It was a bright and sunny day as I waited for the bus to arrive. I couldn’t drive due to laziness and poor scheduling so if I wanted to go anywhere I needed to use said bus.
Speaking of the bus, it was late. As usual. So in order to pass the time I fiddled with my phone, after an eternity the bus came. Stepping on I felt an odd feeling, like all the joy and color was drained from the world, but I brushed it off as the president’s fault and carried on.
I sat down and casually looked at the other patrons of the bus, an old woman, a middle aged housewife with a shit kid, some scrawny white guy, and 2 black men. Nothing unusual so I reached into my bag as it vibrated into existence and retrieved my book.
Said book was about 350 pages long and I left off on page 27, now I could read about a page a minute. The reason I bring this up is that the bus ride to my destination is normally 15 minutes, hence about 15 pages of book. So when I realized I was on page 112 I panicked and assumed I missed my stop.
But that was not the case.
The bus was nowhere I recognized.
I don’t think it was even earth.
Leaping up I strutted to the front to ask about this turn of events.
“Excuse me, do you happen to know we are no longer on earth?” I asked the bus driver.
“Nyeas” replied the bus driver turning to me while rubbing his hands together menacingly
“Okay, may I get off please? I have important business at my destination.”
“No. The ride never ends human, now go on, git. Back to ya seat. Shoo! Shoo!” as he said this the bus driver made the corresponding motion with his hands and I reluctantly went back to my seat.
We continued to drive through convexity for what I assume was another twenty minutes when I decided to get some input from the other passengers. I turned to the old woman and said “Hey, you notice anything strange? Like us no longer being on earth or something?”
Her reply was to start screaming something incoherent, all I got was that it was racially charged and about Mexicans. This created a domino effect where the shit kid began to unleash the most horrific squeals that no human person should even be able to produce, that got the attention of the white boy who began to white knight minorities and started yelling back at the old woman, while all this was happening the two black guys burst out laughing at the nonsense. This went on for about another 20 minutes before the bus jerked to a stop and the driver angrily grabbed the college student, old woman and shit kid and hurled them out of the bus. All three promptly exploded into orange goo.
I don’t think I ever saw the housewife look up from her phone during the entire incident.
Not wanting to cause any more commotion I shut up and buried my face in my book as the bus kept hurtling forwards towards locations unknown. After an unknown amount of time I got extremely bored and decided to confront the bus driver again.
“Would you mind telling me where we’re heading?”
“No.”
“Could I persuade you to tell me?”
“Only if you can outwit me in a battle of wits!”
“Deal.”
At that the driver pulled a leaver and the bus screeched to a halt as we both stood facing each other in the middle of the bus.
“Soooo, how’s this gonna go down?” I asked the driver
His response was to cackle and strike a pose that looked exceptionally painful “The past is a lie and the future is an illusion, hence we must strive to destroy the present to ensure a good timeline!”
Taken aback it took me a second to realize the battle had begun, “Yet the sun still exists!” I blurted out. It was the first thing that came to mind.
“Ah yes, that glowing disk of flame, the sigil of eternity. Unfortunately the sun belongs to another plane of time and does not truly live.”
“Despite being on a separate plane of time the sun still shows itself to us, clearly this means we have its favor and our individual planes inhabit a distorted symbiosis!” I retorted while channeling my inner Australian shitposter.
“hrmm, you might be correct. Yet regardless of temporal symbiosis our timeline is broken and on fire, hence only apotheosis via the Demiurge is a solution.”
“And yet it has remained intact, anything that is on fire would have exploded by now.”
“That is also correct, yet our timeline is different, it is full of holes that allow the flames to flow and negate explosions.”
“That is a false lie, a timeline cannot exist with holes in it! The temporal fabric is far too fragile and would shatter like the mind of a mortal before a deity!”
