids couldn't have been more than eight or nine—thin, wide-eyed, clinging to a woman who might have been their mother.
A raid hit fast.
Four men—armed with pipes and knives—burst from a nearby alley. Shouts. Demands for food. The group resisted—weakly.
One raider grabbed the boy—small, screaming—and slammed him against the slide. Laughter again. The man pinned the child, hands roaming. Abuse. For fun. Because he could.
The mother lunged—knife in hand. She got one stab in before another raider gutted her.
The girl tried to run. They caught her. More laughter.
James watched from the rooftop edge—fire coiling hotter in his veins.
This wasn't survival. This was descent.
Fifteen minutes in.
He moved deeper into the ruins—past barricades of cars and debris, graffiti scrawled with warnings: "No Food Here." "Stay Away." "The Dead Walked. Now We Do."
A marketplace—makeshift, tents of tarp and metal. Survivors bartering scraps. A man traded a can of beans for a woman—chained, bruised, eyes dead. She didn't fight. Just followed.
James turned away.
A fight broke out over water—two groups, knives flashing. Bodies hit the ground. The winners looted the losers, left them to bleed.
Children—feral now—scurried like rats, stealing from the dead.
One kid—maybe ten—got caught. The thief-taker beat him bloody. For fun. Laughter again.
James's stomach churned.
This was beyond zombies. The undead had been hunger without choice. This was humanity stripped to its worst—pain inflicted because the world had ended, and rules with it.
Twenty minutes.
He stopped on a bridge—overlooking what had once been a river, now a choked sludge of debris and bodies.
Enough.
The blue screen appeared—floating in front of him, text calm as ever.
[This Earth is beyond repair.]
[Let's kill everyone on this planet in an instant to free them from the pain and despair. User just has to snap his fingers, and the universe will do the job by giving everyone on Earth a heart attack.]
James read it twice.
No judgment. No morality play. Just a solution.
He thought of the woman in the street. The children in the playground. The endless cycle of suffering that would grind on until the last survivor starved or went mad.
Mercy? Or murder?
He raised his hand.
Snapped his fingers.
The sound was ordinary—sharp, echoing slightly over the bridge.
Then the universe moved.
It started subtle—a ripple in the air, like heat haze.
In the distance, a raider mid-swing clutched his chest—eyes wide—then dropped.
Screams cut short.
Bodies fell—silent, sudden.
In the marketplace, traders collapsed mid-haggle. The chained woman slumped, free in death.
Children froze—tiny hands to hearts—then crumpled.
No pain. No lingering. Just… end.
James watched from the bridge—bodies dropping like puppets with cut strings. The wind carried faint thuds. Then silence.
True silence.
No more running. No more screams. No more laughter at pain.
The planet emptied in minutes.
James exhaled—shaky, but steady.
He walked.
Food remained—scattered in camps, in ruined stores, preserved in cans and wrappers that had outlasted their owners.
He found a convenience store—shelves half-looted, but some treasures intact.
A pack of jerky—spicy, unopened. He tore it open, chewed slowly. Salt and heat on his tongue—simple, grounding.
A can of soda—warm, but fizzy when cracked. He drank, the carbonation bubbling against the quiet.
In a nearby tent, a stash: energy bars, dried fruit, bottles of water purified somehow.
He sat on a crate—ate methodically. An apple—withered but edible. Crackers. A chocolate bar—melted slightly, but sweet.
The world was his now—empty, echoing.
He savored it—not the death, but the end of suffering. The food tasted better in the silence.
When he was full, he stood.
Opened a portal.
Stepped back into golden light.