This is amazing, but one question, how do they know who ruin is?

"I guess this is happening now."I said,the frustration and will to live compressed into a tiny box beside the gigantic boulder of sloth and laziness in my head.The white dressed man clutched my hair and looked into my eyes, chanting some words that I could care less about. Sacrifice me and be done with it already. I wouldn't be here, if not for my girlfriend insisting on me to visit her granny's death.

Hope it is more comfortable in the afterlife.

He thrust my head back upon the rock and continued talking on and preaching in the local language. I learnt one language, at the age of ten. I am not even going to try to understand this idiot.He clutched a fist of some red powder and buried my face in it.My eyes burnt and nose crackled as though glass powder slipped through my throat. I coughed and sneezed as they readied the large scimitar to be done with my head.

Fuck this guy, I guess.

The silver glint, a shiny spark of light , shone in my eyes as the sword fell upon my head.

It was instantaneous as I felt power of the ruin flow and move against the nature of preservation itself.I was a sharp wedge driven into the flow of ruin, a sharp rod that conducted life and death.The subconscious of unconscious and the eye of destruction looked at me atop the frozen wastes.

Knowledge and another mind took my body.My body felt weird and almost as if I was the intruder there.I looked at my severed body as my eyes opened and saw it before me.It happens ,I guess ,but still even for me, i felt a little afraid now.

Ruin was in control now. He rose in a eldritch force of miasmic impulses and black gas as my body moved infront of the head. I was intensely afraid the black gas erupted out of my neck and nearly formed a smokey head of itself.It was surreal as I saw my own body as my own hand clutched my head.

"Get used to this"said Ruin as he spoke and moved in my body.

"The hell,I am."I said and went ahead and slept in my mind.

"Wake up,You goddam oaf."Ruin threatened me as my lethargy overcame, all control Ruin could exert.

"How'd it feel?"I asked in my mind space.

"How do you even move with all this lethargy in you?"Ruin asked in utter bewilderment as I moved towards him, floated more like."It can incapacitate a God, literally kid."

"Well, your free trial of my body has expired ,Mister.Dont mind this."I said, as I ripped the light and my body from his grip and came to be as the cultist Ruin was speaking to was momentarily repeated what he just said.

"All of you, die."I spoke in Ruins voice as his words came true simultaneously.

I was not ready for the ending lol. Love it so much I'm not reading the others.

Woow low blow man, a nut punch?

Thank you 😊

“Ugh. Is this how you live?” The shocked and condescending tone rattled my head.

I roll my eyes a bit with a half-hearted shrug. “I mean, yea, I guess.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. I knew that girl was way too hot to be talking to me. I definitely shouldn’t have gotten into the van willingly. But, I mean, I wasn’t about to walk home. And now I have become this vessel or anointed one as they keep saying. I dunno, it all really just seems like a whole lot of work.

“You really need to get yourself together. We have a lot of things we need to get done. We have a time table to keep in mind.” He sounded like a boss I had once. He fired me.

Yea, ok. That really doesn’t sound like much fun at all. I know that he kinda controls and owns me, but he still needs my help. And I’d rather just not. “Ok ok, how about today we just make a list of things that you want to get done by the end of the week. This way I know how I will have to pace myself. That’s a good way for me to get started. I like to know what’s coming before I just into things. I mean, I think that’s fair anyways.”

“This is pathetic. Look at yourself, you have one sock on! We only have 6 months to get this done before I need to find another host. Do. You. Hear. Me? If this doesn’t work, in 6 months, you will be dead.”

I mean, don’t threaten me with a good time, right? Anyway to move that up at all? Maybe 2 weeks?

“This is the motivation I’m looking for!” He sounded excited for the first time. “I don’t think 2 weeks is time to get everything done but-“

No, I mean two weeks for the deadline. Like, if it doesn’t happen in two weeks, you know, it’s over?

“What?” He used all the strength he had to control my hand for a moment.

Punched my right nut.

Down I went, I didn’t know I had that kind of strength, color me surprised!

“Now” He hissed “Get up, we have work to do!”

Me, laying on the floor in the fetal position. It feels good down here. The pain in my stomach from the ball punch is starting to lighten and the cold floor feels good on my face. A little nap won’t hurt anything, plus I doubt he could take control of any of my limbs again for a few hours. Like a built in alarm clock. Eyes are closing, good night.

“HEEEYY!!!” it sounded like he was starting to lose his mind “THIS IS NO TIME FOR A NAP!!”

Right, like it’s the first time I’ve fallen asleep with voices yelling in my head. They really should have screened people before sacrificing them. I guess you get what you pay for, and they didn’t pay me anything. Jokes on them now.

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One part thought this was fantastic, we could finally grow our wealth and prosperity all over the world, giving everyone a roof over their heads, food on the table and a job to work. The other group was less than pleased, no more power to exploit the ever growing work force in the far east or subsaharan Africa, a lot less opportunity for buying a yacht, they'd have to start paying people more and could see a total downfall of the world's economy at the horizon.

A UN summit was arranged and a total frenzy was only stopped when one person asked: "So what happens with the kids and the old people? The kids are being born at the same rate old people are dying, which means that within 20 years we'll have a very old average global age and a dwindling work force under the pressure of having to care for the elderly. So do we kill the elderly? Do we stop giving them the healthcare they need? Do we let them die at a more natural age of 70-80 instead of 90-100? What do we teach the kids? How do we teach the kids? Schools will close down rapidly with the fewer amount of kids we're having. And where are more kids born? Is it in the western world? Is it in the far east? Is it in Africa? How do we secure the future of our children and how do we help the elderly? Do we facilitate access to euthanasia worldwide? How do religious orders view or explain this? What do we do?''

