January 1, 2026 — 01:00 PM | Wave 1 — Time Remaining: 17 Hr 00 Min
The humidity of the Salt Lake jungle was a physical weight, thick with the cloying sweetness of rot and the wet-dog stench of Gilbert Wilton. He shambled an arm's length behind Malenia, his sneakers squelching through a carpet of bioluminescent moss that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light. His 3XL "Neko-Maid Adventure" shirt was a translucent rag of sweat and orange nacho grease, clinging to the rolls of his doughy torso as he wheezed through a throat coated in energy drink film. Every heavy step sent a jolt of agony through his left shoulder, where a jagged puncture wound throbbed with a sickening, localized heat.
The injury was Malenia's version of a "tactical adjustment." Earlier, as a plant-archer's thorned arrow shrieked toward Gilbert's chest, Malenia had been occupied scrolling through the toxic sludge of the Utah Sector Chat. Without even glancing away from the screen, she had adjusted her golden grip on Gilbert's collar, casually shifting his bulk so the projectile missed his vitals and instead buried itself deep in his shoulder meat. She hadn't saved him; she had simply recalculated his value as a sandbag. The arrow had struck with a wet, sickening squelch, followed by a screech from Gilbert that likely rattled windows in Provo.
"Thou art but a hollow effort," Malenia murmured, her voice a low cadence that carried the weary weight of centuries. She didn't even turn her head as she added, "Thy flesh is but a bulwark against the triviality of these woods. Be grateful thou art finally of use."
Before she could finish the thought, a second arrow hissed toward her abdomen. With a flick of her wrist that required almost zero effort, she deflected the bolt—the steel singing a lethal warning. She dropped the phone onto Gilbert's chest—where he lay shivering and gurgling in his own fluids—and vanished in a golden blur. Gilbert watched in a daze as she snatched the plant-humanoid out of a thicket, launched it twenty feet into the air, and impaled it on her blade like a botanical kebab before tossing the waste aside.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "She used him as a human pin-cushion so she could keep reading the logs. Absolute Queen."
Provo_Prepper_88: "Look at the arrow's trajectory. She knew exactly how much 'padding' he had. Tactical genius."
GamerGod_69: "She didn't even look up from the phone. He's just a piece of mobile cover to her now."
Zion_Hiker_Ben: "The way she kebabs that archer... we might actually survive the wave if she just ignores Gilbert entirely."
West_Valley_Wanda: "Is anyone going to call 911? He's literally bleeding on his own cat shirt!"
Desert_Rat_Dan: "911? Wanda, the city is a jungle and the operator is probably a fern by now. Get real."
Malenia descended with a graceful stillness and knelt beside the trembling man-child. She began to nudge and play with the arrow in his wound, the golden fingers of her prosthetic clicking rhythmically as she watched him shake. Then, with a casual smile that didn't reach the eyeless dark of her visor, she slowly and purposely pulled the wood out. Gilbert's agonizing screams echoed through the woods as she watched his suffering with cold contempt.
"Heed my words, creature of rot," she whispered, her voice a low, terrifying hum. "Savor the sting, for it is the most honest thing thy pampered skin has ever known. Stand. Walk. If thy legs fail, the vines shalt claim thee, and I shalt not turn back."
Gilbert, with one hand putting pressure on his open wound, stammered to sit up on his knees, his glasses fogged with tears and sweat. "Ye-yes My lady," he whimpered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched wail.
"Cease thy pathetic bleating," Malenia commanded, the wings of her helm shimmering with irritation as the air grew heavy with the scent of rotting flowers. "Search for a sanctuary that does not reek of thy stagnant fear."
They walked through the bioluminescent woods. Along the way, Gilbert examined building after building, but they were all too dilapidated to be considered a base. As they trekked, Gilbert occasionally took interest in the strange life that caught his attention. He made it a habit to try and forage for fruit; however, he discovered that no fruits in this world glowed in silence; they let out a muffled, frantic scream the moment they were plucked from the vine.
The residents of the rural counties watched with mounting indignation as Gilbert—their supposed champion—spent twenty minutes trying to "forage" a screaming melon instead of helping his injured summon.