“Hark, you have seen through my ruse. You possess a wit far beyond that of a regular mortal. It is true the temporal fabric is whole, yet it is still in danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“The followers of the Sorcerer king desire the complete obliteration of this timeline.”
“Ha! The Ozi̮rmok was destroyed eons ago, he is of no threat.”
“I-I can assure you that his legion is growing, and if left unchecked will become a multiverse threat!”
“Kek! I heard that stutter, it would appear your argument is faltering. My check mate draws nier!”
“How arrogant, to claim victory before victory has become available for the claiming!”
“An ad hominin attack, the cracks are visible!” I chanted before spinning in place and striking a pose of my own “Now tell me what is thy goal foul bus demon!” at that the bus driver paled and gasped at the same time!
“H-How is this possible! My aura was perfectly masked, no human should be able to detect it!” and the driver disappeared into a puff of smoke revealing a grey, horned man with goat hooves and glowing red eyes.
I pointed at him menacingly “You gave it away by mentioning the planes of time, that concept is only seen via the religions of Hell!”
“REEEEEEEEEE! How could a human possibly know about the church of Zelgartanzila, our missionaries have yet to leave the ninth circle? What are you exactly human?”
“I am but a humble Shrublord, a simple person who surfs on the waves of eternity in order to unlock the secrets of the cosmos. Naturally the Church of Zelgartanzila would be among my extensive backlog of useless data.” I twirled again and a cloak vibrated onto my back, and crossed my arms in front of my chest aggressively. “Now demon, what is your end goal?!”
“To deliver an offering of blood to the spooky spaghetti dimension. The local fauna desire death and carnage and contract us lesser demons to deliver fresh meat.”
“Is that why you had no qualms hurling half of your delivery into the street. I don’t know how things work in hell but on earth that’s called bad service.”
“Even we demons have limits.”
“Noted, however I’m afraid I cannot allow this crimson banquet to be delivered, so I must beat the fuck out of you.”
“It would be unfortunate if that were to happen, so it shall be you who does the dying. Nothing personal, kid.” At this the demon materialized seven versions of the word “knife” and flung them at me. I dodged yet as the words flew past me I heard them pierce the bus.
“So you can use the distortions of reality here the transform words into reality? Well if you can do it than so can I!” I felt the word “gun” materialize in my hand and I shoot several “bullets” at him, yet to my horror each one was blocked by the word “Useless”.
“Did you really think it would be that simple human?” the demon asked
“Yes.” Was my retort
“And here I expected better of a Shrublord. You must do better than that to defeat me.”
“Very well demon,” I brushed the hair out of my face with a swift flick “This entire dimensional airlock is a mere figment of some entombed elder gods twisted psyche”
“Oh how very clever, it must have taken all your observation skills the discern that” the demon taunted “However you should know that this entire universe was born from the broken nightmares of Elskandolu. He is the progenitor of life!”
“Kek, you claim mental superiority yet fail to understand that a simple nightmare, while capable of transforming into an entire world, is far too limited in scope for this type of anomaly”
The demon looked perplexed and cocked his head to one side “What do you mean mortal?”
“This is not a nightmare…It’s a nightmatrix!”
“N-No! That’s not possible!”
“Oh it is, and you know what that means right?”
The demon began the shudder in rage “Once you realize you’re in a nightmatrix reality will begin to break down.”
The bus jerked and a massive oni vibrated into existence, once this happened the walls and ceiling of the bus broke off and crumpled into cooked trout that swam away. The oni bellowed, grabbed the demon and jumped into the swirling vortex of chaos. Said chaos had transformed into meatloaf and was spitting out muscular men with lizards for faces.
A massive gust of wind slammed into the bus and out of the meatloaf emerged the elder god Elskandolu, he had a human torso with crab claws for hands and a rotating chicken nugget for a head. Elskandolu’s lower torso was encased in the meatloaf.
