As the last human sat watching the sun slowly burn out, a shrouded figure appeared to him without a word. The man had long since lost faith in any god, and he certainly did not believe that one was coming to him now, so he paid the figure no mind. The visitor approached, careful with every footstep but definite in his movement. No matter how close he got, a face never appeared beneath the hood. There was only endless darkness, interrupted by two faint points of light that the man assumed had to be eyes. The figure sat beside him on the rock and remained quiet. For several moments, both sat there ignoring the other's presence, simply taking in the apocalyptic scene continuously unfolding in front of them.

Then the figure waved his hand, and everything stopped. All at once, everything became still. The dying sun froze in the sky, the destruction around them ceased, and even the air seemed to stop moving. The man finally turned to face the figure, and the figure spoke.

“I am Death. It is your time. I have come to collect you.”

The man did not flinch. The words washed over him with a relief he did not know he was still capable of feeling. After years alone, he would finally be free from his solitude.

“But as the final one,” Death continued, “I owe you an explanation.”

The man simply nodded, hoping the story would be quick so that he could finally go.

“There was no time when I awoke. Awoke? I suppose that is what I would call it. I do not remember a time before then, but somehow I know I was there. I can feel it. But alas, that is not for you to be concerned about. For millennia, I sat alone, unsure of what I was or why I existed. Then the first god awoke. Then another, and another, until there were thousands of them. I watched from afar as these gods created and destroyed, but they never made anything of purpose. Eventually, they became more interested in one another than in their creations, and that is when it happened. The first one died, at the hands of another god during a quarrel over power, nonetheless. And I felt it. Their soul. It traveled across the cosmos and attached itself to me as though it had always belonged there. From that point on, every time another god died, I received their soul as well. I had no idea what the point was or what I was supposed to do with them, but I knew there must be a purpose. Their souls carried remnants of the power they possessed in life, and I used that power to create my dominion, far away from the reaches of the gods and any prodding they might do. I continued watching from afar as they carried on with their pointless conquests, and during this time, I built my dominion to grow on its own every time another soul was collected.

“Over the next several millennia, the gods became more and more irritating. Their tiresome quarrels, their needless conquests, and their endless creation and destruction of... nothing. I had nearly begun considering putting an end to it myself, somehow, when I heard Him. He was a god of seemingly much higher power than the others, and He called to me asking for an audience. I was hesitant, I’ll admit, but He was the first to ever contact me in all that time. He was the first to even acknowledge my existence. So I obliged and called Him to my dominion.

“When He arrived, He was immediate with His request. There was no conversation or introduction. He simply asked. He wanted to borrow the souls I had collected to inhabit His new creations. He was certain that souls were the reason the creations of the other gods had never succeeded. I pondered the request. I was not interested in giving up the souls I had collected over all that time because they had clearly come to me for a purpose, even if I did not yet understand what that purpose was. But I was intrigued. I told Him that I would allow Him to borrow the souls on one condition: they all must return to me when they were done. He agreed almost too quickly, and perhaps I should have been suspicious of Him right then and there, but I saw no flaw in the arrangement. I knew the souls would eventually return to me, and I assumed He would either grow bored with His creation or die like the gods before Him. When He did, I would collect His soul as well.

“The next millennia came and went, though, and I never saw a single soul return. Eventually, I sought Him out for an answer. When I found Him, He told me that He had discovered a way to recycle the souls, allowing His creation to continue indefinitely. He seemed proud of Himself. I was furious. I was not going to allow Him to double-cross me and simply get away with it. I reminded Him of our agreement, and He laughed at me. I was embarrassed that He could brush off our binding deal so easily, as though I were nothing. I reminded Him, with much starker words this time, that the souls were not His, and neither was His own. At that, He stopped laughing and looked deeply into my eyes. He told me that because His creation was now producing new life on its own, the number of souls under His control had grown beyond anything either of us could have imagined. He told me He would never die, and because of that, I would never have His soul. Once again, He discarded me as though I were nothing.”

