Then the One Thing broke apart into the Meat, the Moon, and Woebetitus. Woebetitus smashed the Moon, and its fragmented pieces begat the Titans. There was a Titan was named Gonk, but Woebetitus smashed Gonk, thus begetting the Behemoths Pum, Pone, and Pod. Pum's smashing begat the first Giants, including Dince who was also smashed and begat two little Moonling, Gangle and Junky.
The Moonling inhabitants of the Meat suffered the rule of Woebetitus, who had enslaved their entire population. Woebetitus wanted for nothing, but he worked the little Moonlings to their core simply for his entertainment, constructing monstruous monuments to his cruelty.
Gangle and Junky were workers at one of Woebetitus's meat plantations, where they labored every day to produce Meatlings to Woebetitus's specifications. After a long day at work, they were heading off. The air was hot and humid, carrying a vile rotting stench.
Their Giant pitboss drove them hard. Death was no uncommon thing here, but one could consider it a lucky death if they managed to die of exahaustion under the command of their pitboss. Life outside the plantations was more dangerous still. Moonlings lived in constant fear of some bored Giant smashing them to see what new little creatures their corpse might turn into.
Luckily, they were headed to a small hangout of their own that they had recently discovered. To know of a safe haven where one could go after a day at the plantation was a blessing far beyond the hopes of most Moonlings. So they walked, in a relatively cheery state, knowing that safety was near. Gangle was a thicker Moonling than average, and his wide, flat feet made a wet splatting and clicking with every step he made on the sticky bloody surface of the Meat.
"Strix said she heard there was going to be another apocalypse," said Gangle.
"But we just had an apocalypse," said Junky, glowering at the news.
"Nothing like an apocalypse to set things right," said Gangle, who thought himself a very rigid and correct Moonling.
"Why can't God just get it right the first time?" Junky scratched his arm nervously, and looked up to see what Woebetitus was doing right now.
One could always look up and see Woebetitus, no matter where they stood on the Meat. Presently, the creature was yawning, tilting his head to reveal a large abcess that had formed under one of the layers of his chin. He sighed out a cloud of dirty fire and smoke. His fat body was covered in sores and various forms of decay, as well as tens of thousands of meatling creatures who would scavenge him for a ripe pustule that would be their dinner.
Woebetitus scratched at the abcess under his neck, crushing dozens of meatlings who had the misfortune of choosing that area as a feeding spot. The abcess popped and the puss rained out onto the Meat, and with it, millions of tiny bug-men, stinging gnats, and burrowing meatworms,
Junky grabbed Gangle's arm and dashed away from the rain, pulling him into their hangout spot. The spot was inside of previously diseased arterial of the Meat. Now it was dead and dried out.
Junky wished that the Giants would just rise up and kill Woebetitus, but their power paled before his. He had smashed the Titans and Behemoths of yore one by one, and now the Giants were the largest living beings, and giant though they may be, they rose no higher than Woebetitus' knee. The Giants did think up plots to kill Woebeitus on occasion, but then—they realized—there would be several Woebtituses. The Giants always relented, seeing that this was a bad idea.
"That was a close one," said Junky.
"What were you saying about God back there, before the puss and maggots started raining?" asked Gangle.
"Oh, just that I don't know why there should be so many apocalypses. Why couldn't God just get it right the first time?"
“God? God is as silly as Tic Tac Toe.” Gangle waited for his friend to react to his insightful statement, but Junky appeared to no longer be paying attention.
Junky indeed was not paying attention, as he had sensed that his friend was about to begin one of his typical sermons on "the way things are." Junky's mouth was agape, and he was working his lower lip over his teeth as if he was trying to dislodge a piece of food.
“Are you listening?” asked Gangle.
Junky was certainly still not listening. Junky had moved on from the thing stuck in his teeth and he was now doing whippets. Junky loved whippets. Sometimes, if he inhaled enough, he thought he could remember past lives, even as far back as a time when he was a cell in the One Thing. Maybe even farther back.
"Junky."
“Man, I'm just over here,” Junky finally said, head shaking and jittering as the effects hit.
“Junky, you bastard. You thinbone loser, I'm trying to teach you something about life. Look here.” Gangle drew two vertical lines in the meat intersected by two horizontal lines, then he drew an X in the top left corner. “Now it's your turn, place an 'O' in one of the unoccupied squares.” Junky found this to be more interesting than a sermon, so he cooperated.
