I should have known something was wrong the second I opened TikTok that morning. I was in the middle of roasting some kid in the comments section when my app just... glitched. I thought it was a simple crash at first, but when the screen flashed white and I saw the words "You have been chosen," I knew this wasn't some regular-ass algorithm error.

One second, I was lying in my bed in my mom's basement, typing with Cheeto dust-covered fingers. The next, I was being yeeted through some vortex that felt like a mix between a Skibidi Toilet video and that weird SpongeBob episode where they time travel. My whole body warped like I was stuck in a bad TikTok transition, and I could hear Fortnite emotes echoing in my brain.

When I woke up, I wasn't in my bed. I wasn't even in the regular world. I was face down in the middle of a cornfield. And not just any cornfield , Ohio cornfield.

The rumors were true. Ohio wasn't supposed to exist, but here I was, smack in the middle of it. I knew it because the air smelled like disappointment, failed high school football careers, and Walmart.

I pushed myself up, spitting out dirt, corn husks sticking to my hoodie, and looked around. The corn stalks were taller than any normal ones should be , like, skyscraper-level corn. They reached so high into the sky, they blotted out the sun. Everything felt... glitchy. Like the landscape was buffering between two TikTok filters. The sky flickered between a sepia tone and that cursed dog ear filter from 2017.

"What the hell?" I muttered, pulling my phone out of my pocket. Thank God it came with me. I opened TikTok, hoping to make some sense of what was happening, but instead, I was greeted by a notification:

"You are now the Brain Rot Overlord. Congratulations! Your first followers await."

Brain Rot Overlord?

Before I could even process that, I heard it. A distant sound… the Skibidi Toilet song. You know the one , that obnoxious theme kids play on repeat for hours. It was coming from all directions.

"Skibidi toilet bop bop bop…"

I turned around and saw them, an entire horde of kids. Zombie kids. Their eyes were glowing with TikTok stars, their mouths open in a slow-mo version of the "ooh-ooh" meme face. They weren't walking normally either; they were hitting the "Renegade" like their life depended on it. And they were all coming straight at me, chanting in perfect unison: "Skibidi bop-bop-bop, Fortnite's gonna drop-drop-drop."

I backed up, panic flooding my chest. "Nah, nah, this can't be real. This isn't real!"

But it was. My glitchy TikTok had warped reality. I was stuck in a cursed version of Ohio, and these kids… they were infected with some kind of Brain Rot.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated again. Another notification:

"As the Brain Rot Overlord, you have the power to control them. Use the power wisely. Or not. It's Ohio, after all."

I didn't even have time to comprehend what that meant before one of the zombie kids lunged at me, pulling some kind of TikTok dance move that looked like it was ripped straight out of a Fortnite emote. On instinct, I raised my phone like a shield. And the moment I did, the kid stopped. Just froze mid-dab. His glowing eyes flickered like he was a bad WiFi connection.

"Wait… I can control them?"

I waved my phone at another kid, and she, too, froze in place, her limbs stiff like someone paused her in the middle of the WAP challenge. My hands were shaking, but not from fear, this was power. Glorious, glitchy, meme-fueled power.

I turned back toward the horde, raising my phone high above my head like a goddamn sword.

"Alright, you little TikTok addicts, listen up!" I shouted. "I don't know what's happening, but apparently, I'm your leader now. So, you can stop hitting the Renegade, or whatever the hell that dance is, and follow me."

Like robots, they all stopped dancing and stood still, staring at me with their glowing TikTok-star eyes. There must've been like fifty of them, all under the age of twelve, their bodies twitching slightly as if they were still trying to suppress their urge to hit the next viral dance.

I couldn't believe it. I had my own personal army of meme zombies. This was power. This was Brain Rot Overlord power. I had gone from a basement-dwelling gamer to a freakin' overlord in the span of, like, an hour. If anyone had told me Ohio was this wild, I would've joined a corn cult years ago.

But, of course, nothing stays peaceful for long in Ohio. Just as I started feeling good about my new army of brain-rotted kids, I heard a low rumble from the cornfields. Something big was coming.

And that's when I saw them.

Rednecks.

But not just any rednecks. These dudes had weird corn tattoos on their faces, like they worshiped the corn itself. They were all shirtless, riding mutant four-wheelers that looked like something from Mad Max, and wielding… pitchforks made out of corn. One of them had a megaphone and was screaming something unintelligible, but all I could make out was, "For the Corn Hub!" before he revved his engine and sped toward me.

My phone buzzed again.

"New challenge unlocked: Survive the Corn Cult."

I swallowed hard, adrenaline flooding through me. My army of TikTok zombies stood ready. This was my life now. Fighting corn-worshiping rednecks in the middle of Ohio with an army of brain-rotted kids.

"Alright, Ohio," I muttered, cracking my knuckles. "Let's do this."

So, there I was, standing in a damn cornfield, staring down what looked like the cast of Deliverance after they'd been dunked in radioactive Mountain Dew. These rednecks, covered head to toe in corn tattoos and wielding pitchforks made from actual corn cobs, revved up their mutant four-wheelers, shouting something about "The Corn Hub."

They looked mad as hell. And why wouldn't they be? I was standing there with an army of half-brain-dead TikTok zombies, while their leader, a hulking dude with a mullet that could've been sentient, pointed his corn spear straight at me.

"For the glory of the Corn Hub, the sacrifice of the outsiders shall feed the crops!" Mullet Man roared into his megaphone, revving his four-wheeler like we were about to race in some cursed NASCAR.

