Not every story is about the hero. In fact, statistically speaking, very few of them are.
Sometimes, the story isn’t even about the wise mentor, the brooding sidekick, or the dark, swirling prophecy that seems to have been written by a committee with a flair for drama and a discount on ominous ink.
Sometimes—just sometimes—it’s about the little man.
***
John Doe
Guilty pleasures in life:
? Long, hot showers
? Junk food
? Watching TV until what polite society might call "too late" and his doctor might call "a contributing factor"
Status: Deceased. Expired comfortably in his natural habitat—the living room—remote in one hand, a bag of chips drooping majestically across his stomach like a greasy sash of honour.
(Note to administrators: User #C414-9t7 did receive the System’s alert about the dungeonization of his home world. It arrived in glowing red letters, complete with sirens, fireworks, and a helpful holographic skull wearing a party hat. But, seemingly not unusual with his species, he simply blinked at it. Considered the implications. Then decided that “Maybe later” was a valid survival strategy. It wasn’t.)
John was a creature of routine, and be it the abrupt dungeonization of his world or the strange series of explosions that’d been sounding throughout the day, very few things could break it. He had, of course, noticed both events, somewhere off-screen in the background of reality. But then the kettle had finished boiling, or his favorite TV-show had come on, and it just seemed like too much effort to go and check.
Like so, without really giving it too much thought, John had transitioned smoothly from life to unlife, barely noticing the difference beyond the slight chill and the fact that his leg occasionally fell off during particularly exciting episodes. His vacant, glossy gaze had remained fixed upon the television—the one constant, unblinking eye in a world now built upon entropy and loot drops.
The channels had changed, of course. Gone were the soap operas, game shows, and enthusiastic salespeople trying to sell steam-powered vegetable choppers to the three living people still watching. In their place, the newly dungeonized cable network now offered:
- 37: Goblin’s Kitchen – Where rival chefs must cook under extreme pressure. And by “pressure,” we mean "ceiling spikes."
- 81: Pimp My Portal – A reality show where demon lords get cursed gateways refurbished with tasteful obsidian tiling.
- 124: This Old Dungeon – A surprisingly wholesome program about restoring ancient deathtraps to their former, corpse-strewn glory.
- 256: Slimes Gone Wild – Not suitable for children. Or adults. Or any biological lifeform, really.
- 404: Error – Which only ever shows a single, flickering eyeball and whispers things about tax evasion.
But none, none, were as bombastic or shamelessly overproduced as the constant ad breaks to announce Delving & Dungeoneering Season 248. Our Most Anticipated Season to Date: Coming Soon!
A series so long-running it had seemingly outlived several of its earliest contestants, most of its hosts, and at least three broadcast dimensions.
In the upper-right corner of the screen, the ever-present countdown ticked away like the heartbeat of a very bored god:
11:07:48:13…
11:07:48:12…
11:07:48:11…
John watched. Unblinking. Unmoving. Uncaring. His soul might have moved on, but it would probably wait until after the mid-season twist. Despite having no real reason to be invested, he’d been quite caught up in the enticing tag line:
“Maybe this season, someone will finally reach the Seventh Layer…
Or maybe they'll just die entertainingly trying. Again.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Either way, John wasn’t going anywhere.
He was quite content with his afterlife. Or, at the very least, he was as content as he'd ever been during life—only now with fewer deadlines, no irritating middle managers, and a significant reduction in conference meetings that could have been an email.
In fact, he found the whole undead experience rather agreeable. There were almost no expectations. No bills. No taxes. And the only union rep he ever had to deal with now was a sentient spine who mostly kept to itself.
His wife, Jane shared in this quiet domestic decomposition. The two of them had settled into a peaceful routine involving reruns of old Dungeon attempts, snacks they could no longer digest, and the comforting glow of the never-off television. It was all pleasantly mindless.
At least until, well, the explosions started.
