How Oat Milk Ended the World

The world ended because of oat milk.

Not nuclear war. Not a meteor. Not even something dignified like a pandemic or alien invasion.

Oat. Milk.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It started the way all good disasters start: with a beautiful stranger and a catastrophically bad first impression.

I was reaching for my oat milk latte—grande, iced, extra foam—when some guy in a vintage band t-shirt backed directly into me. The cup went flying. Brown liquid exploded across the floor in a pattern that looked unsettlingly like a mushroom cloud.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry—"

He spun around and I got my first good look at him. Dark curly hair, green eyes, the kind of genuinely horrified expression that told me this wasn't some elaborate pickup move.

"I am *so* sorry," he said again. "I was trying to fix my headphones and I wasn't looking and—let me buy you another one. Please."

"It's fine," I said, even though my shoes were now decorated with oat foam. "Really."

"It's not fine. I just assaulted you with dairy-free milk substitute. That's definitely not fine." He smiled, sheepish. "I'm Marcus."

"Riley."

"Riley. Okay. Riley, let me make this right. Another oat milk latte?"

I glanced at the counter. The barista was staring at her phone with the kind of expression usually reserved for natural disasters.

"Actually," she said without looking up, "we're out of oat milk."

Marcus blinked. "Out? It's 10 AM on a Tuesday."

"Yeah." The barista finally looked at us. Her name tag said JADE and her eyes said *I've seen things*. "Distributor called. They're out. Everyone's out."

"Everyone?" I said.

"*Everyone.*" Jade's phone buzzed. She glanced at it and her face went pale. "Oh. Oh no."

"What?" Marcus leaned over the counter.

Jade turned her phone around. The headline read: **GLOBAL OAT MILK SHORTAGE CAUSES WIDESPREAD PANIC**

Below it, a photo of a Whole Foods that looked like it had been looted by Vikings.

"Huh," I said.

"People are losing their minds over oat milk," Jade said. "There's riots in Portland."

"To be fair," Marcus said, "there's always riots in Portland."

I laughed. Jade did not.

"I'm closing early," she announced, already untying her apron. "You should go home. Both of you."

"But I never got to buy her a replacement latte," Marcus protested.

Jade was already halfway to the back room. "NOT MY PROBLEM."

The door slammed behind her.

Marcus and I stood alone in the empty coffee shop, surrounded by the wreckage of my former beverage.

"So," he said. "This is going well."

I should have left. Should have gone home, checked the news, figured out why the internet was melting down over plant-based milk alternatives.

Instead, I said: "There's another coffee shop two blocks over. Want to try there?"

His smile was worth the end of the world.

---

By the time we reached the second coffee shop, things had gotten weird.

Not catastrophic. Just... off.

Every coffee shop we passed had CLOSED signs in the windows. A woman ran past us clutching an armful of oat milk cartons like they were gold bars. Someone's car alarm was going off to the tune of what sounded like screaming.

"This is bizarre," Marcus said, checking his phone. "Listen to this: *CDC warns against consuming oat-based products until further notice.*"

"Why would the CDC care about oat milk?"

"No idea. But apparently twelve people in Iowa started *vibrating* after drinking it."

"Vibrating."

"Direct quote." He scrolled further. "And there's something about a dimensional rift in a Starbucks in Minneapolis but that's probably a hoax."

We walked in silence for a moment.

"We should probably go home," I said.

"Probably," he agreed.

Neither of us moved.

"Or," I said slowly, "we could ignore the oat-based apocalypse and get ice cream instead."

Marcus stopped walking. Looked at me. Really looked at me.

"Riley. Did we just meet during the end times?"

"I think we might have."

"And you want to get ice cream."

"I want to get ice cream."

"With me. A stranger who assaulted you with plant milk."

"Well, when you put it that way it sounds weird."

He grinned. "Ice cream sounds perfect."

The ice cream shop was open but notably nervous.