I raised an eyebrow, turning to my army of brain-rotted kids, all of whom were still half-heartedly doing the Renegade in sync. "Uh, you guys wanna, I don't know, stop dancing and maybe help me fight these guys?"

No response. One kid just hit the woah and kept flossing.

"Great," I muttered, pulling out my phone and fumbling through TikTok for some kind of attack that would help. There had to be a way to control these kids, right? The app glitched again, and a new notification popped up.

"New power unlocked: Meme Command. Your followers will obey. Mostly."

I grinned. Finally.

The redneck cultists were already starting to circle us, revving their engines and waving their corn weapons like they were about to shuck me into the afterlife. "Alright, kids, here's the deal," I said, holding up my phone like a general leading a Fortnite squad. "If you wanna keep dabbing and doing all that TikTok stuff, you're gonna have to fight these corn worshippers first. Deal?"

The zombie kids groaned in unison, their glowing TikTok-star eyes flickering like they were rebooting. Slowly, one by one, they stopped dancing and turned toward the corn cultists, their bodies twitching as they fell into an eerie, robotic battle stance.

It was honestly kind of terrifying. These kids, with their rotted clothes and dead eyes, suddenly looked like they were ready for war. And they were my war machine.

I raised my phone, pointing it at Mullet Man and his crew. "Go get 'em, squad."

The kids charged, and all hell broke loose.

The redneck cultists revved their four-wheelers, driving right into the mob of TikTok zombies. But these kids were quick, probably from all the Fortnite builds they'd done in their previous lives. One of them did a flawless backflip off the hood of a four-wheeler, landing in front of a cultist, and immediately started doing the Orange Justice dance in his face. The cultist, clearly confused by the sudden burst of TikTok energy, was hit square in the gut by the kid's absurd dance move, and doubled over in pain.

Another zombie kid whipped out a bottle of Mountain Dew he'd found on the ground (because, of course, Ohio had random bottles of Mountain Dew lying around) and threw it at a speeding redneck. The bottle hit him right in the face, and the dude flipped off his four-wheeler, landing in the corn like he'd been smacked by a meme version of a WWE wrestler.

Chaos reigned. My brain-rotted kids were moving like glitchy video game characters, their limbs flailing in strange directions, but somehow, they were wrecking these cultists with the power of dance moves, meme energy, and sheer ridiculousness.

Mullet Man, seeing his crew getting absolutely owned by a bunch of dancing kids, growled and revved his four-wheeler harder. He aimed his corn spear at me, his eyes wild. "For the Corn Hub!" he shouted and charged straight at me.

I panicked for a second, frantically scrolling through TikTok on my phone. There had to be something in here that could stop a raging corn-worshipping cult leader from skewering me. And then I found it. A stupid viral challenge from a couple of weeks ago, the "Skibidi Bop Freeze" challenge.

I activated it, holding up my phone just as Mullet Man's four-wheeler got within ten feet of me.

"Skibidi bop-bop-bop..."

The music blasted out from my phone, echoing across the battlefield like some cursed anthem. Immediately, all my TikTok zombies stopped what they were doing and froze in place mid-dance.

But it wasn't just the zombies.

Mullet Man's four-wheeler screeched to a halt, and his entire body froze, still holding the corn spear out like he was some kinda medieval knight ready for battle. The rest of his cultists, who had been throwing corn grenades and attacking with corn pitchforks, froze too, their faces twisted in confusion.

Everyone was frozen. Except me.

I lowered my phone, walking casually toward Mullet Man. His face was locked in a permanent snarl, his eyes blazing with corn-fueled rage. But he couldn't move. The "Skibidi Bop Freeze" had done its job.

I smirked, reaching out and gently pushing his corn spear aside. "So, you're like, really into corn, huh?"

No response. Obviously. He was frozen.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, man, but your corn god isn't real. And neither is Ohio, probably. So, you can either chill out and stop worshipping corn, or, uh, my meme army is gonna keep dancing all over you."

I was bluffing. I had no idea how long this freeze would last. But Mullet Man didn't need to know that.

With a final push, I shoved Mullet Man off his four-wheeler. He toppled to the ground, landing in the dirt like a ragdoll. At the same time, the freeze broke, and my zombies snapped back into action, cheering as they danced victoriously over the fallen rednecks.

The remaining cultists, seeing their leader defeated, threw down their corn weapons and scrambled back into the cornfield, disappearing like cockroaches scattering when the lights came on. The battle was over.

My army of TikTok zombies groaned with victory, half of them still doing weird TikTok dances as they celebrated. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, looking around at the absolute carnage. It was insane. I'd just fought off a bunch of corn cultists with zombie kids who were more into TikTok than eating brains.

"What the hell is my life now?" I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

Before I could fully process the fact that I'd just defeated an army of corn worshippers, I heard a low, rumbling voice from behind me.

"Yo, man, that was kinda wild. You ever think about how corn is, like, the most spiritual vegetable?"

I turned around slowly, and there he was. Bigfoot. Leaning against a tractor, looking like he'd been there the whole time, watching the show. His fur was matted, and he had a laid-back expression, like he was the chillest dude in Ohio, which, considering how wild this place was, might not have been that surprising.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I muttered.

Bigfoot nodded sagely, like he was dropping some kind of stoner wisdom on me. "Nah, man. Corn's the truth. But you, bro...you're vibing. I can see that. You've got, like, meme energy or some shit."

I stared at him. "What...are you?"

He shrugged. "Just Bigfoot, bro. Spitting facts."

And just like that, my life in Ohio somehow got even weirder.