Religious leaders across the Salt Lake Valley watched the feed in quiet prayer, many of them citing Gilbert's behavior as the ultimate test of patience, while others began to wonder if Malenia was less of a guardian and more of a divine punishment for the state's collective sins.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
LDS_TruthSeeker: "The pride before the fall is real, and it's wearing a cat-girl shirt."
ParkCity_Elite: "I will wire my entire 401k to the System if we can swap this guy for a Golden Retriever."
Beehive_Babe_99: "He's literally trying to eat sentient produce. He's a walking horror movie."
UofU_Botanist: "The screaming is likely a high-frequency vibration used to attract larger predators. He's literally ringing a dinner bell."
Orem_Ironman: "Look at his heart rate on the HUD. 140 bpm and he's just standing there. This is embarrassing."
Copper_Mine_Chris: "The sheer audacity of this guy. I'd rather the planet end than be represented by him."
After countless hours of walking and fighting—which Malenia did by herself while Gilbert fled and hid—the activity increased tenfold as the sun hit its "prime-time". Gilbert noticed Malenia was becoming evidently more injured, her armor scored with deep scratches and several fresh rips in her scarlet cape. "Malenia... let's rest," Gilbert wheezed, wiping a bit of oily sweat from his chin.
"Thy frame is as brittle as sun-bleached bone," Malenia retorted, her eyeless visor fixed on his heaving chest. "Rest then, creature. I shalt not have thee keeling over before I find a foe worthy of the Hand of Malenia."
As Malenia sat down on a thick branch, Gilbert took the moment to go scavenge. He whispered to the chat, his hands covered in dirt and his face a map of greasy scratches: "I'm looking for something to help with scars and wounds. Chat, help me out."
The mothers of Utah watched with a sudden, localized surge of sympathy, many of them momentarily forgetting their loathing as they saw their representative actually attempt to be useful for the first time.
In the Governor's office, the press secretary frantically revised a statement, shifting from "total disavowal" to "cautious optimism," though the draft was immediately trashed the moment Gilbert started wheezing again.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
Just_A_Nurse_82: "Gilbert, check that building with the blue awning. It's a clinic. It might have the antiseptics she needs."
SLC_Savage: "Wait, is the neckbeard actually doing something selfless? I think I'm having a stroke."
u-20329: "He's literally wheezing at a fern. Move it, Gil! The loot is right there!"
Hogle_Zoo_Vet: "Malenia needs broad-spectrum antibiotics for those plant-scratches. Look for the silver canisters."
Logan_Lumberjack: "I've seen better survival instincts in a squirrel with a head injury. At least he's trying."
Anime_Was_A_Mistake: "I recognize that shirt. Gilbert, you are single-handedly destroying our reputation."
Following the instructions of the chat, Gilbert located the clinic and spent two hours hoarding necessities into a salvaged backpack. When Malenia's shouts finally reached him, she snatched him by the collar and hoisted him into the air.
"I was just looking for something to help you heal your wounds, my lady," Gilbert said, forcing a suave, greasy smile. "I noticed you were bleeding, and it hurts my gentleman heart to see a beautiful lady in tatters."
Malenia stared at him for a long, agonizing beat. "Thy 'heart' is a pit of stagnant water," she whispered, her voice vibrating with pure revulsion as she dropped him and began bandaging herself. "Yet... these tools possess a strange potency. I shalt make use of them."
As the duo resumed their walk, Gilbert slowed his pace, whispering back to the live feed with a wide, predatory grin. He wiped a bit of saliva from his lip. "Yo chat, you think she'll let me bang after helping her? I'm getting a taste tonight for sure, right chat?"
The people of Utah watched in a state of sudden, violent realization as Gilbert's brief moment of helpfulness dissolved into his baseline depravity, leaving the entire state wondering if the botanical extinction might actually be a mercy.
Political leaders stared at the screen in grim, nauseated silence as they drafted an emergency declaration to formally disassociate the state from the creature representing it.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "And the cringe is back. Malenia, please, just use the blade."
Provo_Dad_76: "I'm turning off the TV. My kids can't see this. Utah is beyond cooked."
u-20329: "He wiped the spit off his lip and then asked to 'bang' a Goddess. I am actually deceased."
Salt_Lake_Simp: "He thinks the medicine was a micro-transaction for a romance route. I can't."
Utah_Politico: "I am formally requesting a recount on our representative selection immediately."
