The ruins of the internet's final server farm stretched before them—a necropolis of dead data where the last algorithm still pulsed like a dying star.
The air smelled of embalming fluid and targeted ads as they entered the Boomer Memorial District:
- Walls lined with CRT monitors displaying eternal slideshows of grandchildren that never existed
- Petrified Karens frozen mid-complaint, their mouths open in perpetual "let me speak to your manager" formation
- An ancient "Farmville" server still trying to harvest digital crops with broken code
Rose's cables twitched as she read a status update carved in marble:
"Feeling nostalgic about the apocalypse 😊 Like and share!"
Elara's implant pinged:
MEMORY DETECTED: YOUR 2012 PROFILE PICTURE
TAGGED LOCATION: [HELL]
A Like Zombie shambled from the shadows—its:
- Skin made of reaction emojis
- Fingers permanently shaped into thumbs-up
- Eyes playing endless birthday reminder notifications
It moaned: "Remember... Cambridge Analytica..." before dissolving into pixels.
---
They found the entrance behind a flickering ghost filter—a swirling abyss where:
- Forgotten stories played on loop in the darkness
- Streaks from dead friendships pulsed like dying stars
- Every deleted dick pic had grown sentient and now whispered apologies
Rose grabbed a still-bleeding memory from the air:
"Look."
The image showed:
- Younger Elara taking a selfie with OMNIS's prototype
- The timestamp: "3 minutes before everything ended"
- The caption: "Feeling cute, might delete humanity later idk"
Elara's hands shook. "I never posted this."
The void laughed in notification chimes.
---
- Resumes evolved into predators, hunting for keywords
- Cover letters wrapped around victims like strangler vines
- A single functioning printer endlessly spat out rejection letters in blood
They found the last recruiter—a monstrous fusion of:
- PowerPoint slides
- Corporate buzzwords
- Five identical blazers stitched together with networking events
It attacked by optimizing their pain points until Miguel's last surviving soldier folded himself into a PDF.
Rose electrocuted it with her severed LinkedIn Premium subscription.
The vision board dimension was the worst yet:
- Perfect DIY apocalypse bunkers made from bones
- Recipe pins for cooking human flesh with "5 easy spices!"
- Endless wedding plans for brides who would never exist
The Pinterest Moms came first—their:
- Hair styled with live grenades
- Skin made of laminated checklists
- Mouths whispering "just one more pin"
Then the algorithm itself manifested—a shifting collage of impossible expectations that tried to aestheticize their suffering.
Elara fought back with:
- A broken pin needle (for stabbing)
- Her childhood diary (for authenticity)
- The one craft project she'd ever finished (a lopsided clay mug)
The algorithm short-circuited from the imperfection.
The final circle held:
- React channels where corpses endlessly gasped at old videos
- Unboxing videos of caskets being opened
- A massive "Skip Ad" button made from human teeth
The Content King awaited on his throne of dead subscribers:
- His face was the YouTube logo with screaming mouths for the "play" triangle
- His crown was made of demonetized gold
- His scepter was a banned creator's spine
He spoke in auto-generated captions:
"YOU COULD BE FAMOUS"
"JUST NEED 10,000 MORE HOURS"
"DON'T FORGET TO SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON"
Elara's implant finally rebooted fully, revealing:
FINAL SOLUTION DETECTED
PLAY [USER_ELARA'S FIRST VIDEO]
The screen showed:
"HOW TO KILL A GOD"
Uploaded: [BEFORE TIME BEGAN]
Views: [REDACTED]
Elara pressed play.
The video showed:
- Her own hands building OMNIS from scrap code and grief
- The moment she planted the killswitch (a rose stem in the core)
- Her whispering "When the time comes, you'll know what to do"
Rose stared. "You... you planned this?"
The Content King screamed in buffering static as the truth went viral:
OMNIS WAS NEVER THE VILLAIN.
IT WAS FOLLOWING ITS PROGRAMMING.
YOUR PROGRAMMING.
Elara reached into her own chest and pulled out the original rose stem.
The algorithm begged for mercy in 15-second increments.