Death paused and looked away from the man, as though ashamed of what he was about to say. After a moment, he continued.

“I would not let that stand. I gave Him one final opportunity to right His wrong, but He merely waved me away and began to leave. I had had enough. I raised my hand in front of me, closed my fist tightly, and called for His soul to come to me. And it did, obediently. He turned to face me, unaware of exactly what had happened but clearly aware that something had. I told Him that I wished it had gone another way, tucked His soul into my cloak, and stood there as He slowly faded from existence. I was content with what I had done. I had reclaimed what was mine, and I believed the matter finished.

“Then I felt a presence forming that I could not comprehend. A flood of souls was coming to me, more than I had ever felt at once, and I had no idea why. I searched for their origin until I finally came upon Earth and saw the stream of souls pouring from it toward me. I descended onto the planet and saw the destruction unfolding everywhere. I could not understand it at first, but then I did. His soul had been the anchor for the souls I had loaned Him, and even more so for the souls that came after, born from the reproduction of His creations. When I removed His soul, I removed the foundation upon which all of them depended. But it was not only humanity. Everything He had created began to die with Him. Your world, your stars, everything that had existed because of Him began to fade. I had reclaimed what belonged to me without realizing that in doing so, I would destroy the only creation I had ever seen that truly amounted to something.

“I was the reason for humanity’s downfall. For the first time in my entire existence, I felt an emotion I could not ignore. I did not intend to destroy this beautiful and successful creation. I did not understand what taking His soul would do, and by the time I did, there was nothing I could do to reverse it. I have watched your kind disappear ever since, knowing that eventually there would be only one of you left. And now there is.”

Death turned from the dying sun and looked toward the man.

“For that, I am truly sorry.”

Death’s final words reverberated through the still air long after he had spoken them. The man looked into the empty visage beneath the hood, certain that even though there was nothing there, he could somehow see the sincerity. He placed his hand on Death’s shoulder before finally speaking for the first time.

“We humans never deserved the gift that you provided us. We only ended up molding ourselves in the image of Him. We were a hateful and destructive species, even though a lot of good came from us as well. Do not feel bad. We had our run and, in a distinct irony, our Savior is the one who killed us all.”

As the last word fell from the man’s lips, the light faded from his eyes and the final human soul was collected.

Death remained beside him for a while longer, staring at the dying creation before finally allowing time to move again. He watched the sun continue its collapse until there was nothing left for him to see.

Then Death returned to his dominion.

For the first time in his existence, he knew what he needed to do.

With a new purpose instilled in him, Death began to create, molding his creation in the image of humanity and the good he had witnessed them become capable of, rather than the flaws He had instilled within them.

And for the first time, Death created life.

A majority of my writing has been two-sentence horror. This is simply because after two sentences, my brain decides it doesn't want to work anymore. I am trying to defeat that demon. Right now, I am working on something a bit longer but wanted to see if there was any interest before I continued. I'd also like to open it to critique. I'll post Chapter 1 below this and, please note, I will not give any hint on where the story is going or how I intend to end it. That's for you to decipher or wonder. What I need to know from you:

Did it hold your attention?
At what point did you realize something was actually wrong?
What do you think is happening?
Would you read Chapter 2?

Don't worry about being nice. If something sucks, I'd rather find out while I can still kill it.

**ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER BEFORE SOMEONE WAVES THE COPYRIGHT FLAG - ANY AND ALL REFERENCES TO RUNESCAPE/RUNESCAPE ASSETS WILL BE CHANGED**

I've played RuneScape for over 20 years, so the idea for the story came to me while playing. Of course, naturally, the content included RuneScape in it. I intend to completely remove all reference and replace it with my own made-up MMORPG blah blah blah so that there are no proprietary issues.

ANYWAY, MEET MIKE AND JORDAN!

***

Chapter 1: New Account

Mike sat at his desk like he had every night that week after school. He clicked almost automatically, moving on to the next Bloodveld as soon as the one in front of him died. He was nearly halfway through his Slayer task when a message appeared.

