Silence followed.
The crowd of orange jumpsuits froze.
One man stared at the hallway, trembling violently.
Then he vomited onto the stone floor.
Others followed.
The coppery stench of blood mixed with bile and ruptured bowels, filling the room with a nauseating fog of death.
"Oh dear," the triangle muttered glibly.
Despite speaking quietly, his voice echoed across the entire chamber.
"No one should have a weak stomach either."
He adjusted his cartoon tie with delicate precision.
Then he lifted a single slender finger.
The finger glitched slightly, its edges flickering like television static.
He pointed toward the prisoners who had vomited.
The sound of a party horn went off.
As their heads exploded into confetti.
There was no flash.
No buildup.
Just a dull pop.
One moment they were standing there next there was an explosion of red white and pink confetti derived from blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.
Screams erupted.
Chaos followed instantly.
The crowd panicked, stampeding away from the center of the room. Men shoved one another toward the walls in blind terror, trampling whoever fell beneath them.
Some cried.
Some screamed curses.
Others simply stood frozen, unable to comprehend what they had just witnessed.
When confronted with fear, there were usually two responses:
Fight.
Or flight.
Tonight, only one was happening.
Yet amidst the hysteria…
Five prisoners remained perfectly still.
Rein was one of them.
From where he stood, the creature looked exactly like the Illuminati pyramid on a dollar bill—
If it had grown limbs, developed a show-host personality, and possessed an eldritch sense of humor.
How it was speaking without a mouth was impossible to understand.
But judging from the expression in that enormous eye…
The triangle was enjoying himself.
Immensely.
Then the creature clapped its hands once.
Its cheerful voice rang across the chamber.
"Welcome, one and all…"
The eye widened gleefully.
"…to the lap of luxury!"
The triangle snapped his fingers.
The piano and tripod stool vanished instantly, leaving only a floating wine glass filled with an unknown swirling liquid.
"I'm your host—"
He removed his hat with exaggerated elegance and dipped into a theatrical bow mid-air.
"—I have many names. Lord of Chaos. Dream Demon. The illuminati. Reality's Worst Nightmare…"
He paused, tilting the hat back onto his head.
"But you can just call me Bill."
Bill clasped his hands together.
"Congratulations! You've all been selected for today's welcoming ceremony!"
Silence answered him.
Bill blinked once.
"You see," he continued, gesturing lazily with the wine glass, "every 630,720,000 seconds, that's twenty years for those of you who struggle with numbers, I'm obligated to uphold a little contract."
He swirled the drink like an experienced wine connoisseur.
"I pop into your adorable little dimension, grab a handful of Naughty Homo sapiens…"
His eye curved into a delighted crescent.
"And toss them into a brand new universe of my choosing!"
He spread his arms wide.
"Sounds fun, right?"
The prisoners stared at him.
No one spoke.
Bill stared back.
"…Wow. Tough crowd."
He facepalmed.
The floating glass drifted into his hand as he leaned backward lazily, tilting the drink toward his eye. The liquid curved upward unnaturally as his eye stretched outward to sip from the rim.
The effect was deeply unsettling.
"Talking to such minuscule organisms is exhausting," Bill muttered. "I even simplified the explanation for you."
He sighed audibly while swirling the glass again.
"Alright, let's try this again."
He pointed at the crowd.
"Your presidents. Your prime ministers. Your dictators."
He tapped his temple.
"Smart cookies. They made a deal with me."
Bill's voice dropped slightly, irritation creeping in.
"Every twenty years, their most heinous criminals disappear."
He took another sip.
"And in exchange…"
His eye narrowed.
"I don't unleash an endless cosmic nightmare party on their dimension."
He waved his hand dismissively.
"You're welcome."
Bill grumbled to himself.
"I wasn't even allowed to release Weirdmageddon properly because of that Scarlet King brat and his stupid contract clauses…"
He stopped mid-rant.
His eye snapped open wide as he remembered his audience.
