How the hell are we supposed to beat something like that?  Allistor thought as he collapsed atop a rubble pile, exhausted.   It has been almost a week since the apocalypse, and I’m only level three.  Dad killed more of these new creatures than anyone, and he was only level five when they got him.

He paused, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand as he thought of his family.  When it all happened on that first day, the day everyone was now calling Apocalypse Day, they had all been together at the house.  He’d come home from college to visit his parents and little sister for the break.   They were all still asleep in the pre-dawn hours when the sky seemed to catch fire, and the ear-shattering blast of what sounded like a giant foghorn ripped through the early morning silence.  The house had vibrated, windows rattling and cracking under the assault.  Allistor had covered his ears in an attempt to muffle the noise before his brain burst.

A moment after the tremendous sound ceased, Allistor and everyone else on the planet received a notice.  It came to him as both a voice in his head and a strange text that appeared in front of his face like a hologram.  Initially, the text looked like nothing more than scribbled lines of electric blue.  But as the voice in his head continued to speak, the scribbles resolved themselves into characters that he somehow understood.

>>>Attention all inhabitants of the planet known as Earth<<<

Your world and everything on it has just been claimed by the Universal Collective as compensation for protecting you from your sun’s supernova.

Earth, now designated UCP 382, has been removed from its orbit and placed in a stable system closer to the Galactic Nexus.  You will have three of your solar days to prepare yourselves.  Detailed information can be found in the ‘DETAILS’ subsection of your status interface.

It has been determined that UCP 382 is currently overpopulated.  The dominant species, known as humans, have polluted the lands and seas to an unacceptable level.  Measures will be taken to reduce the human population and stabilize the environment before citizens of other Collective worlds will be allowed to immigrate.  Initial estimate of human population reduction level is ninety percent.

And that was it.  No further explanation.  Allistor had initially assumed it was a nightmare inspired by way too many hours of gaming, and he tried to go back to sleep.  But his sister, Leah, began pounding on his door, then burst in with wide eyes.  “Did you hear that?”

Allistor was about to chase her out of his room when his parents appeared behind her.  His father’s face was grim, and his mother immediately gathered Leah into a tight hug.

“You… you guys all heard that too?  Saw the weird holo-thing with the words?” Allistor had sat back on his bed, legs unsteady.   His family all nodded at him.