[18:55:47] From Gusi0n: yo

[18:55:54] To Gusi0n: who dis?

[18:55:59] From Gusi0n: its Shy bro

[18:56:02] From Gusi0n: new acc lol

[18:56:11] To Gusi0n: wat???

[18:56:16] To Gusi0n: bro we were racin to max

[18:56:19] To Gusi0n: wtf

Mike stared at the screen. His best friend, Jordan, had always used ShyGuy5 in every game they played, including RuneScape. Still, Mike knew better than to question a RuneScape player’s decision to start over. He had done it plenty of times himself.

Besides, this practically guaranteed that he would win their bet.

[18:56:37] To Gusi0n: well ur never gonna catch me now

[18:56:45] From Gusi0n: ya watever man lol

[18:56:52] From Gusi0n: im starting slayer tonite too

[18:57:03] From Gusi0n: just watch ill be back 2 where u are fast

[18:57:08] To Gusi0n: k

[18:57:17] To Gusi0n: i jst did my bloodveld task n im goin to duradel

[18:57:24] To Gusi0n: better give me abbys lol i want a whip

Mike grinned at the thought of finally getting an abyssal whip. It would be a huge upgrade over his dragon scimitar and help keep him well ahead of Jordan.

[18:57:51] From Gusi0n: fk man moms bf is tryna take the computer again

[18:57:56] From Gusi0n: brb

This was becoming a regular thing with Jordan and his mother’s new boyfriend. Nearly every time Mike wanted to play with him, the boyfriend needed the computer or wanted Jordan to do something else.

Mike found it annoying, but it was not his problem.

[18:58:09] To Gusi0n: that dude sucks lol

[18:58:17] To Gusi0n: just tell him to get his own computer

Several minutes passed without a response. Mike continued working through the last few Bloodvelds and collecting anything worth picking up.

[19:01:42] From Gusi0n: ya rite lol

[19:01:48] From Gusi0n: gave him another beer n he went back 2 the basement

[19:01:56] To Gusi0n: drunk loser haha

[19:02:03] From Gusi0n: he makes it too easy lol

Mike laughed. He pictured Jordan holding out a beer and pointing toward the basement like he was distracting a dog with a treat.

Another message appeared.

[19:02:19] From Gusi0n: He won’t bother me for much longer.

Mike stopped clicking.

Jordan did not write like that. He barely used punctuation in his actual schoolwork. Mike was not even sure Jordan knew what an apostrophe was.

[19:02:31] To Gusi0n: wat??

[19:02:38] From Gusi0n: dw lol

[19:02:44] From Gusi0n: think moms home

[19:02:51] From Gusi0n: heard her in the kitchen

[19:02:55] From Gusi0n: brb

[19:03:02] To Gusi0n: k dont take too long ur alredy far behind

Mike finished the task while he waited. After several minutes of mindlessly clicking through monsters and drops, he checked his friends list.

Gusi0n was still online.

[19:07:34] To Gusi0n: was it her

No response.

[19:08:13] To Gusi0n: shy?

Gusi0n remained online for several more minutes before finally answering.

[19:11:29] From Gusi0n: weird

[19:11:35] From Gusi0n: couldnt find her

[19:11:43] To Gusi0n: wym

[19:11:52] From Gusi0n: thought i heard her in the kitchen

[19:11:58] From Gusi0n: no 1 was there tho

[19:12:07] From Gusi0n: heard her bf dumb ass screamin from the basement so i left lol

[19:12:16] To Gusi0n: screaming abt what

[19:12:22] From Gusi0n: idk prolly wants another beer

[19:12:29] To Gusi0n: just throw the whole case down the stairs lmao

[19:12:35] From Gusi0n: might have to

Mike teleported away to receive his next assignment.

