Oops, I rebooted the apocalypse (again)!

Did you ever wake up to the end of the world? No, seriously. Not the “oh no I left the stove on and now the apartment smells like death” kind of day. I’m talking real the end-of-the-world stuff. Screaming skies, gravity hiccupping like it’s drunk, your neighbor’s cat sprouting wings and declaring itself the harbinger of the Meat Singularity. No? Lucky you. Now imagine waking up to that again. And again. And again. To the point where you start ranking each apocalypse like a reality show. “Episode 88: Lava Sharks vs. Nano-Mormons.” “Episode 103: The Time Gravity Turned Inside-Out and Everyone Was Suddenly Left-Handed.” That one was weird. You know, it's like your dose of ordinary fever dreams. But daily. Something like that. That absurd, I mean. My name’s Rafael Vagathris. I’m a regressor. Which is a fancy way of saying I’ve died a lot, watched the world end a lot, and respawned more times than your average gamer rage-quitting Minecraft. Every time the world croaks, I get booted back to square one with a hangover, a sarcastic AI in my head, and the deeply comforting realization that I’m the only one who remembers any of it. So that’s cool. My helpful companion in this eternal Groundhog Day Armageddon is M.O.T.H.E.R.—the Modular Operational Time-Hop Emergency Regulator. Or as I like to call her, “Mo,” or “The Glitch Witch.” She’s technically here to help me stop the apocalypse. Probably. Realistically? She’s more interested in giving me daily randomized perks like “Your bones are now inflatable!” or “Congratulations, you are now mildly magnetic to forks.” She also assigns quests. Once, I was told to seduce a sentient vending machine. Another time? Defeat a goose armed with a rocket launcher. I'm still not sure who won that one. The goose definitely walked away. On fire. But confident. You’d think after all this time I’d have a plan. I don’t. Mostly, I just wing it with a mix of street smarts, recycled knowledge, and an unholy talent for bullshitting my way out of death. What’s different this time? Well… everything. The apocalypse looks wrong. The sky cracked sideways. The same people I usually save are in different places—or worse, alive when they should be dead. I mean, good for them, but creepy for me. Mo’s glitching harder than ever. The rules are changing. Maybe I did something wrong last run. Maybe I did something right. Maybe this time the apocalypse isn’t just something to survive—it’s something I caused. So yeah. New day. New reboot. Same cosmic disaster. And me? Still here. Still sarcastic. Still determined to fix this mess, or at least get a decent cup of coffee before we all implode again. And surely, finding some one I missed in every single loop. Welcome to the end of the world. Again. ***