Burger, Pepperoni, and the End of a World

I wasn’t planning to write tonight.

But then again, I wasn’t planning to spend three days off-reality either.

I’m sitting at Teddy now. Properly sitting. Grounded. Fork in hand, which is always a good sign that I still belong here. In front of me: a Bourdain-inspired mortadella burger, thick, unapologetic, slightly greasy in the way that promises redemption rather than regret. There’s also a pizza that can only be described as excessive, pepperoni stacked like someone misunderstood the concept of “topping” and decided to wage war with it. And, for balance, a bottle of non-alcoholic wine that pretends to be sophisticated while I demolish both.

I missed writing. That usually means things went wrong.

It started Friday.

Clovis received a note. Not a formal report, not a request, just one of those messages that arrive without explanation and somehow carry more weight because of it. Refugees were arriving in the Emporium. Not in dozens, not in hundreds. In waves.

That’s always a bad sign.

The Emporium handles strange. It handles dangerous. It does not handle panic well, especially not when the panic spreads across multiple realities at once. So naturally, they called Clovis. And naturally, Clovis called me.

I was paired with Sora this time. Which meant two things: the situation was serious, and I wouldn’t be allowed to improvise too much. She balances things. I complicate them.

We started with interviews.

At first, nothing made sense.

One man insisted their world had been “eaten by light.” Not burned, not destroyed, but consumed, like something vast had simply decided their planet was an inconvenience.

A younger woman said it was machines. Sleek, silent ships that appeared without warning and began firing into cities. No communication. No demands. Just… efficiency.

Another claimed there was no attack at all. That people simply started vanishing. Entire districts gone overnight, replaced by empty land that had never held anything.

Contradictions like that usually mean one of two things: mass panic, or something that doesn’t behave in ways our brains are comfortable processing.

We kept going.

Between interrogations, I did what I always do: I ate.

There’s a place in the Emporium called The Pan-Dimensional Pizzeria. I went there on the first night. One slice came from a gravity-heavy world where the crust is dense enough to qualify as structural material. Another from somewhere aquatic, slightly translucent, tasting like the idea of salt rather than salt itself. It helped. Not because it solved anything, but because it reminded me that reality, in general, is absurd enough without adding existential threats.

Second day, Sora insisted on efficiency. I insisted on coffee. We compromised at a place called Spectral Snacks. The pastries phase in and out of existence while you eat them. Annoying, but surprisingly good. One bite was warm, the next cold, the third possibly from a different timeline entirely.

By the third day, I was running on instinct more than logic.

And that’s when she spoke.

An elderly woman. Quiet. Observing more than participating. She had given three different accounts before, each contradicting the last. Sora was ready to dismiss her.

I wasn’t.

People lie in patterns. Fear creates noise, but truth leaks through the cracks.

I sat with her alone.

Didn’t ask questions this time. Just waited.

Eventually, she said it plainly.

“They came from above.”

Not poetic. Not metaphorical.

Space.

Ships. Not elegant ones. Not exploratory. Weapons with engines attached. They didn’t communicate. They didn’t scan. They didn’t hesitate. They arrived and started shooting.

Cities first. Then infrastructure. Then… anything that moved.

“No resistance?” I asked.

“There was no time,” she said. “They knew where everything was.”

That part mattered.

This wasn’t a war. It was a procedure.

She also said something else.

“They were looking for something.”

That’s when the room felt smaller.

Because if they were looking, this wasn’t random. It was deliberate.

We cross-checked. Other refugees had fragments that aligned once you stripped away the panic. The ships weren’t random. Their paths were deliberate. Targeting wasn’t chaotic. It was precise.

Something had found that Earth.

And removed it.

At that point, I made a call I don’t enjoy making.

Through the Emporium Guild, I had that reality flagged and banned from multiversal travel. No entries. No exits. No curiosity. No exploration.

Harsh, but necessary.

If whatever did this learns about the Emporium, or worse, about how to move between realities…

We don’t get a second attempt at containment.

The refugees were relocated. Not scattered, not processed. Relocated entirely to the Inn Earth. A whole world that functions as a hotel. It’s strangely fitting. Rooms occupied, corridors filled with people who no longer have a place to return to.

Safer there. For now.

Sora left for the Library Earth. If something like this exists, there might be a record. There’s always a record somewhere, even if it’s hidden behind twelve layers of nonsense and one librarian who refuses to speak in complete sentences.

As for me…

I did what I always do when things get too large.

I came back.

Lviv. Straight to Teddy. Ordered too much food. Sat down. Tried to feel normal.

But here’s the problem.

I don’t like this.

Not the attack. Not the silence. Not the precision.

Wars, even ugly ones, have shape. Motive. Noise.

This felt like something else.

Something that doesn’t announce itself because it doesn’t need to.

We’re safe. For now.

But if that thing was searching…

And if it didn’t find what it wanted…

Then it’s still out there.

And next time, it might look somewhere else.

For now, though, the burger is excellent. The pizza is borderline irresponsible. And for a few minutes, I get to pretend that this is the only reality that matters.

I’ll finish this meal.

Then I’ll start worrying properly.

— Marco