My Life As A Survivor Of The ‘Club Penguin’ Apocalypse

Bailey Froese

It’s hot out here. I’m still not used to it. Melting snow drips from the trees and rooftops, mingling with the slush seeping through the holes in my boots. My flippers gleam with a permanent sheen of sweat. I didn’t know penguins could sweat. I also don’t know if we have knees, but if I do, boy, are they aching. I’ve been trudging for miles, trying to find one decent modicum of shelter free of jetpack gangs or feral puffles. I stop to catch my breath, wheezing while leaning against a rusted speedboat. A deflated life preserver hangs from a rope on the back like a prisoner at the gallows. 

The iceberg has tipped, boys. Club Penguin is no more. 

It all started with a mouse. The big cheese decided we weren’t profitable anymore. Aunt Arctic and her boys at EPF tried infiltrating his HQ in Anaheim after they learned of Operation Sunburn, but it was too late. The mouse was waiting for them. He just wanted them to watch him press the doom button. I still remember the screams as the heat waves started, the sky redder than Captain Rockhopper choking on a peanut. The floods swept the coffee shop and dance club away, killing hundreds inside. Survivors went mad from the heat boiling their brains, turning on their neighbors in raving violent fits. It seems every day a new form of carnage is birthed. We were so innocent, so oblivious in our icy Eden. So utterly at peace. 

Peace . . . peace-a . . . pizza parlor. There’s the pizza parlor! The walls are rotting through and the windows are smashed, but I can almost smell a delicious seaweed-and-squid on hot sauce. Maybe I can find something to eat that isn’t spoiled. Or at least as spoiled as I’m willing to risk. 

Despite everything, soft jazz is still playing when I waddle in. I nearly tear up at the sound of it. So many memories come flooding back . . . so many buddies I used to meet here. The laughter, the dancing, the romances started with a “heart” in one’s speech bubble. I sink into a chair, the ceiling going blurry in my heavy, watering eyes. Sleep almost hits me when I hear a screech. 

It’s another chair being dragged across the floor. I shake life back into my slack limbs and pull out my fishing rod, spear-tipped for situations like this. A turquoise penguin with a long peppered beard stares back at me. He casually raises his flippers, though I can already tell he isn’t armed. 

“Surprised you’re the only other soul making camp here,” he drawls. 

I lower my rod. He settles into the chair and leans back. “There’s some pizza dough in the kitchen. Don’t touch the shrimp, it’s gone off. I’ve left it out for any black puffles who try to set this place on fire again.” He chuckles. “They’ll regret it if they live.”

I remember the black puffle I used to own. Smokey. He was a shy fella, but sometimes I could get him to sit on my lap while I read the paper in my cozy armchair, in my cozy igloo,before it melted within minutes under the first heat wave and drowned my neighbor Theresa. 

A snowball spiked with nails flies through one of the broken windows. Screams echo outside. “Sounds like the jetpack gangs are having another one of their turf wars,” the turquoise penguin says. “They’ll probably try to claim this place too. I reckon we won’t be staying much longer. Those psychotic mother—”

“Don’t you say another word,” I tell him. “The mods will scrub you away if there’s filth in your mouth.”

He spits out a laugh. “You think the mods are still watching us? Boy, I remember when the most you had to worry about ‘round here was moderators. I don’t even think they cared if we used swear words. Why, I met a newcomer with a lot of numbers in his name and he just disappeared one day, poof. The moderators have abandoned us, and we can say as many bad words as we want. Fudging crapball heck.”

(Author’s Note: This is based on something I did during my Club Penguin years. I didn’t understand the rules of using the Moderator button and thought banning someone for an “inappropriate name” meant banning them because you didn’t like their name. I reported so many people because I thought they had too many numbers in their names or something. If you were unjustly banned from Club Penguin because I didn’t like your name, I apologize. )

A flaming snowball, which is just a ball of fire, falls through the roof. The flames begin to devour the pizza parlor’s remains. Weaponized snowballs rain down on the ground outside. 

“Well, we can either chow on some pizza flambe, or we can die on one of the jetpack gangs’ torture racks,” my companion says. “Your choice.”

I’m so tired. The smoke is making me sleepy. I think of how Smokey used to purr when I stroked his fur. “I think I’ll stay here.”

“Me too.” He sits on the checkered floor, gazing up through the hole in the roof. Through the haze of smoke and flame, a couple stars glitter. They look just like snowflakes.

“Maybe we would have been friends,” he says.

“Maybe.” I lie down beside him. “I’ll send you a buddy request.”

He snorts. The soft jazz plays on, its chords chasing the stars.