“WHO DARES BREAK REALITY WHEN I SLEEP!” he cried
“I do elder thing!” I stood proudly and glared at the elder god. Even as I felt the very fabric of reality crumple and tear in his presence.
“SMALL MAN FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS YOU ARE SENTANCED TO DEATH!”
I laughed, “Universal law 897,344,345,234 states that elder gods may be challenged to a duel before they can kill anyone!”
“SMALL MAN DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BEST ME?”
“Yes.”
“VERY WELL, EN GUARD SMALL MAN!”
Since I challenged him I got to make the first move “If you know everything in the universe then why does the nebulous tide only flow forwards?”
“THE DL’ACK HAS NO TIME FOR THE PAST, AS IT IS FAR BEHIND US, IT MAY ONLY CARE ABOUT THE FUTURE.”
“But the future does not exist therefore how can the nebulous tide head in its direction?”
“BECAUSE OF THE PLANES OF TIME, IF ONE THING DOES NOT EXIST IN THIS ONE THEN IT WILL EXIST IN ANOTHER!”
“But all the planes are linked, so they would know of the future, and even with that we are still unable to obtain all necessary data.”
“SMALL MAN WHAT YOU SAY IS COMPLEAT TRASH.”
“Says the loser with a chicken nugget for a head.”
“HOW DARE YOU, SMALL MAN PREPAIRE TO FRY!”
At that Elskandolu spread his arms and boiling oil and French fries began to rain from the skies, the oil burned my skin and the fries felt like hail but I stood strong, crossed my arms and leaned back while cackling.
“You call this an attack? I’ve endured more grievous wounds from guanine pigs!”
“SMALL MAN YOU ARE BEGINNING TO ANGRY ME!”
“Good, you gods are far too pompous for your own good!”
“THAT DOES IT! DIE SMALL MAN!” the meatloaf parted and a giant fist emerged from it, it was obvious the fist was going to destroy the bus. And I had to stop it. I channeled all my power as a Shrublord and willed it into existence. A giant blender with 18 quadrillion blades materialized in front of the fist and shredded it.
“HRMMM, IMPRESSIVE. HOWEVER WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF FISTS YOU CAN STOP SMALL MAN?” the walls of flesh revealed an army of big meaty fists and each one flew at the bus at the same time.
I destroyed the blender and used the 18 quadrillion blades to surround the bus in an impenetrable wall of whirling swords. When the fists stopped I flung all of the blades at Elskandolu, he blocked all of them with walls of flesh but by then his true colors had been revealed.
“By launching a physical attack in the middle of a verbal battle you have broken the first oath of intergalactic 1v1!” I felt power coursing through my veins, but not just any power. No it was the innate power that was housed in DNA itself, I began to emanate a bright green aura as my hair became a majestic mane of fire. I dramatically pointed at the elder god and said “Your next words are gunna be ‘I’m the fabric of creation the laws of creation don’t apply to me!’”
“I’M THE FABRIC OF CREATION TH-NANI!!!!!!!!!!” Elskandolu reeled back in pure horror as he realized what had just happened. “NO, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!”
Cried the elder god as he began to collapse in on himself like a star before transforming into a pulsating ball of energy. I channeled all of my newfound power into my left hand before heroically throwing off my cloak and pointing to heavens and crying out “Finishing move, SUPA HYPANOVA GIGATON BLAST MAXIMUM IMPACTU!” Before launching a massive fist of unadulterated DNA energy at what remained of the elder god causing it to explode with the fury of 18 trillion stars leaving nothing but a massive nebula.
The shock wave caused the bus the shudder before the pocket dimension we were in shattered revealing that the bus was on a deserted road in the middle of Kansas or something. All that I could see in the glimmer of the moon was cornfields and farmlands. Yet the malevolent chill in the air told me all I needed to know.
We were in the spooky spaghetti dimension. I hoped off the bus and it vibrated out of existence leaving me alone. And with no other options I began to walk down the dusty road and dread what lie in store for me.