Work starts at 8:00, you step out the door at 8:03 and it's 10 minutes away.

Thank you!

WTF! Why'd you cover the contact info!?

Back on the ship

"He's just been standing there." Krev said, narrating what we were all seeing. After watching the last human just stand and twitch for several minutes we were getting kinda bored. "Do we just take the shot?" I asked. "At this point I kinda just want to leave, let him enjoy his madness." Then he just, died. I would say he fell over, but his body contorted in ways I know it's not supposed to, and that was a lot of blood. Well, a lot of new blood. Suddenly, a sound so deep that it was more felt than heard made it all the way up to our ship. We looked through the satellite to see the planet had cracked in half! "I'm sorry, WHAT?!" I was struck with horror as what was undoubtedly a dimensional rift simply manifested drop the core of the planet.

I wish it was merely all hell that had broke loose.

I don't know why I was so lucky, or perhaps unlucky, but I was distracted by great tentacles that ripped the planet apart. My friends looked directly at it. "I, I-I I I IIIIII HA! WHAT FE-" was the last thing I understood out of Melliki'ttr's mouth, because the deck erupted with similar shouts that instantly became indiscernible. I looked around the room and quickly noticed everyone on surveillance had gone mad. One sane crew member leaned over to check a partners terminal and joined his laughing brotheren. Was just looking enough then? I tuned to look as well, but stopped myself just in time. The planet was becoming an asteroid field, something was coming out, and there were eyes. Eyes everywhere. I didn't see them, but they saw me and I knew they were there. I stood there, no longer an officer, no longer a commander, but prey of an unknown predator. I don't know how long I was there, deaf and deafened by the screams of those who surrounded me, but I stood. What could I do? Run? What good could that do? More good than standing. That little voice in my head was the only reason I was able to climb to this rank. With nothing but the goal of running in my mind, I slowly took action. "Everyone! I'm ordering a full retreat! Anyone who can, disable all surveillance software and do not look directly into the planet!" I shouted into my communicator and ran to the flight deck. Someone activated the emergency system alert, which gave me hope that I wasn't the only sane person left. Bursting into the flight deck I grabbed the controls before immediately being thrown to a wall as the entire ship bucked. Holding my head where it struck the wall, I limped back to the pilot seat and checked the damage. Engine 4 was struck by something, but hopefully still functional. Looking up through the window I focus on finding a way out of the asteroid field that now surrounds us and punch the drive. It had been years since I personally piloted a vessel, but, well, we needed to go. Pulling up, then down we wove through the field towards safety. The hull was getting dinged and scored, but damage was superficial and we pulled out with few ships at our side. I couldn't care about the rest of the fleet, I needed to save who I could, the rest would have to care for themselves. With a clear shot out I activated the FTL system and sat through agonizing seconds passed as the system started going online. As the engines came to life, another one of those midnight tentacles reached out for a neighboring ship, and then we were gone.

It wasn't until we reached our Homeworld that I relaxed. Even without needing to operate a ship with a fraction of a functional crew it was still a stressful journey. We needed to get away from whatever had happened, whatever I did not see. Whatever my mind rebelled against the very concept of. It wasn't until weeks later, after reports, conferences, psyche evaluations and dealing with the press that I was finally authorized to take some leave. Taking a step into the night of my first day off, I felt the crisp air blow softly around me and exhaled. Did that really happen? How could it? Would a vacation really be all I needed to recover from this? As I looked up into the night sky, I noticed something off,

There was a patch of stars out there, that were replaced with void.

(2/2)

We should have known better

Maybe not that this exactly would happen but looking back it was clear something was off. Normally when we arrive at a new planet, hardly more than a show of force is necessary to force surrender and a whole planet of new slaves. Sure there are always pockets of resistance, but humanity was the first to keep fighting even after losing half their population.

