The convenience store was busier than usual, people stocking up on supplies like tourists preparing for a scheduled apocalypse. Ren grabbed his usual—spicy seafood this time, because if the world was ending, might as well go out with some flavor.
The TV above the register showed crowds gathering in parks and rooftops, eclipse glasses selling for ridiculous prices. Scientists in labs around the world monitored instruments that couldn't explain what was about to happen.
"—Neither Mist samples showing unusual activity—"
"—electromagnetic anomalies detected globally—"
"—advised to remain indoors during the event, though no specific dangers have been—"
The lights flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then the sky began to die.
Ren dropped his basket, noodles scattering across linoleum as he pressed against the window. Above, the blue summer sky was being devoured by purple wound that spread like spilled ink. The sun, clearly visible despite every law of physics saying it should blind him, flickered like a dying bulb.
"What the hell—"
The purple deepened, spread, consumed. Not an eclipse—something far worse. The wound in reality grew until the entire sky was the color of old bruises, and still the sun flickered overhead, fighting against something that shouldn't exist.
His phone exploded with alerts, messages in languages that hurt to read, from numbers that weren't numbers:
[THE VEIL TEARS] [THE MIST RISES] [THE WORLDS CONVERGE] [HE COMES HE COMES HE CO—]
The ground convulsed. Windows shattered in perfect synchronization, glass becoming diamond dust. And from everywhere—the oceans, the earth, the very air—purple mist erupted into the world.
It moved wrong. Not like fog or gas but like something alive and hungry. Buildings didn't collapse—they ceased. People had no time to scream before they simply weren't, existence erased between heartbeats.
Move. MOVE!
But the mist came from all directions. Behind him, the convenience store peeled apart layer by layer. Time stretched like taffy as his brain tried to process its own ending.
The mist touched him.
It didn't feel cold—it felt like the absence of temperature. Not dark, but the negation of light. It crawled up his legs with the patience of entropy, each touch erasing more of what made him real.
So this is how I die. Not heroically. Not peacefully. But buying cup ramen on the day Grandpa said I'd do great things.
His vision fractured. Reality became negotiable. One final thought coalesced:
Should've gone with the beef.
Then—
Nothing.
Absolute, perfect, purple nothing.
The world ended not with a bang or whimper, but with a NEET's last moment of snark.