The year was 2038 when humanity discovered that it was not alone.

It was a monumental event for humanity. Several delegation ships appeared in orbit, broadcasting a universally translated message: "We come in peace."

Of course, some did not believe the message, but humanity, surprisingly, welcomed its visitors with open arms.

It… well, truthfully and surprisingly, ended fine.

Sort of.

While the delegations' meeting was itself a safe and, in fact, harmonious moment, the news it brought was anything but.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves now, aren't we?

Jubilant, humanity's leaders met with their alien visitors. They appeared shockingly human if one ignored that they were only three and a half feet tall, with bleach-white skin and striking eyes the color of vivid emerald seafoam.

While many expected the aliens to bring messages of their intention to aid us or even take over, no one expected them to come asking for help.

The explanation was simple. Humanity had cleared several hurdles and been deemed a species worthy of admission to a coalition spread across entire galaxies. The hurdles themselves were relatively straightforward.

First, the functional construction of a fully operational and non-proof-of-concept fusion reactor. It was later explained that while it didn't necessarily have to be fusion energy, the actual requirement was the establishment of a high-yield, fully renewable energy source. While many species had energy sources far more advanced than nuclear fusion, fusion was considered one of the baseline energy sources to meet the requirement.

Second, an exceptional quality or characteristic of the species as a whole. Given how lacking humans were in technological development compared to some of the member species, humanity instead had to prove itself through the sheer worthiness of what they brought from a unique species standpoint. In humanity's case, it was a surprisingly robust and resilient physical makeup. Earth's gravity was considered near the theoretical limit for a sapient species to develop on, while also breaking free of the shackles of the planetary gravity well. The energy yields required to leave planets with higher gravitational fields than Earth would generally prevent otherwise intelligent species from ever escaping their cradle-turned-prison without access to technology that only space-faring races tended to have to begin with.

Third, the establishment of a long-term space colony. It was through technicality that humanity had qualified, something that the alien delegation admitted to the leaders of Earth. Originally planned to be decommissioned early in the 2020s, the International Space Station was given an extra twenty years to operate after the political tensions of several countries led to a surge in funding for its continued usage. Having lasted forty years straight, the ISS barely scraped by as a 'long-term colony.'

Fourth and final: the discovery of extraterrestrial life through entirely self-progressed means. Only three months prior, a research paper had conclusively established that, without a doubt, humanity was not alone in the stars. Of course, the discovery was nothing more than microbial life on a celestial moon in Alpha Centauri. Still, while the form of life discovered was minor, it had primed humanity to the conclusive idea of no longer being alone in the universe.

Thus, with those four requirements met, humanity was finally enlightened and brought into the fold.

Unfortunately for humanity, the grand universe they had been welcomed into was far from rainbows and sunshine. Under normal circumstances, an extra twenty years would have elapsed before proper first contact. Then, the gradual ascension of technological progress would have been shared as humanity broke free of its old-world thinking. Becoming a member of a galactic community required a more sophisticated and civilized mindset, after all.

But, to reiterate, the universe humanity joined was hardly rainbows and sunshine, which was entirely the point of why humanity had been contacted. What was needed wasn't civilized and sophisticated mindsets. What it needed was soldiers to fight the war to end all wars. For that reason alone, humanity had been contacted, skirting several of the qualifications through technicalities, for the simple reason that point two of the four-point system made humanity exceptionally useful during a crisis.

As for the crisis itself?

It was the War of Everything, a transgalactic war in which member civilizations of the Galactic Union, spanning fifteen galaxies, were waging a battle against a species known as the Sensen. Located in a distant corner of the universe, they had kept to themselves, considered an unfriendly if not hostile race. They had partaken in the purging or assimilation of contending races within their galaxy, considered barbaric by the rest of the Galactic Union. The only reason the Galactic Union chose to turn a blind eye was that they had seemingly been content to exist in their self-imposed isolation with little to no interaction with the other civilizations and races that belonged to the Galactic Union after the purge of their home galaxy.

It was perhaps the greatest folly of the Galactic Union—a lesson in the cost of tolerating monsters so long as they stayed in their cages. If only more effort had been made to stamp out such barbarism, then perhaps the worst would not have come, as one fateful day, a scanning from a backwater planet in the next closest galaxy showed readings that made no sense.

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Dimensional wavering.

The wavering of dimensional reality on such a scale had only been recorded once in the very distant past, within the singularity predating the Big Bang. The same Big Bang that went on to create their reality and countless parallel dimensional layers.

The fact that scans showed the wavering of dimensional reality caused instant red flags to appear. Only one thing could cause such results, something capable of ripping through reality in a vast area. While it was well known that some civilizations used Skip-Drives to skip along the closest alternate dimensional layers, they were like dropping a pine needle in an ocean for the overall ripples they created. What was being detected was like the tectonic plates beneath a sea being gradually stirred into motion as they ripped themselves apart.

The Galactic Union had been brought to an emergency meeting, where further investigations were held, leading to the discovery of a gigastructure at the center of Sensen space. Their very galactic core was in the process of being encapsulated by the most massive construction project in known universal history. An enormous device that could cause the breakdown of the laws of physics. If initiated, it would lead to a cascading effect that would inevitably destroy the operational function of gravity.