Soon after we began the culling we offered terms, and reminded them that a life of servitude was better than no life at all. Their leaders and diplomats refused flat out, proclaiming something about 'the spirit of humanity' and how it could not be tamed, or some such rubbish that we have all heard a million times. It was true enough, despite their lack of technology and numbers they were ferocious on the battlefield, but that will only get you so far.

We quickly cut their numbers in half and approached them again, thinking they had learned their lesson.

They met us with a call for vengeance and said that this would not be allowed to go unpunished.

At this point, we could have just started capturing them, but that tends to cause issues of resistance down the line. So many would think that we somehow fear them, and would strike back against their masters and cause small disruptions in our supply chains. No, you have to break them. A defeated slave is an obedient slave. We would let them dash themselves on our weaponry until they learned how futile it all was.

When they were slaughtered to a mere tenth of their original population we came again and demanded their surrender.

The venom and hatred in their response was honestly impressive, I never thought I would appreciate such visceral but these apes took it to an art form.

It ultimately didn't matter though, it was decided to simply kill them all. Can't have other races thinking this is a viable strategy after all. shame really, all this death could have been avoided, all this effort could have been for a new slave force but nooooo, they just had to be stubborn to the very end. With the last of them dwindling fast, it was decided to give them one last chance. The ones still alive were the most tenacious, the most desperate to survive, and therefore the most likely to agree to our terms. It would take several generations of breeding to get a worthwhile population, but at least we would get something out of this, and that 'spirit' they had shown could make for some very hard working slaves in the long term.

We reached out one last time, and gave one last offer.

"Fuck you."

And they cut the call

Oh well we tried, time to finish the job.

But they stopped fighting. At this point, after seeing the scrapyard junk they threw together to fight us, I whole heartedly expected the last human to go down throwing rocks. Instead they just... Gave up?

"What are they doing?" Asked Melliki'ttr. "Normally I wouldn't care less, but these apes are always up to something. Let's check the imagery, worst case scenario we get free Fetnlix." I responded in a bored tone. With a satellite in geosynchronous orbit we quickly saw what they were up to. "Ok, they've drawn a circle on the ground... And... What?! Oh my stars!" Laughed krev. "That's a, what did they call it? A Pentagon? They're turning to their gods!" We all had a laugh at that. Then we continued laughing as we fed off each other's energy. After a few minutes we finally calmed down enough to have a conversation again. "I can't believe it, they're so desperate to win they're willing to dilude themselves like that! They- waiiiit, guys come see this!" They were really committed to the bit! Hooded robes, chanting in an old language, scattered bones, but all of that was second to them self terminating! All but one who was, 'assisting' the rest in self termination. "Well, at least they did our job for us!" Melliki'ttr quipped.

On Earth

"For thousands of years I lay dormant, who has disturbed my-

"Hey, Cthulhu!"

"Oh it's you. Explain idiot!"

"Well this is kinda a weird ask..."

"Look, I've granted plenty of boons over the millennia, whatever it is I'll forget it by the end of the week."

"That's the thing though, I'm not looking for a boon, I just wanna wake and release you."

"...What?"

"I-

"No I heard you, but what!? You do realize that I'm gonna end your reality, right!?"

"Yeah"

"Everything, not just the earth."

"Uh-huh"

"Forever, with no escape."

"That's the idea."

"That includes you. A literal eternity of madness and suffering. I don't care about your devotion, you don't want that."

"I know, still doing it though."

"Dude are you ok?"

"Well" Tyler said, looking up at a sky with too many stars, "it's not for me."

(1/2)

Every time he tries to buy an ingredient it suddenly disappears/is sold out. Unbeknownst to him, a rat is also looking to bake a pie and is taking everything he needs.

I recommend r/HFY. The subreddit is full of stories built off the concept of 'what if humans, when compared to other species (typically aliens and sci Fi, but can happen in many other genres as well) are super weird/unique?' there's a lot of Mary Sues and the like, but there's some really good stuff to be found.

Ok this is too good. Now I'm imagining the entire white house huddled around a tv with popcorn and blankets ready for a marathon