In an apocalyptic world, you'd naturally expect humanity to curl up, hide in the dark, and wait for the end. After all, it certainly looks like the end times arrived.
You know the classic tropes. Meteors falling from the sky. Horrific monsters roaming the streets. Mysterious, glowing gates ripping through reality. Dimensional rifts tearing open the sky. Every single crazy fantasy cliché you've ever read about popped out right here on Earth.
By all rights, humanity should have gone extinct within the first week-or at least ended up cowering in underground bunkers like rats. That's how all those stories usually go.
Fortunately, the indomitable human spirit proved to be far more stubborn-and far more terrifying-than anyone expected.
It didn't take long for humanity to figure out how to tap into the very same forces those otherworldly invaders used.
We realized we could manipulate strange energies using our own raw emotions. Naturally, human bodies aren't built to handle volatile, radioactive magic, but there were eight billion of us. Eight billion desperate souls willing to gamble their lives just to survive another Tuesday.
Having a common enemy has a funny way of bringing out our absolute worst and most creative instincts.
People began conducting reckless experiments on themselves. Technologists figured out how to inject raw mana directly into human veins.
Traditionalists turned to ancient cultivation techniques.
Some psycho on my block even discovered he could perceive four-dimensional space by getting high while literally drowning himself in a tub of monster blood.
People ripped the DNA out of eldritch beasts and grafted it right into their own flesh.
With every passing year, the next generation grew stronger.
The kids born after the fallout? They don't even need to experiment. They're born as natural-born freaks of nature.
Just this morning, I saw a toddler across the street casually levitating his milk bottle with telekinesis while picking his nose.
Neat, huh?
My name is Josh. I'm a cool guy-probably the coolest, most unassuming guy you'll ever meet in a place like this.
Right now, I live in the mega-fortress city of **New Ouroboros**. Officially, I work as a humble clerk at a local convenience store, but today I'm out on the pavement doing the worst part of my job: door-to-door deliveries. I wade through crowds of horribly altered people, carrying a plain brown paper bag containing basic groceries that someone was too lazy-or too afraid-to pick up themselves.
You see, most people who tried to adapt didn't turn into sleek, glowing superheroes. Real life isn't a comic book. Most of them mutated into absolute monstrosities.
How should I put it? They became hideous.
Take a guy I used to know. Poor bastard tried a biological splice and turned into a giant, air-breathing freshwater fish.
But since we live on dry land, he just lay on the hot asphalt flopping around like a idiot. It took four of us to drag him toward a municipal pool, but before we could even throw him in, he tragically suffocated.
And that's just a mild example. For all I know, the woman who ordered these groceries might mutated into a dining room table and can't leave her apartment unless someone rotates her sideways through the door frame.
Ha. What kind of absurd thoughts am I letting creep into my head?
Anyway, I've arrived.
I knock on the reinforced steel apartment door. "Delivery! Grocery run for Miss Vance!"
No response. Dead silence from inside.
YOU ARE READING
Didn't Mean It
Fantasy"Thing never went the way you wanted. But we can still try. Me and you... we have to make this shit work."