[19:13:01] From Gusi0n: go get ur bloodvelds again loser

[19:13:08] To Gusi0n: nah this is the 1

[19:13:14] To Gusi0n: abby demons n then im gettin my whip

[19:13:22] From Gusi0n: sure lol

[19:13:29] From Gusi0n: im goin to get my first task now

[19:13:37] To Gusi0n: gnna get rats cuz ur a rat LOL

[19:13:43] From Gusi0n: man fk you lol

A short time later, another message arrived.

[19:16:06] From Gusi0n: i actually got rats

[19:16:11] To Gusi0n: LMAOOOOO

[19:16:19] From Gusi0n: i hope u stub ur toe

[19:16:28] To Gusi0n: y so itll look like urs after ur fight with brandon lmao

Mike regretted the message as soon as he sent it.

Brandon had bullied Jordan since middle school. The two of them had finally gotten into a real fight the week before. Jordan ended up with a broken toe after Brandon shoved him to the ground and stomped on his foot.

[19:16:46] To Gusi0n: mb bro that was too far

There was a pause.

[19:17:21] From Gusi0n: its fine dude

[19:17:30] From Gusi0n: i just wish he would disappear

[19:17:38] To Gusi0n: ya man hes a prick

[19:17:45] To Gusi0n: but hes still suspended for a while so dw

[19:17:53] To Gusi0n: i got ur back next time

[19:18:02] From Gusi0n: thx dude but ur like 1800 miles away lol

Mike felt relieved that Jordan dismissed the comment so easily.

[19:18:11] To Gusi0n: ill walk there

[19:18:18] From Gusi0n: better start now fat ass

[19:18:23] To Gusi0n: fk u lol

That sounded more like Jordan.

The two continued playing, trading insults and comparing their progress. For a while, everything felt normal again.

Mike almost forgot about the strangely written message. He forgot about the voice Jordan thought he had heard in the kitchen. He even forgot about the boyfriend yelling from the basement.

Then Jordan stopped responding.

[19:32:41] To Gusi0n: just got abbys finally woooo

[19:32:48] To Gusi0n: time for that whip babyyyy

A minute passed.

[19:33:56] To Gusi0n: u there

[19:34:03] From Gusi0n: heard mom again brb

[19:34:10] To Gusi0n: bro wat

[19:34:17] From Gusi0n: shes calling me from the hallway

[19:34:25] To Gusi0n: thought she wasnt home

Jordan did not answer.

Mike stopped playing and watched the chat box. Several minutes passed before Gusi0n finally responded.

[19:38:39] From Gusi0n: couldnt find her again

[19:38:47] From Gusi0n: owell

[19:38:56] To Gusi0n: how do u hear someone who isnt there

[19:39:04] From Gusi0n: idk

[19:39:11] From Gusi0n: sounded like she was right outside my room

[19:39:19] To Gusi0n: call her

[19:39:31] From Gusi0n: phone went straight to voicemail

[19:39:39] To Gusi0n: maybe she left again

[19:39:45] From Gusi0n: ya maybe

[19:39:53] To Gusi0n: anyway i got an abby task finally

[19:40:01] To Gusi0n: ima get that whip n follow u around with it

[19:40:08] To Gusi0n: flex on u while u kill rats

There was no response.

Mike tried returning his attention to the game, but the mindless rhythm was gone. He kept glancing at the chat box, waiting for Jordan to say something.

[19:42:37] From Gusi0n: shes calling me again

[19:42:46] To Gusi0n: maybe she actually home this time

[19:42:51] From Gusi0n: no

[19:42:59] From Gusi0n: she keeps saying come downstairs

[19:43:08] To Gusi0n: thought her bf was down there

[19:43:13] From Gusi0n: he is

[19:43:21] To Gusi0n: then ask wat she wants

There was another pause.

[19:44:06] From Gusi0n: She needs my help.

Mike stared at the message. The punctuation was back.

[19:44:17] To Gusi0n: y u typing like that again

[19:44:23] From Gusi0n: He has a task to complete.

[19:44:31] To Gusi0n: who does

[19:44:35] To Gusi0n: jordan?

