On the first day of the job, Daniel saw his coworker get shredded apart by another Daniel. Daniel was reasonably hesitant to get the job, like his other coworkers; Earth had run out of living space, and they were tasked with finding other multiverses to colonize. Obviously, the job wasn’t so simple. It was completely possible to be lost in the multiverse, and sometimes Daniel would meet people who’d been trapped for decades.

  There was also the risk of “retaliation”. See, some other portals opened to worlds that had more advanced technology than Daniel’s. There was a possibility that another army would breach through the portals and find a way to the original Earth.

  But that was what Daniel's job was; to exterminate other worlds to make sure no one would develop the technology to threaten humanity. As he looked over the stands, a man waved his hand, and a large buzz emitted from the portal. It was a large, square gate made from metal beams and surrounded by many large wires and pipes. As the sides of the portal lighted up, the gate slowly started to shimmer, seeming to warp the area behind the gate into a pyramid. The walls seemed to turn upside down behind the gate, and Daniel closed his eyes as he walked in. He could feel a cloth passing through his body, and he felt light, as the ground slowly went from metal to dirt. .

  Daniel opened his eyes. He was standing on a large hill, with the view of a crumbling city. The sun was just above the mountains, surrounded by a ugly green and yellow fog. The air was filled with dark, black particles, and Daniel could hear his loud breathing through his respirator. He took out his “clipboard”. It was a hunk of metal resembling a calculator, except it had a small keyboard and some clips that were able to hold sample vials. On the side was a button reading, “Emergency”.

  On the screen, a large logo appeared, reading: “MULTIVERSE EVALUATION FORM.”

  After tapping the screen a few times, a survey opened.

  “This following survey will conclude the state of your current multiverse.”

  “To confirm you are still here and alive, please state your name and company ID.”

  “ Daniel, RT561.”

  “Thank you for your evaluation.”

  A prompt popped up.

  “What state is this multiverse in?”

  Below the question were multiple answers, the most bolded ones being, Natural, Habitable, Industrialized, Post Apocalypse, Apocalyptic, and Unhabitable.

  Daniel looked behind him. It was a large wasteland, with no grass. He bent down, took out a vial, and scooped up dirt. Suddenly, his hands were stopped by a spongy material. He paused. There was something in the ground. Putting his clipboard down, he cleared the ground of dirt, and realized it was a rotting corpse. The ribcage was exposed, and it seemed to have been torn open. He looked around the hill and realized the entire thing was a huge body pile. He backed up and reached for his clipboard, but it wasn’t there.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Shoot.”

  Crouching down, he looked around, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is it?”

  Without the clipboard, he wouldn’t be able to open the portal again. He looked down the hill. Below the hill were large columns of fog, shrouding all but more mounds of bodies. Then he saw it; his clipboard, shimmering below. Daniel slowly slid down. Reaching in his pocket, he drew out his gun. There was one thing he noticed after sliding down the hill; it stunk. Even with his respirator, he couldn’t shroud the smell of rotting bodies. At least the ground below him wasn’t a dead person.

  He looked around. Where was his clipboard? In this fog, he couldn’t see anything except for the dark dirt below his feet. Daniel held onto his gun. These multiverses weren’t safe, that's one thing he knew. All of these worlds were failed versions of humanity, and they had all made one large mistake that wiped them out. Slowly walking towards the area where he remembered his clipboard was, a rustle suddenly came from a mound next to him. A body tumbled out, and Daniel backed away.

  Gripping his gun with his finger touching the trigger, he looked at where the noise came from. A large hole in the mound was there. Besides the hole were prints of shoe soles leading to the city. Was it another human? Why would they be hiding from him? Are they scavengers?

  There was no way to return to the portal. Daniel would probably die soon, unless he ate the corpses… Well, he didn’t want to think about that. He looked up at the city. It was decently close, and if he could catch the human, he could hopefully find a way back.

  After walking across multiple mounds, Daniel paused. He was greeted by a large barrier, which seemed to be a fallen building. Large shards of glass poked out from the floor, and chunks of concrete were everywhere. But the most notable thing was the bodies. But these weren’t just normal bodies. The skin of humans seemed to be displayed on the walls of the building. Daniel could even see hair and eyes. Near the skins were amalgamations of flesh; they were displayed on the floor around the skins, spread out on the floor like a paste.

  Also he’d seen far worse than this, he could only imagine what caused this. A war? A cult? Daniel walked around the strange bodies, since he didn’t want to get a firsthand sight of them, and climbed up the building. Carefully walking across the gaps between shattered windows, he was covered by large shadows of buildings. He looked up; they were bleak buildings covered in graffiti of slogans.

  “DON’T FEED THE MACHINE.”

  “THE HERETICS WILL DIE”

  “EXPOSE THE ELITES”

  “STOP OUR SUFFERING”

  The buildings themselves weren’t covered in war torn waste, but instead looked like they were fading away. There were no marks of gunfire, or bombs; instead, it seemed like the buildings were just naturally crumbling away. In fact, the city seemed pretty intact. Daniel walked past the last of the corpses until he was standing on the road of the city. He could see bus stops, curbs, even trash bags. He could also see movie posters, and a hotdog on the floor; but despite this, the city felt abandoned. There were no cars. No items in stores. It seemed like everyone just… left. Were they running from a monster? A large machine?

  As he continued walking, he came to the end of the block. There was… nothing. A large, gaping ravine was below. On the other side of the ravine, there was another block of the city, completely unbothered by the ravine besides it.

  As Daniel crouched down to inspect the ravine, he heard a screech. It was pale, and sent chills down Daniel’s spine. A loud whirr came from the distance, and Daniel looked up. A large, red light was twirling around, casting a large spot of red light on the ground. It slowly creeped from the mound over to the building over Daniel, and he quickly ran to an apartment building.

  The light shone past the road, across the fallen building, and just as quick as it came, it left. Daniel slowly peeked past the window, but quickly retreated back into the building. From the blur he’d seen, he saw a large, eight legged creature. It was strange, and the only thing he could loosely connect it with was a spider. It had a large, gaping mouth, and it resembled some sort of human. Its “nose” was triangular, and it had no skin, just a hole. Its mouth was split into four parts, and Daniel could see metal parts sticking out from flesh. Large rows of small teeth filled the mouth up until its tongue, which was large and gray.

  Its back had its spine poking out, with rows of blocky bone.

  to be continued