After two more turns, Gangle had connected three X's diagonally. “I win! And what's more, I'll always win! Well I'll always win or draw.”
Junky drew a new empty board and eyed it with wide eyes. “Place your 'X'," he said.
Gangle placed it in the top left position again.“I'm telling you, there's no point. It's a solved game,” he said.
His friend placed an 'O'.
“There's no point in playing. You always know the outcome before you start. Just like life.”
They each played another turn, but this time, Junky blocked Gangle's winning move. Gangle placed another 'X', knowing he had guaranteed victory on his next turn. Unfortunately, he missed the fact that Junky's blocking move could also be connected to his first move. Junky placed his winning 'O'.
“I win," said Junky. Gangle stared angrily at the board.
“Well that doesn't mean anything. I forked when I should have blocked, it was a simple mistake. We should have drawn on the next turn. God wouldn't ever make a mistake and so the point stands that life would be a dumb boring pointless game to him and so he can't exist and that's why we have so many apocalypses.”
“Maybe God should do whippets.” Junky fell back to lay on his back, swimming his limbs in the air like a little upside-down beetle.
"Hey guys, what's up?" It was Strix, a strange feathered creature who worked in a different section of their plantation.
Junky thought it was good to have a feathered friend in a world of slimey rotting meat bags. He said, "Hiya Strix," and continued to play the beetle.
"I was just trying to teach Junky here something about the world," said Gangle, "but he's too zonked out of his mind to pay any attention."
"What were you teaching him?"
"That there is no God. The essence of godliness is apathy, and the best we can ever achieve in life is to disconnect ourselves completely from its outcomes, because it's all a stupid game for idiots."
"I dig it, Gangle. Apathy is like so cool," said Strix.
"Hey man, what's that?" asked Junky, seeing a large shadow suddenly loom over the thin roof of their dead aterial. Strix and Gangle looked up.
"It's Woebetitus! Run!" said Strix, who flew away.
Gangle also dashed for cover, but it was too late for Junky, who was still stuck on his back. The shadow tore away the roof, and revealed itself to be two fingers.
"Hey man," said Junky, but it was no good. He had been pinched by the two fingers and was then lifted out of the hangout.
Junky soared through the sky, thousands of feet high, until he was looking right into Woebetitus' giant maggot-infested eye.
Strix, who had excellent vision, could see all of this, and described it in horror to Gangle.
"This is simply what had to be. So be it," said Gangle.
Junky was in horrible pain. Strix could see that he had been mangled by Woebetitus's careless grip. Many of his limbs were broken and he was leaking vital fluids.
"Hallelujah," said Gangle upon learning of his friend's battered condition.
Junky could see, from this vantage, that what he once thought of as a distant mountain was in fact a gigantic cylindrical meat cake that Woebetitus had created. It consisted of tortured and dying Giants, glued together with decaying masses of bodies of countless Meatlings and Moonlings.
"You can be my candle,"said Woebetitus.
Woebetitus burped a cloud of acrid fire onto Junky, igniting him. Strix could see this and raised her wings to cover her gasping mouth.
"Your best friend is dying," said Strix.
"The holy spirit moves through me."
Woebetius placed the burning Junky on the top of the cake, before jumping in the air and cannonball slamming it with his titanic ass.
Even Gangle could now easily see for himself what had happened. From this carnage a new age would form. All kinds of new tiny creatures. The Meat would become thoroughly infested with insects and maggots. It would be an age of disease and pestilence. Strix cried and yelled out against her friend's death, and against what would come next.
But it didn't matter! Gangle had it all figured out now. It was all about apathy. This was his final test, and he had passed it marvelously. Nothing could hurt him now.
"Amen," said Gangle.
A fiery hateful eye, larger than all of Woebetitus, appeared in the sky. Its iris shifted as it looked from disaster to disaster in this decrepit world.
“Oh no, this won't do at all,” the great sky voice boomed over the Meat.
The eye disappeared, but with its withdrawal, a portion of the sky was torn away. The tear began to unzip and everything unraveled.
This was not the hellfire of an apocalypse. Gangle could see that this was annihilation.
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