GamerGod_69: "She's going to use Waterfowl Dance on his windpipe. I'm putting money on it."
"Be honest. How can she not, like... I literally got dirty to help her," Gilbert Wilton muttered, his voice a thick, wet rasp that whistled through a throat coated in years of energy drink film. He sat slumped against a concrete wall, his left arm hanging like a dead, leaden weight. The jagged puncture in his shoulder—courtesy of Malenia's clinical 'tactical adjustment'—hadn't even begun to close. It throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic heat, the pain radiating down to his fingertips and rendering his left side entirely useless.
He used his one functional right hand to wipe a smear of clinic-grime onto his already-ruined 3XL "Neko-Maid Adventure" shirt, his double chin trembling as he scrolled through the Utah Sector Chat. "She should be thankful and reciprocate—appropriately, of course," he wheezed, his eyes bulging behind oily, fogged-up lenses. "C'mon guys, like, I'm a nice guy. I'm practically a protagonist here!" To his profound betrayal, the screen remained a scrolling wall of mockery.
The people of Utah watched in horrified silence as their representative displayed the moral compass of a damp basement rug, nursing a half-dead arm while unironically demanding a "reward" for a 5/10 effort in survival.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "He's doing the 'Nice Guy' monologue. Someone please, for the love of the System, mute his mic."
u-20329: "His left arm is literally purple and he's worried about 'reciprocation.' We are being represented by a sentient thumb."
GamerGod_69: "Gilbert, you used your only 'Master' authority to buy a bottle of iodine and now you want a romance route? Touch moss."
Just_A_Nurse_82: "That shoulder is definitely going to get infected. He can't even lift his hand to use the bandages he found."
Beehive_Babe_99: "The entitlement is stronger than his cardio. I'm rooting for the plants."
Provo_Prepper_88: "Look at him waddle. One arm limp, one arm holding a phone. Peak performance."
Continuing his one-armed search through the emerald gloom, Gilbert's eyes eventually locked onto a structure that made his heart skip a beat—not out of tactical genius, but out of a sudden, desperate hope. It was a sturdy, windowless cement block that looked as though it could withstand a nuclear winter.
"Malenia, over there! Look at that structure," Gilbert wheezed, pointing a sticky, dirt-caked right finger toward the entrance. As they approached, it became clear the door was choked by a tangle of bioluminescent vines that had fused into a solid wall of vegetation. Gilbert pulled at a vine with his good hand, his face turning an alarming shade of maroon as he failed to make it budge, his useless left arm swinging pathetically with the effort. "Malenia, help me out here, please? My lady?"
Malenia didn't bother with a verbal response. With a mechanical whir of her golden prosthetic, she drew her katana in a single, fluid blur. A sharp shing echoed through the street as she cleared the obstacles with one quick, clinical swipe, the severed vines twitching on the ground like dying snakes.
"Thanks, my lady," Gilbert chirped, affecting what he thought was a suave tone as he pushed open the heavy door with his shoulder.
The interior was miraculously still powered, the hum of electricity a heavenly choir to Gilbert's ears. But as the lights flickered to life, Gilbert didn't look for a defensible position. He stopped dead, his jaw dropping as he took in the shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. "God dam... it's one of those types of stores, huh?" Everywhere he looked, the windowless cube was packed with specialized adult content—a literal fortress of explicit magazines, videos, and plastic figurines.
Malenia entered behind him, her eyeless helm tilting as she surveyed the "den of filth" with a silence that radiated a mounting, cold pressure. Her scarlet cape snapped as she adjusted her prosthetic, her posture rigid with an archaic, weary disappointment.
"This is called greatness, Malenia! Greatness all around!" Gilbert shrieked, his eyes bulging as he stumbled toward the back. "Oh shit, look! That's the hentai section right there! This is basically my natural habitat!"
The people of Utah watched in a state of collective, stomach-turning disbelief as Gilbert abandoned the gravity of the apocalypse to indulge in a marathon of lust, his one good hand already reaching for a limited-edition figurine.
The political leaders of Utah stared at the monitors in a state of catatonic shock, watching as the sole hope for their state's survival surrounded himself with plastic waifus, his heavy, wet breathing the only soundtrack to the end of the world.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "I am actually going to jump off the State Capitol building. A porn shop. Our bunker is a porn shop."