In simple terms, under the new laws of physics unleashed by the Sensen apocalypse machine, anything larger than a small asteroid would instantly collapse into a black hole. It would further ripple out, as anything smaller would instantly be pulled into the newly formed singularities.

When the Sensen envoys were contacted, rather than denying it, they reveled in their grand vision. They explained, according to their own calculations, that unleashing the cascading effect of the reality collapser would not just cause nearly everything to be forcibly collapsed into a black hole; it would collapse the universe itself. In the process, it would supposedly project the Sensen into a higher plane of existence, achieving true ascension of mind, body, and soul.

All it would take was the death of every living being in their universe, the universe's end in the truest sense.

When the entire story was laid bare to the leaders of humanity, it was later reported that few could speak for some time until the Prime Minister of Denmark asked a question, the question they were all thinking.

Why humanity? Why Earth? If they were as advanced as they were, crossing not just the space between solar systems with ease, not just from one side of the galaxy to the other, but spanning entire galaxies worth, what worth could humanity, a single race on a single rock, have in this transgalactic war?

The answer was surprisingly simple. They needed bodies, and the hardier the better. That had prompted the question of why AI-based war machines had not been utilized; it was then explained that AI, even amongst the Sensen, had been fundamentally banned. It was too risky for anything but the most menial of tasks, and even that was heavily regulated; all it would take was a single runaway program, a single glitch or mistake, for the emotionless task managers to head down a warpath against all life.

Without being able to rely on true AI to help in their war efforts, the task of the war efforts would be split into parts. Already widely colonized galaxies and members of the Galactic Union would become their foundries of war to use against the Sensen, vast fleets of space armadas protected by shield generators powerful enough to withstand the full force of a nearby star exploding. Smaller members of the Galactic Union would search for potential allies to join the effort, those who could provide some unique benefit that the already-established members couldn't.

What humanity brought to the table was their uniquely hardy constitutions. To combat the Sensen, experimental ships were created that wouldn't just skip across the nearest layers of dimensional reality like a Skip-Drive; they would ricochet across the differing layers, covering real space magnitudes faster than even the fastest ships the Galactic Union could offer, the normally weeks-long travel to cross-galactic space, by standard human time, could be reduced to mere days or even hours. The primary issue the members of the Galactic Union faced was that species capable of withstanding the forces on those experimental ships were few and far between, and only a single race could even handle it, and only in short bursts.

Humanity was forged on Earth's comparitvely massive gravity well, and thus, humanity was brought into the fold, the hardiest intelligent race in the entire Galactic Union, even after passing the requirements to join on mere technicalities.

When everything was said and done, humanity did what humanity loved to do in its history: It blared its horns of patriotism and a greater cause, and the war effort began. For humanity, a single planet race, men and women alike were recruited by the millions into intense training programs to prepare them to become the backbone of the most advanced crafts in universal space.

All of this would likely make you think this story will be about some dashing young hero enlisting, climbing the ranks, proving his worth in space warfare, and finally helping strike down the vile Sensen threat.

Unfortunately, that isn't this story.

The Galactic Union was too slow to act, and the only reason they ever found out in the first place was that the Sensen had disabled their system jammers. Not from oversight, but from pride, they wanted the universe to watch. Had the Sensen wished to remain undetected, they would have left their system jammers in place, and the universe would have been none the wiser until it was too late.

So, in the end, try as the Galactic Union might, there wasn't enough time to get the bulk of their armadas through the meat grinder that was Sensen space. Billions and trillions died in the effort as billions of Galactic Union ships failed to pass through the fortress systems guarding their galaxy's core. In the end, the only ships that had a chance were the measly one thousand experimental Ricochet Ships that managed to pierce the galactic core of the Sensen galaxy. The battle was broadcast for all to see; the ships, sixty percent of their crew sourced from humanity alone, were the pride and joy of Earth.

Pride and joy they were, but it didn't change that they were ripped apart by the literal bastion that the Sensen Galactic Core proved to be. It wasn't some sci-fi movie where the united races of the galaxy, spearheaded by the finest crews of Earth, broke into the deepest parts of enemy territory only to find their most crucial sector woefully undefended.

No, the galactic core was, in fact, the most heavily defended sector in all known universal space, and as such, the thousand brave ships were ripped apart before they could cross even half of the space from the outer rim of the sector.

Rowan -though he preferred to go by Rory- shrugged as he watched the battle for universal survival conclude, lowering his phone and returning to his morning jog.

It is what it is. Rory thought to himself as he went about his jog, ignoring the faces of his fellow humans, many sobbing, many collapsing without a word, and many still simply staring out in silence at nothing as the fact that they were all about to die broke their minds.

Not Rory, though. It wasn't that he was exceptionally brave, tough, callous, or any such descriptive word. It was simply that, in the end, what did it matter?

Panic was redundant; there would be no pain, no darkness, just off, instant oblivion.

From what he understood, the structure at the center of Sensen's space, when activated, would instantly destroy the known universe, the collapse of everything traveling through time and space in ways that his comparatively simple human mind couldn't process.

So, he continued his jog. It was a lovely autumn morning, and the birds were chirping, and Rory found himself smiling. The sun felt warm on his face, and his body really did feel in excellent shape today. Rory still had the smile on his face when, over a billion light years away, a single Sensen pressed a confirmation button on an interface, and like an old TV being turned off, all of reality winked off into nothingness.

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