"Ah—right. Indoor voice."
The triangle cleared his nonexistent throat.
"But good news!"
His grin returned.
"I've discovered a few… loopholes."
He spun the wine glass in a small circle.
"And I think this little exchange program is going to be very entertaining."
Bill finally looked over the gathered prisoners.
Some of them were pinching themselves.
Others stared blankly, waiting to wake from the nightmare.
No one spoke.
The silence stretched.
Bill clapped his hands suddenly.
"Alright! Enough exposition!"
He pointed dramatically at the crowd.
"I will now be taking questions!"
A single hand raised.
Seeing it, Bill instantly snapped back into his game-show host persona.
"You! The white-haired gremlin in the back."
Sato lowered his hand proudly.
"Yeah, quick question. I don't remember eating any of Connor's brownies today, so if you're my hallucination, probably from the pudding, I've always wondered something."
He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"Why do asteroids always land in craters?"
Bill stared at him.
"…Oh."
His eye slowly narrowed.
"So this is your level of intelligence. I see. I may have vastly overestimated you humans."
He sighed.
"Reminds me of the good old days arguing with Sixxer in Gravity Falls. At least that organ sack had a functioning brain."
Smack.
A hand lightly struck the back of Sato's head.
"Oof! Bestie, what was that for?"
Rein lowered his hand.
"Now isn't the time for jokes," he said flatly. "I don't know what's going on, but at least try to take this seriously."
Sato froze.
His eyes widened.
"…Wait."
He pointed between Rein and the floating triangle.
"You can see it too?"
Rein nodded once.
Sato immediately threw both arms into the air.
"LET'S GOOOO!"
He burst into manic laughter.
"Dream multiplayer mode just got an update—"
His laughter died instantly when Rein slowly raised his fist again.
"Heh. Okay, okay. I'll be serious. I'll be serious."
Sato straightened his posture and crossed his arms, forcing a painfully serious expression.
Bill's attention, which had been fixed on Sato, slowly shifted.
His eye locked onto Rein.
For a moment, the playful expression disappeared.
Something colder flickered there.
His gaze lingered on Rein's red hair and blue eyes, irritation clearly visible before Bill forced himself to look away.
Instead, he scanned the crowd.
The prisoners had already begun giving Rein and Sato a wide berth. Several other empty circles existed among the inmates, places where particularly dangerous individuals stood alone.
Bill chuckled.
"Well, well… looks like we have quite a few main characters in the audience tonight."
He clapped his hands once.
"But before we continue with any more idiotic questions, let's start with a little gamble."
His grin widened.
"To decide which universe you'll be stranded in."
Immediately, the silence shattered.
"Why should we listen to you?"
"Gambling for the world?!"
"What's the catch?"
"We get freedom out of this?"
"I can't wait to taste the flesh of women and children again."
Questions exploded from the crowd all at once.
Bill tried to speak again.
"Listen here, I'm explaining the rules—"
"Shut up and answer my question!"
"Arrogant triangle! You're not the boss of me!"
"Don't wanna. I'm going back to my cell."
Something snapped.
Bill's body suddenly expanded.
His one-meter form stretched upward until he towered nearly thirty meters tall, filling most of the chamber. His bright yellow body shifted into a dangerous glowing red.
When he spoke again, his voice was deep enough to shake the stone walls.
"The next human who interrupts me…"
"…will have every hydrogen molecule ripped from their corpse."
The room fell silent instantly.
Fear washed across the prisoners' faces.
Bill blinked.
Then his body shrank back down.
"Great! Glad we got that cleared up!"
His cheerful voice returned as if nothing had happened.
He snapped his fingers.
Three tall stacks of cards appeared before him: white, silver, and black, arranged neatly in rows.
Then reality bent.
The chamber collapsed.
Three dimensions flattened into two like paper before unfolding again. Above the prisoners appeared a massive roulette wheel, hovering in the air as neon lights pulsed along its rim. Strange symbols and names blurred together as it slowly began to spin.