The teenager behind the counter kept glancing at the TV mounted in the corner, where a news anchor was trying very hard to explain something that made no sense.

"—reports of oat-based *entities* emerging from coffee shops in seven major cities," she was saying. "Authorities are urging people to remain calm and avoid all oat products until—"

The feed cut to shaky phone footage of what looked like a latte. A very large latte. A latte that was *moving*.

It oozed across the floor of what appeared to be a Peet's Coffee, leaving a trail of foam. People were screaming.

"Oat-based entities," Marcus repeated. "Sure. Why not."

"Two scoops of mint chocolate chip," I told the teenager, who was now openly crying.

"We're closing in five minutes," he whispered.

"Then we'll eat fast."

We sat at a small table by the window. Outside, reality was beginning to fray in small, unsettling ways. The sky had taken on a faintly beige tint. The color of oat milk, if I was being honest.

"So," Marcus said, taking a bite of his strawberry scoop. "Tell me about yourself before the oats kill us all."

I laughed. It came out slightly unhinged.

"I'm a graphic designer. I have a cat named Taxes. I've been on exactly three dating apps and they all made me want to fake my own death."

"Hence being single and available for apocalypse ice cream."

"Hence that, yes. You?"

"Software engineer. No pets. Also on the dating apps. Also wanting to fake my own death."

"We have so much in common."

"It's like fate." He paused. "Terrible, oat-based fate."

The TV cut to another news update. The anchor looked like she'd been crying.

"—confirmed reports of reality distortion in areas with high oat milk consumption. Scientists theorize that oats were never meant to be processed into milk and the universe is... rejecting the concept. We're getting reports that—"

The screen went to static.

Then to a test pattern.

Then to something that looked like oat milk slowly consuming the broadcast signal.

"Huh," I said.

"Yeah."

We ate our ice cream in silence for a moment.

"My apartment's three blocks from here," I said. "We could... wait this out there? See what happens?"

Marcus looked at me. His eyes were kind.

"Riley. Are you asking me over to watch the oat milk apocalypse with you?"

"I think I am."

"That's the best offer I've had all year."

---

We didn't make it three blocks.

We made it one and a half before the first *incident*.

A coffee shop—one we'd passed earlier—had its windows blown out. Not by an explosion. By something *inside* trying to get out.

The thing that emerged looked like someone had given sentience and malicious intent to a venti oat milk latte. It moved like liquid. It *screamed* like steam escaping a cappuccino machine.

"RUN," Marcus said.

We ran.

Behind us, more windows shattered. More screaming. More oat-based entities joining the first, merging, growing, becoming something that defied both physics and good taste.

"THIS IS INSANE," I yelled.

"I KNOW."

"I JUST WANTED COFFEE."

"I KNOW."

We turned a corner. My apartment building was ahead. We sprinted for the entrance.

The sky was definitely beige now. Solid beige. The color of milk that wasn't milk, that had never been milk, that reality itself was rejecting with increasing violence.

We burst through the lobby doors. The doorman was gone. Everyone was gone.

"Fourth floor," I gasped.

We took the stairs.

My apartment was exactly as I'd left it that morning: messy, lived-in, decorated with plants I kept forgetting to water. Taxes, my enormous orange cat, was sitting in the window, watching the end of the world with the mild interest cats reserve for everything except their food bowls.

I locked the door. All three locks.

Marcus was at the window.

"Riley," he said quietly.

I joined him.

The city was dissolving.

Not burning. Not exploding. *Dissolving*.

Buildings were breaking down into beige liquid. Cars were melting. The oat milk entities had merged into something massive, something that defied description, something that looked like every pretentious coffee order ever made had achieved consciousness and decided humanity had to go.

The sky was crying oat milk.

"It's really ending," I said.

"Yeah."

"Because of oat milk."

"Yeah."

We stood there, watching.

