I monitor doomsday scenarios in alternative universes

Once upon a time, outer space was humanity’s elusive final frontier of unlimited potential. Finding extraterrestrial intelligence was the pinnacle of our technological development, a goal we believed would quell our race’s collective dread of isolation and solidify our superiority in the cosmos.

Yet as a new century passed, humans’ dream of the stars withered. World governments spent increasingly reduced funding on space programs, and many nations withdrew their personnel from the International Space Station. Nowadays, the whole industry is carried by the private sector, driven by egotistical billionaires interested solely in proving themself over scientific discovery.

Unbeknownst to the public, however, the decline of space research was due to the rise of its sister scientific field, the study of alternative universes. By combining classified technologies and sophisticated thaumaturgy, we had successfully contacted another Earth from a parallel dimension. This achievement completely obsoleted the need for space exploration, as all the resources, all the alien lives we had dreamt of were now at our doorstep.

Unfortunately, the bliss of our breakthrough was soon overtaken by absolute horror as we discovered that the majority of humanity’s equals in those universes had, or would soon suffer, catastrophic extinction events with an absolute zero survival rate. The few remaining Earths’ leaders, including ours, had agreed to halt any dimensional traveling in fear of apocalyptic agents’ cross-contamination. Instead, our current focus is on monitoring and studying the causes of these doomsday events to prevent them from happening in our home world. As the title suggests, my job is that of an observer.

So, why am I posting all these classified secrets on Reddit? Well, there is something I need to publish, even if it means risking the lives of me and everyone I know. Still, if I’m to reveal my hand right away, you all’ll just brush this off as another ghost story on the Internet, or even worse, a madman’s rambling. That won’t do. So let’s first go over some cases I have observed to prove my credibility, because I assure you, no fiction can ever come close to the terrors I have witnessed.

Earth #57013: The Cure

Contrary to popular belief, zombie outbreaks are actually a low-level threat. When you think about it, the combination of an overcomplicated transmission route and a certain mortality rate makes for a fairly terrible pandemic. Even in a worst-case scenario, most militaries can defend strategic shelters and wait for the living dead to rot themselves out under the sun. Still, since the multiversal protocol of total elimination works perfectly, such calamitous outcomes rarely occur.

The problem arose when someone refused to follow protocol in favor of playing heroes. Some upstart scientists from Earth #57013 decided that it was inhumane to wipe out the Carrions, their universe’s version of zombies. Instead, they proposed an alternative solution, a medicine that could not only reverse this sickness but also improve the patients. Their proposal was a commendable success. The scientists had created an effective remedy, which they released in gas form into Carrion hives worldwide, restoring the infected to their healthy state and strengthening their immunity.

However, as the Carrion epidemic came to an end, an even more devastating catastrophe struck. Besides the targeted humans, their miraculous medicine had also unintentionally bolstered the global insect population. With their improved resilience, these bugs’ offspring had almost zero mortality, could withstand any environment, reproduced at an insane rate, and were genetically enhanced with each passing generation.

In just a few years, the insect outbreak reached a critical level. Mosquitos and flies transmitted several new plagues. Locusts ate up every last bit of crop. Termites and cockroaches destroyed even concrete buildings. The world leaders tried everything they could, even burning down their equivalent of the Amazon forest. But they weren’t fast enough. At some point, the bugs realized they had evolved into the apex predator. As other food sources ran out, they started targeting humans. I could only watch and pray that most of these poor souls died of starvation first, before they suffer a much more torturous demise of being eaten alive by trillions of insects.

Earth #74713: Dream No More

The citizens of Earth #74713 were almost identical to us, with the exception that they were all natural-born lucid dreamers who could clearly remember, reshape, and even connect their dreams. Their cultures, reflectively, had evolved to make extensive use of their slumber for entertainment, education, and productivity.

Yet, even with their mastery, dreams were still dreams, not reality. This distinction was a motto any person on Earth #74713 remembered by heart, though clearly not everyone believed in it. In another illustration of humanity’s arrogance, not too different from the last, the residents of this dimension sought to blend the reverie realm into the material world, so that they might achieve total control over reality itself, just as they had mastered their lucid dreams.

The result, unfortunately, was a success. A new technology emerged, allowing the average Joe to dream up something and bring it to life. Humanity could finally laugh in the face of God, as they were now the superior. But in the deepest corner of their mind, buried underneath their sense of pride and self-indulgence, still existed a minuscule voice of concern. They now held absolute power over creation, yet something still felt wrong.

People soon realized they could no longer sleep. Every time someone tried to doze off, they immediately snapped back to consciousness. Turned out, by making dream and reality indistinguishable, these people had damned their kind to tread the waking world even in their dreams, effectively preventing them from ever falling asleep.

World leaders frenetically searched for a solution, such as hibernation or vegetative states, but none worked, none except death. In the end, humanity on Earth #74713 ceased to exist due to either severe sleep deprivation or suicide, leaving behind their dream of playing God.

