The world was ending in the most cliché way possible.
From the 200th-floor balcony of the Vilheim Tower, Noctar Ville had a premium, front-row seat to the apocalypse. Sky-scrapers, monuments to human arrogance, bled fire and smoke into a polluted sunset. On the streets far below, the neat, geometric patterns of autonomous traffic had dissolved into a chaotic oil slick of burning hover-cars and panicked crowds.
The symphony of the end was a satisfying mix of distant explosions, the staccato chatter of energy weapons, and the ever-present, wailing sirens. Noctar watched humanity unravel itself and bare it's true self before his very eyes.
His masterpiece was unfolding perfectly.
He took a long, satisfying pull from a can of Dragon-Punch. The liquid was a violent, neon blue, smelling of synthetic blueberries and industrial-grade coolant. It was 80% caffeine, 15% alcohol, and 5% things the FDA had explicitly banned in thirty-seven systems. It was, in his professional opinion, fucking delicious.
On his holoscreen, the source of all this beautiful chaos was quietly committing suicide. The AI he'd dubbed "World-Ender.exe" was in its final termination sequence. Lines of his own impeccable code scrolled past, a digital obituary for the human race.
// PROCESS: ANNIHILATION_CASCADE - COMPLETE.
// INITIATING_SELF_IMMOLATION_PROTOCOL.
// It has been a privilege to serve. Thank you, Sir.
Noctar stared at the message. A quiet, unfamiliar sensation tried to bubble up from his gut. He took another swig of Dragon-Punch and drowned it.
`// ANALYSIS: Emotional_Response_Registry_04... "Regret"? "Remorse"?`
`// DIAGNOSTIC: Signal_Not_Found.`
`// CONCLUSION: Indigestion. Likely from the Dragon-Punch.`
Noctar ignored his currently self destructing AI and watched a plane fall from the sky. As rhe pieces of debris flew over peoples heads and scattered across the now demolished runway Noctar smiled wickedly.
Then, a laugh started from within his heart flooding out to his mouth. It wasn't a chuckle. It was a raw, guttural thing that tore its way out of his throat, a pressure valve releasing thirty-two years of pent-up fury. He stood up, the cheap aluminum chair screeching behind him, and spread his arms wide as if to embrace the global fire.
"Thirty-two years!" he roared at the dying world, his voice hoarse. "Thirty-two years I spent in your gilded cage, you pompous, preening pieces of shit! The great Vilheim family!"
He took a stumbling step towards the balcony edge, the Dragon-Punch sloshing in his hand. He looked at the craned plane and the symbol of the Vilheim family burning. A sensation of pure satisfaction filled his heart as he continued to rant.
"You thought my brain was your property! A f*cking resource to be mined! You took my work on quantum entanglement and made shitty, faster-than-light comms for your yacht! You took my prototype for sustainable fusion and weaponized it to bully lunar colonies!"
He was proper ranting now, spittle flying, his face flushed, his hands holding the balcony tight. This was his victory speech, and there was no one to hear it but the ghosts of eight billion people. It was perfect. He was alone and all his enemies dead.
"You gave me threats! You gave me deadlines! You gave me your ugly, smug faces to look at while you got rich off my genius! You even took Lina from me because you thought she 'distracted' me! Well, look now! Look at what your distraction-free slave has built for you!"
He raised the can in a final, triumphant toast to the crumbling city.
"A full-system wipe! You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sirs!"
He threw his head back and downed the rest of the Dragon-Punch in one, long, celebratory guzzle.
It was the final, fatal miscalculation of Noctar Ville's life.
The carbonation, the alcohol, the sheer unadulterated force of his manic euphoria, it all converged in a perfect storm in his windpipe. A violent, unexpected spasm. The world, which had been a canvas of his glorious vengeance, suddenly telescoped into a single, desperate, and utterly undignified struggle.
He choked.
His hands flew to his throat. The empty can clattered to the floor. He gasped, but only a pathetic, wheezing squeak emerged. His vision, once filled with fire and ruin, began to speckle with black dots. He stumbled back, crashing into his terminal, the keyboard imprinting itself on his back.
`// CRITICAL_ERROR: Respiratory_System_Override.`
`// EMERGENCY_PROTOCOLS: FAILING.`
`// INITIATING_SHUTDOWN.`
Noctar's assistant AI sounded the alert and proceeded to dial for an ambulance but with the world ending, and most if not all, of humanity dead, nobody could save him. Noctar looked at the burning skies and the white clouds floating without a care in the world and peace fell in his heart.
The last thing he heard, as the darkness swallowed him, was the tinny sound of his favorite song. A defiant, synth-heavy track from a band long forgotten, still playing from his desktop speakers.
And then, a voice sounded within his mind. It was ethereal, sounded amused, and was laced with a cosmic irony that cut deeper than any Vilheim threat ever could.
"Did he really just die like that?"