"I'm glad I met you," Marcus said. "You know. Before this."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. This stranger I'd known for less than two hours. This person who'd spilled my coffee and then walked with me into the apocalypse making jokes about dairy-free death.

"Me too," I said.

The building shuddered. Something was dissolving the foundation. We had minutes, maybe less.

"Couch?" I suggested.

"Couch," he agreed.

We sat together on my thrift-store couch, the one with the stain I'd never been able to explain and cushions that had seen better days. Taxes jumped up and settled between us, purring. Outside, reality was ending, one oat molecule at a time.

Marcus took my hand.

"This is a terrible first date," he said.

"Worst I've ever been on."

"Same time next week?"

I laughed. It was either that or cry.

"I was really hoping you'd ask me out again."

"Well, I am a gentleman."

The windows started to dissolve. The beige tide was coming. The world was breaking down into its component parts, reality rejecting the fundamental wrongness of turning oats into milk, of pretending grains could be liquid, of humanity's hubris in thinking we could improve on nature without consequences.

But Marcus was warm beside me. And his hand was in mine. And Taxes was purring. And for just a moment—one last, perfect, ridiculous moment—it felt like maybe this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The beige liquid reached my door. Started seeping under it. Began climbing the walls like living foam.

Taxes stopped purring.

The cat stood up on the couch, perfectly still, staring at the approaching tide with an intensity I'd never seen before. His orange fur was standing on end. His eyes had gone completely black.

"Uh," I said.

"Is your cat okay?" Marcus asked.

Taxes opened his mouth and made a sound that wasn't quite a meow. It was deeper. Resonant. The kind of sound that made reality itself pause and reconsider.

The beige liquid stopped moving.

"What the—" Marcus started.

Taxes grew.

Not metaphorically. Not in my imagination. He *grew*.

One second he was a fifteen-pound orange tabby. The next he was the size of a golden retriever. Then a horse. Then bigger.

His head brushed the ceiling. His body filled the room. His fur glowed faintly golden in the apocalyptic light.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING," I whispered.

Taxes—my ridiculous, food-obsessed, gravity-defying cat—had become *massive*. He stepped over us protectively, one enormous paw on either side of the couch. His tail swept across the room, knocking over plants and picture frames. His purr was now a physical vibration that made the floor shake.

The beige liquid tried to enter. Taxes hissed.

The sound was like thunder. Like every storm that had ever existed. Like the opposite of oat milk—pure, primal, undeniable *cat*.

The liquid retreated.

"Your cat," Marcus said carefully, "is very large."

"I noticed."

Outside the window, the oat-based entities were still consuming the city. Buildings were still dissolving. The sky was still crying beige tears. But Taxes stood between us and oblivion, a furry orange god of considerable size and attitude.

He looked down at us—his humans, his charges, his entire world—and purred.

The building shuddered but held. The walls stopped dissolving. A perfect circle of normal reality existed around us, protected by nothing but one very determined cat who'd apparently been waiting his entire life for this exact moment.

"Hey Riley?" Marcus said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad I spilled your coffee."

"Me too."

The world ended.

Everyone else dissolved into beige nothingness.

But we survived—protected by an orange tabby who'd secretly been a cosmic guardian the entire time, just waiting for the right apocalypse to prove it.

Taxes settled back down between us, now a normal size again, purring like nothing had happened.

Outside the window, reality slowly began rebuilding itself. Apparently the universe had decided that if a cat could reject the oat milk apocalypse, maybe the oat milk apocalypse wasn't supposed to win.

"So," I said, looking at the slowly clearing sky, then at Marcus, then at Taxes. "Second date?"

Marcus laughed. "Absolutely. But maybe somewhere without dairy alternatives."

"Deal."

Taxes purred louder.

He'd saved us. The dumbest, most wonderful, secretly cosmic cat in the entire world had looked at the end of everything and said *absolutely not*.

And somehow, that made all the difference.

THE END