Now, Jane, whose posthumous hobbies included being vaguely worried and occasionally drifting into hallways, stared at their decaying entrance with great suspicion. She had just issued a series of grunts that, when translated, roughly meant: Go check that noise, dear.
John, demonstrating the commitment of a man who had long ago fused his posterior to the furniture, remained aimed at the TV.
He just gave a tired groan, the undead equivalent of: “There’s nothing there.”
Jane’s gurgle, if somewhat incoherent, could only mean: “Lower the volume. I can hear something…”
Which was problematic, because the remote had vanished sometime around his own heartbeat, and John wasn’t about to go digging through the couch again. Not after what happened last time.
It had growled.
Before he could tell her as much, however, he, quite inconveniently, heard it too.
The low, whining hum of something very small trying very hard. It grew louder. Louder still. Then came the… thudding? Rhythmic. Unnatural. The unmistakable sound of a stampede.
Now, John and Jane lived on the fifth floor. Even if a herd of bison—or any large, notably horizontal animal—had decided to thunder past outside, they were not, by any reasonable geometric interpretation, in the danger zone.
They shouldn’t have been. Yet the noises continued their determined ascent in volume. They grew so unmistakably present that John actually raised his head.
He made to wheeze some inquiry at his wife—
—when a terrific crash, followed immediately by Jane’s snarled scream, rendered the whole idea of communication redundant.
What John saw through the gaping wound of splintered door wood and drywall would remain with him for the rest of his undead days. It was, to put it simply, the sort of thing that would make a therapist close their notebook, get up, and tiredly suggest an entirely different kind of doctor.
The earlier buzzing? That wasn’t a rogue leaf blower. That was the tortured wail of an electric engine under duress. A mobility scooter, to be precise. And clinging to it like a sugar-fueled barnacle was a small pink hurricane in aviator goggles.
The chin straps of her helmet flapped like desperate semaphore signals as she yelled out a single warning:
“Move!”
Jane, tragically, did not move.
Of course she didn’t. They were on the fifth floor. Inside their apartment. One does not, as a rule, expect to be run down by a speeding mobility scooter under such circumstances. Especially not one that burst straight through their entrance in an unholy blur of motion, noise, upholstery damage, and moral injury.
Given precisely two seconds to react: Jane, once a loving wife and casual groaner, became a smear on the linoleum floor. The pink blur whipped past. And behind her came… it.
The horde. Not just a few stray zombies out for a midnight shamble, but a horde. A full, crashing, wall-to-wall tidal wave of decomposing intent. They trampled rugs, knocked over family portraits, and burst through flimsy walls like overconfident interior decorators.
They entered the kitchen.
It became a massacre. Not of people, but of porcelain.
And in the eye of the storm, where countertops exploded in a rain of splinters and the fridge was used as a bounce pad, the pink gremlin leaned into a sharp turn so violently she nearly achieved orbit, slamming a rusty plunger into the tapestry to pivot—and the scooter whipped round like a rodeo horse with trust issues.
Then came the pièce de résistance: flight.
Launching off the dining table, she soared. Through the dining room. Through the great glass windows that had been such a pain to clean in life. Into the night like a slightly deranged comet.
And where the mobility scooter lead, the undead tide followed—right through the remaining structural integrity of the Doe residence.
The last John saw of them—before the ceiling introduced itself to the floor—was a tiny figure, silhouetted against the moon, handlebars clenched, cackling madly as she descended into chaos.
Somewhere, across the rubble and ruined walls, a glowing prompt continued to tick:
Destruction Progress: 81%
John blinked once, slowly, in the dark.
Then, he returned his gaze to the flickering TV-screen that had somehow survived the carnage.
“…She didn’t even take off her shoes,” he groaned in quiet protests as the analysts kept predicting what teams and grand events one ought to keep an eye on for the upcoming season of Delving & Dungeoneering, the timer still ticking down in the corner.
None of them, naturally, mentioned any sightings of strange, pink blurs of carnage.