The 24th of May, 2013, marked the end of the world as we knew it. It was subtle at first: very few could tell the difference. But it spread. Slowly, unnoticeably, it spread into our minds and destroyed them. The technology age was humanity's highest point before it threw itself over the side of the tower; and the higher you are, the harder you fall.
It seemed so innocent at first. Only a handful of people knew about it, and most disregarded it as a fowl attempt to frustrate them and cast it aside. A wise, yet action.
There were others that couldn't resist. Day in, day out, they stared at the screens of their phones, eyes blood-shot, fierce and sleep-deprived. Before long, they were showing their friends, sharing their primitive anger for something so simple, yet somehow difficult.
It wasn't anything overly impressive to look at. A compilation of brightly coloured pixels, raising a new player's hope's just so they could be slashed before they even blinked. At first, it was comical. Then, as their phone screens began cracking from the constant impacts of being thrown every three minutes, they began to recognise it for what it really was. By then, it was far too late. Deep down, they knew. In hopes of making light of what was happening they too spread the word to friends, friends of friends, and so on. The cycle had started, and it would not stop.
It was late January of the next year when it truly took hold. The Internet- perhaps mankind's greatest creation, and yet it's undoing- found it, and all the world could see. Those known to obsess over apocalypse rumours were too busy preparing for the long-awaited Ragnarök. Blind and deaf they were, to the real end of the world. Perhaps if they stopped and listened, they would have heard it earlier.
One might have thought that the sound of the apocalypse would have been more foreboding, perhaps epic or even gallant, to an extent, as young heroes rose up, fighting off their fear and whatever stood in their way. Whoever it was that planning the event perhaps considered this. Their main onslaught was directed at the young adults, with enough care to make it compatible with those younger and older as well.
On it's own it was quiet, fading easily into the background, muffled by hands gripping desperately onto their devices. Soon it was echoed, the exact same sound, the exact same rhythm from the hands of those surrounding. A dim light illuminated the darkness of the night, and more joined in.
Flap, flap, flap.
What was so innocent became menacing in such large numbers.
If only it was just that. The dim glow, the unblinking stares, the putrid, unrelenting flapping. All together, it was enough to drive even those who destroyed their phones, even those who never participated insane, but that was not what the mastermind had in store for us.
As it goes, it didn't take long for devices to be thrown across the room, for roars of anger to echo about the flapping, for the inevitable punching of walls and braking of things precious to their attackers. In fits of frustration, riots broke out. The few who kept staring at their mangled screens did not for long.
"40," One mumbled, their face lighting up with a twisted grin, eye contact not broken with their device. "I broke my highscore...! I got-" His words were cut short by a large plant pot being broken over his head, leaving another who hadn't made a score above 3 for some time huffing and heaving with wordless anger. Blood spilt over the floor, and much more soon followed. The first kill had been made, and it would not stop before the world was too unpopulated to go on, and the streets too shattered and bloody to stay near.
Electricity cut out everywhere. Starving survivors would scavenge through mounds of broken equipment to find any working equipment so that they may play the mind-altering game that drove them to where they were. It's hard to charge your batteries to prepare for an apocalypse you didn't know was coming, and before long, everything powered down.
The rage subsided, but the damage was done. The remaining population was almost entirely twisted, and those who weren't still had no means to survive. Killing from anger of jealousy quickly transformed into hunting others of their kind just so they could continue living. All manner of creature was hunted for food, or sometimes just for fun by the twisted humans remaining. Creatures everywhere went wild from constant, and the living world could no longer sustain itself.
No-one knows what became of the mastermind after the end. Perhaps they themselves were their own first victim, driven to madness as they created what would destroy everything.
Well, I don't suppose incredibly over-grown carnivorous plants, tainted terribly by centuries of blood absorption could do as bad a job at being the dominant species than mankind did.