Each new question sparked another week of debate, five new threats of nuclear war, three new accusations of racism and seven new countries declaring independence. Yet over the years, as the population naturally grew older these questions became more and more pressing. Crime grew, suicides happened more often, poverty seemed to expand and hit the elderly the hardest of all. Each day, hundreds of people found their grandparents, neighbours or friends dead in their house, having starved, hung themselves or else simply died of old age. As the years went by, many of the ''old guard'' in politics, the Boomers if you will, died too. Younger folk began replacing them. Changes were made. Surplus from rich and developed nations were sent to countries in need. Borders softened. People got given opportunities to work in far flung areas of the world, having their travels, house and facilities all paid for by desperate corporations needing a work force. Things started improving.

40 years had passed, most people had a home, food and a job. Everyone seemed happy, kids' birthdays were celebrated by thousands each day. Old people were more and more willing to give their place up to new arrivals. All seemed well.

Until one day, a lonely government worker charged with keeping an eye on global population numbers, who had never seen the number differ from exactly 10,000,000,000 was startled. Fell of his chair and ran out of the room in a panic, trying to find his supervisor.

''Help, please come see this. It's urgent, I don't understand what happened or how it's possible, but you've got to see this.'' he cried when he finally found her.

''What is it? Why are you freaking out?'' she answered, quite perturbed from having been interrupted during her lunch break.

''Just, come with me, you'll see.'' He shouted, already running back.

''Well then, you'll be for later.'' she said to her sandwich before following him to the control room.

''Look!'' he shouted, ''I don't understand how it's possible or what is going on but this is a huge problem, what do we do?''

''Wha- I- How?" She stuttered, quite stumped by what she was seeing. She took a moment to compose herself before grabbing her phone and dialling her president. ''Mister president, sir. There's an issue. The numbers...''

''What is it? What's wrong with the numbers? What's going on?'' she heard from the other side.

''Sir, the numbers...'' She couldn't get the words out.

''What!? For goodness sake, tell me what is going on?'' He shouted, quite disturbed by this phonecall, he hadn't ever been called directly by the agency and frankly hadn't ever expected to be.

''Sir, the numbers...'' She swallowed her nerves, ''They're going down.''

I’m surprised the shit that went down in WWII didn’t get us out of debt and have a nice carrying balance.

I like the concept of this story, but damn is it grim.

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It started with a thought that every human experienced. The thought that doomed mankind to eternal war and changed the world as we know it now.

The thought was a simple message of unknown origins: “Data limit reached, please upgrade membership to continue growing your civilisation.”

At first, many communities reacted in shock, disbelief and denial to it, some changing the spirit of the message to suit their own purposes. But the message was made clear in one thing; the population did not grow. The growth was essentially the same, a baby is born and an elder dies. The number of population remained where it was.

This caused many countries to create and enforce the policies about having children. US was most opposed to having a limit of how many children one could have and lobbied as much as it could have to stop it at UN. The corporations in Europe and US cried out in anger at the rising wages, and pushed governments to let in more refugees than ever before. Leading to US and its allies to do what they had done for decades. They funded terrorists, extreme political and religious organisations, far left politicians, drugs flow and smuggled weapons as well as staged coups to destabilise the weaker countries in order to keep them(and the prices) down and to keep the refugees running to the wealthy and developed countries.

China outraged at this blatant act of what the West was doing and no longer hid it, has started supporting Russia, NK and other anti-US countries openly. Earth was soon embroiled in wars where the global trade collapsed, and the economies were set back for decades. Ironically, the countries that were forced to keep running themselves in isolation imposed by West were benefiting enormously from their mostly independent economies.

Nukes were thrown around when a country realised it could not win this war of numbers and resources. The population dropped to 8 billions and continued falling as radioactive waste made love with crops and man.

Man was forced to rely on vertical and underground farms in order to keep producing nutritious and untainted food, yet it was not enough to support more than a few billion. The prices had imploded in the growth -based economies of West and led to poor work conditions as well as poor living standards comparable to the third world countries before the collapse of global trade, which was set up to be incredibly advantageous and profitable for West.

Humanity learned that having capitalism and an economy model based on growth that exploited resources and labour force from poor countries may not have been a good idea. The wealth and power eventually shifted from West to East. Under the different culture influence from East, the economy model of West changed to benefit people, and not a few corporates and extremely wealthy people. Living standards and working condition improved greatly in the new world, mankind knew wealth equality once more. A golden age was ushered in as the world policy kept a tight control on the births and ensured that the population number did not become more than 8 billion, with the support of care robots and encouraged use of euthanasia for elders and mentally crippled people(such as comatose people never to awaken again).

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Well done that was really good.

Haunting. Great writing as usual.

I really really enjoyed this, thankyou for the effort. :)

Well people would still dies naturally in the second one too.

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If you only stop births people still die, so probably the second one

The big question for me is:

Does that mean no new births, or does that mean that for every live birth a random person immediately and unexpectedly dies?

Hmm...

Though there's theories about the population count plateauing soon, currently humans overall still mostly have an overpopulation problem, so I'd imagine a lot of people would say "awesome!" and continue to go on their lives exploiting the population cap. Either as a freebie fix to actual overpopulation, or people best poised to profit in a zero-sum game (assuming the cap applies at a uniform rate across everyone, countries with poorer healthcare and higher mortality rates would start to be edged out by countries with better health care).

Holly shit, that's some good pc they have