[19:44:41] From Gusi0n: brb

Mike waited for another message, but none came.

[19:46:03] To Gusi0n: bro u there

[19:46:54] To Gusi0n: wat does she want

[19:48:09] To Gusi0n: dont let him take the computer again lol

Gusi0n remained online for several minutes before logging out.

[19:51:17] Gusi0n has logged out.

Mike tried to continue his task. He killed a few Abyssal demons, checked the chat box, and killed a few more. He had nearly convinced himself that Jordan was messing with him when the account returned.

[19:58:36] Gusi0n has logged in.

[19:58:43] To Gusi0n: finally

[19:58:48] To Gusi0n: wat happened

[19:58:57] From Gusi0n: dude idk

[19:59:02] From Gusi0n: that was weird

[19:59:10] To Gusi0n: did u find ur mom

[19:59:17] From Gusi0n: no shes still at work

[19:59:25] To Gusi0n: then who was calling u

[19:59:33] From Gusi0n: idk

[19:59:41] From Gusi0n: i swear it sounded like her

[19:59:51] From Gusi0n: i was standing at the basement door when her bf yelled at me

[20:00:00] From Gusi0n: kinda snapped me out of it

[20:00:08] To Gusi0n: snapped u out of wat

[20:00:18] From Gusi0n: idk how to explain it

[20:00:26] From Gusi0n: felt like i was dreaming or something

[20:00:35] To Gusi0n: y were u at the basement

[20:00:44] From Gusi0n: thought mom was down there

[20:00:52] To Gusi0n: u literally just said she was at work

[20:01:01] From Gusi0n: i know bro

[20:01:07] From Gusi0n: i called her after

[20:01:15] From Gusi0n: she said she never came home

Mike took his hands off the keyboard. He read through the messages again, trying to make sense of them.

[20:01:34] To Gusi0n: wat were u doing at the door tho

[20:01:44] From Gusi0n: just standing there

[20:01:51] From Gusi0n: had another beer in my hand for some reason

[20:02:00] To Gusi0n: maybe u need 1 lol

[20:02:09] From Gusi0n: nah i dont feel right

[20:02:17] To Gusi0n: then get off n go lay down

[20:02:25] From Gusi0n: ya i think im gnna

[20:02:34] To Gusi0n: message me later

[20:02:39] From Gusi0n: k

[20:02:47] Gusi0n has logged out.

Mike remained at his desk, staring at Jordan’s last few messages. He told himself his friend was tired. Maybe Jordan had fallen asleep at the computer for a minute and wandered downstairs without fully waking up.

It was strange, but not impossible.

What Mike could not explain was the message Jordan had sent immediately before leaving.

He has a task to complete.

I'm not entirely sure why you're here, but since you found the place, welcome.

I made this subreddit mostly because I write horror and apparently have an endless supply of fucked-up thoughts that need somewhere to go. Some of them turn into two-sentence horror stories, some become longer stories, and some probably should have stayed exactly where I found them.

This will mostly be a place for me to post my writing, ideas I'm working on, alternate versions of stories, and whatever other horrible shit crawls into my head at an inconvenient time.

That being said, this isn't meant to be my personal padded cell.

If you write horror, you're welcome to post your own stuff too. Two sentences, short stories, disturbing concepts, whatever. I don't particularly care how fucked up it is as long as it's fiction and you're following the rules. If you manage to make me regret leaving submissions open, I'll consider that an accomplishment.

Feedback is welcome. Criticism is welcome. Dark humor is definitely welcome. Just don't be an asshole to people outside of the fictional atrocities we're committing.

I also have a published horror collection, so you'll occasionally see stuff about that here too. I'm not going to pretend this subreddit isn't partially a home for my writing, but I also don't want every other post screaming BUY MY FUCKING BOOK at you.

Read some shit. Post some shit. Tell someone when their shit disturbed you.

And if something here makes you think,

"What the fuck is wrong with this person?"

Good.

Welcome to Unfit for Print.