Earth #333181: The Shadow Staircase

Remember how I said we created dimensional communication, in part, using thaumaturgy? Yeah, apparently, magic is real in most universes, including ours, and so are some occult rituals floating around the Internet. Only a handful of them, though, as most are still made-up stories.

Meet Kevin, an average citizen of Earth #333181, who just happened to come across a working arcane rite called “The Shadow Staircase” while surfing the web. I won’t go over the details to prevent you all from attempting it. But for the sake of the story, you should know it’s basically a test of courage game where one walks up a staircase blindfolded, with a chance of finding themself in a pocket dimension filled with darkness and hostile entities. There is a specific path to follow and rules to obey if you want to avoid being mauled by these creatures, as well as a promised reward if you make it to the end.

Kevin successfully performed the ritual but strayed from the path. Normally, this would only result in his gruesome death, but the guy was a resourceful amateur occultist with a strong survival instinct. He evaded the entities long enough to carve out a makeshift staircase, using his own limbs and a navigation spell, that led him right back home.

Our man survived, for a few more seconds, at the cost of his arms and the extinction of the entire human race. There were some unknown, powerful spells on the safe path that prevented the darkness inside the Shadow Staircase from escaping. Kevin’s stairs lacked such properties and thus became the perfect gateway for these horrors to invade his Earth. A pitch-black void took over the entire planet in a matter of hours, followed by legions of abominations tearing apart every single living being limb by limb. Then, all communication went dark.

Earth #10125-5: The Nuclear Christmas Miracle

Earth #10125 was among the earliest alternate realities we contacted and was once our most trusted ally in monitoring apocalypse scenarios across the multiverse. That was, until a rogue thermal nuclear warhead went off, forcing countries worldwide to retaliate with their arsenals, leading to a global nuclear winter.

Yet, even after such a disaster, humanity persisted because extinction by nuclear fallout would have been too easy. The remaining people clung to the hope of restoring their home one day, and by some miracle, the opportunity to achieve that far-fetched desire actually manifested. A genius inventor had managed to build a time machine using only scrap metal for material and nuclear waste for fuel.

The remainders of Earth #10125 traveled back in time to prevent the rogue warhead from ever going off, thus destroying the original timeline and creating a new one, dubbed #10125-2. Yet, even in this new reality, a fallout still occurred, as some terrorist got their hands on a launch code. The scientist went back in time again, again, and again, until he could no longer.

The overuse of chronodynamic techs strained the fabric of space and time to its breaking point. During the scientist’s last trip, he suddenly imploded and exploded simultaneously upon exiting the time machine. The explosion spawned hundreds of copies of that man, each of which relived his entire life in a nanosecond before continuing to blow up and create billions more copies.

Even worse, everything these clones touched glitched out in real time. They stopped obeying the law of physics and started morphing into random, unrelated objects. All living creatures maintained cognitive functions even after the transformation and were under constant, immeasurable pain, unable to die. The agonizing symphony of misery and regret composed by these poor souls’ screams, or rather, the clapping noise made from any movable part of their new bodies, still haunts me to this day.

Earth #00001: Curiosity Kills The Cats (Pending)

Outside the above examples, there are hundreds more world-ending cases I have witnessed over the year. In one universe, a giant squid God woke up from under the sea and swept everything away. In another one, human-shaped holes randomly appeared on the ground, and people just jumped in, never returned. I can go on and on if we’re doing a storytelling section, but we’re not, so I'd better get back to the point.

The scientist from Earth #10125 used to be a monitor like me. We considered ourselves colleagues despite never having met. Before his demise, he managed to send me documents detailing his research on doomsday events, in which he concluded that a sentient force was purposefully escalating these scenarios.

Humans are usually pretty competent when it comes to life-or-death matters. Those scientists from Earth #57013 had tested the effect of their medicine on insects beforehand without finding any abnormality. The dreamers from Earth #74713 had banned materializing-dreams experiments, yet the tech still got developed. Someone must have leaked the Shadow Staircase ritual to Kevin, and someone must have given out the nuclear launch code to all those terrorists. There must have been some force that actively tampered with these civilizations’ development, driving them to extinction.

It’s hard to believe such an outrageous theory. It could have very well been the desperate rambling of a dying madman, trying to justify the death of his world. But after we acquired the scientist’s data, members of our team began sharing a nightmare of a formless being, hiding in the void, calling us to return home. Anyone who had this dream proceeded to die an unexplained death, and last night, I saw that jarring vision. I’m running on borrowed time right now, tired and terrified of what's to come. However, my team and I can’t give up just yet, for our own sake and for humanity. The reason I’m telling you this is that we have a plan that we can’t be sure will work out. After tomorrow, our Earth will either be free of the extinction dread once and for all, or face the most horrifying punishment your mind can imagine. For that reason, I highly suggest you all spend the next few hours with your loved ones, doing what you have always wanted, for this might be your last chance.

And please, pray to whatever God you believe in. Pray that humanity will prevail in this deadly gamble.