Bill admired it proudly.
"Wow."
He placed a hand over his chest.
"I'm honestly getting more impressed with myself every day."
His body suddenly flattened like a sheet of paper and fell perfectly onto the ground.
"Now then… who should spin the wheel?"
Whoosh.
Every prisoner was shoved by an invisible force into a perfect circle around the chamber.
Several tried to shout in protest—
—but their mouths instantly transformed into zippers as Bill casually waved a finger.
Zip.
All of them sealed shut.
"Much better."
Still lying flat on the floor, Bill's eye grew enormous. A glowing green arrow appeared inside it like a screen and began spinning rapidly.
"Eeny… meeny… miny…"
The arrow slowed.
"…you."
It stopped.
Pointing directly at Rein.
Bill's eye curved into a malicious grin.
"Hey, redhead."
He tilted his hat.
"I've decided you're the main character."
He floated slightly upward.
"You look exactly like someone I hate. Not good old Ice bag Wendy but someone far more bossy."
Bill's voice became sweetly cruel.
"And the only way to relieve my irritation… is to inflict pain on you."
He pointed toward the giant roulette wheel.
"Now spin it."
Before Rein could react, an invisible force seized him and catapulted him upward.
He slammed into the roulette wheel.
The impact sent it spinning violently.
There was no resisting it.
No fighting back.
They were completely at the mercy of the demon.
As the wheel roared into motion, Rein shot a glare toward Sato, one that clearly said:
This is what happens when I follow you.
Sato, wearing a deeply guilty expression, attempted to whistle innocently.
Unfortunately, his mouth had been turned into a zipper.
The best he could manage was a series of awkward protruding lip movements that made him look like a duck while avoiding Rein's murderous stare.
The contrast between his carefree behavior and the horrific carnage surrounding them only made the situation feel even more absurd.
Above them, the roulette spun faster and faster.
The symbols and names blurred into streaks of light, spinning so quickly that even Bill, without using his future-seeing kaleidoscope, couldn't predict where it would land.
Eventually, the wheel began to slow.
The titles became readable.
[1984]
[DC Comics]
[Evangelion]
[Invincible]
[The Walking Dead]
[The Matrix]
[Dark Souls]
[Mad Max]
[Fallout]
[Attack on Titan]
[Dead Space]
[Berserk]
[All Tomorrows]
[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]
[Warhammer 40K]
[Chainsaw Man]
[Reverend Insanity]
[GTA]
[Danganronpa]
[Blood Meridian]
[Jujutsu Kaisen]
[Dune]
[Backrooms]
[One Punch Man]
[Project Moon]
[Game of Thrones]
[Bloodborne]
[Cthulhu Mythos]
[Monsterverse]
[Star Wars]
The wheel slowed further.
It crept forward…
Then stopped.
The pointer landed on:
[SCP Foundation]
Rein felt a chill crawl down his spine.
He didn't know why.
But every instinct in his body screamed that this destination was wrong.
Dangerous.
Every world on the wheel had made him uneasy…
But this one especially.
The wheel hesitated.
Then—
click.
The pointer slipped past the segment.
It moved one space forward.
[Marvel]
A glowing subtitle appeared beneath it:
[Marvel – Welcome to the battlefield of cosmic beings.]
Bill clapped happily.
"Jackpot overused but the author knows a bit about this!"
The roulette wheel suddenly compressed inward.
Reality folded like paper as the massive structure shrank smaller and smaller until it warped into a tiny purple nebula-like marble.
The sphere floated into Bill's hand.
"Man," Bill said casually, examining it.
"The Vessel of Anchor's power really is incredible."
He balanced the tiny universe on the tip of his finger and spun it like a basketball.
"To create a fully functioning universe with just a thought…"
The marble grew slightly larger as galaxies swirled inside it.
"…and the cosmology will keep expanding on its own."
He grinned.
"Love self-maintaining systems."