Utah_Mom_Jen: "Is there a way to turn off the video? My children are watching their future be decided by a boy in a hentai section!"
u-20329: "Look at him run! Well, waddle. He's moving faster for those magazines than he did for the medicine."
Provo_Simp: "The fact that it has no windows makes it a tactical bunker. The contents make it a war crime."
Anime_Was_A_Mistake: "He's literally crying with joy. This is the lowest point in human history."
LDS_TruthSeeker: "Heaven help us. This is the abomination of desolation, and it's holding a limited-edition figurine."
"Settle down, chat! I'm just choosing a base that ensures my highest survival probability!" Gilbert yelled back at the invisible cameras, though his voice was cracking with excitement. "It just so happens that the place which has that also has porn in it. It's called efficiency!"
Malenia watched the display for another long, agonizing second before turning back toward the door. Since she had managed to find a suitable "home" for Gilbert—one that would keep him contained and away from her sight—she was returning to the jungle to seek a foe worthy of her blade.
"Alright, see you later, my lady!" Gilbert responded, barely looking up from a shelf of explicit figurines as he began to bury himself in his new treasures, his dead left arm tucked awkwardly into his lap. Malenia gave a slow, deliberate shake of her head before she vanished back into the emerald gloom.
Wave 1 — Time Remaining: 10 Hr 45 Min
The interior of the windowless cement block was a jarring island of artificial light in the bioluminescent emerald gloom of Salt Lake City. With the heavy door left wide open, the fluorescent hum of the store acted like a high-powered flashlight, carving a long, rectangular beam of white light deep into the pulsing jungle outside. This "light spill" was a lighthouse for the predatory things lurking in the moss, but inside his fortress of filth, Gilbert Wilton was blissfully oblivious.
Gilbert had spent the last hour in a feverish, one-armed frenzy. He had used his body weight to shove the heavy metal shelving units across the concrete, the agonizing screech of metal-on-stone echoing through the empty streets like a dinner bell. He had managed to create a cramped, three-walled perimeter in the far corner, effectively pinning himself into a cage of glossy magazines and plastic waifus.
He sat hunched in the center of his "nest," his useless left arm tucked awkwardly into his lap like a piece of dead meat. The puncture wound in his shoulder was still weeping, a slow, rhythmic drip of dark red that mingled with the trail of chemical bleach and ammonia leaking from his backpack. To the predators outside, he wasn't just a representative; he was a leaking meat-bag seasoned with the sharp, enticing scent of industrial cleaners.
The struggle to indulge his vices with one hand was pathetic. He had propped a volume of manga against a stack of magazines, using his knees to keep the pages from fluttering shut while his right hand—stained orange with nacho dust and slick with sweat—clutched a limited-edition figurine. He let out a wet, rhythmic wheeze of excitement, his thumb twitching as he tried to flip a page without dropping his prize.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "Look at the light pouring out that door. He's literally a moth-trap for every vine-creature in a five-mile radius."
u-20329: "The blood trail from his shoulder is a literal dotted line to his throat. He's not even looking at the door."
GamerGod_69: "He's using his knees to hold the book open so he can grip the toy. I have never seen a more dedicated, disgusting display of 'priorities'."
Just_A_Nurse_82: "Gilbert! You're hemorrhaging! The ammonia scent is masking the blood smell for you, but not for them!"
Provo_Prepper_88: "They're at the light-line. Three of them. Look at the amber eyes reflecting the fluorescents. He's done."
UtahMom_88: "This is how we end. Not with a bang, but with a boy wheezing over a plastic doll while the forest eats him."
Behind him, the soft thunk-skitter of vine-wrapped feet crossed the threshold, moving out of the darkness and into the stark white light of the store. The first plant-being, a nightmare of twisted thorns and predatory amber eyes, moved with a silent, fluid hunger. It followed the scent of the bleach and the salt of his blood, its limbs stretching as it bypassed the metal shelves Gilbert thought were a fortress.
Gilbert remained hunched over, a wide, greasy smile spreading across his face as he reached a "color spread" in his book. He was so infatuated with the paper "proportions" that he failed to hear the wet, rasping breath of the creature standing directly behind his makeshift wall. The irony was absolute: he had built a cage to keep his treasures in, and in doing so, he had ensured there was no way out once the jungle came to claim its fertilizer.