In retrospect, it was naïve to assume that the Day of Judgement would be exempt from the advancements of the digital age.
On the 8th April 2026, Thomas Myers, a teenager from Cincinnati, Ohio, was the first to reach the True Kill-Screen. Myers was a prominent figure in the Tetris competitive community. He was live-streaming himself when it happened.
A few days later, the Cincinnati Police Department were reported of Thomas’ disappearance by an anonymous caller. His parents were at a Christian Healing Centre at the time, and have since expressed immense pride that their son was the first to achieve it.
Looking back at the recorded footage, we can see the exact moment when Thomas reached the True Kill-Screen. At 23:37 PM, Thomas reached the final level, level 255. At this level, the blocks become a deep red. Many have reported that they feel the eyes of God when they reach it. After the True Kill-Screen has been reached, the game resets and returns back to level 0. But, of course, only non-playing spectators can witness this occurrence. This is the true ending of Tetris. It is known as rebirth.
When Thomas reached rebirth, his disappearance was not instantaneous. This has led to much speculation because as we now know, all players who have since achieved the True Kill-Screen have vanished with negligible delay. He stood upright from his chair and his arms stuck outwards, reminiscent of a T-Block. In the grainy footage, we can observe that there were ten seconds of delay before his subsequent disappearance. Thomas did not speak nor show any visible signs of facial movement. His body remained in absolute stillness. Some have identified this T-shape as an evolved state of rigor mortis.
‘When we walked into the room, I half-expected to find a body – bloated, and a smell. Instead, all we found were a pile of clothes and the sounds of polka music,’ said Frank Berry, a police officer present at the scene. Berry misidentifies the trademarked Tetris theme with polka music, while the origins of the 8-bit melody actually come from “Korobeiniki”, a Russian folk song based on an 1861 poem:
‘I will, I will go out into the tall rye,
I will wait there till the night comes . . .’
‘Once I empty the crate, I'll return home,
And you, my Sweetheart, To God's church I will lead!’
To disappear via true rebirth, players must reach the True Kill-Screen through their own volition. Thus lies two outstanding problems which have confounded scientists and scholars for decades:
Problem (1); if both player and spectator can observe the True Kill-Screen, why do only players disappear?
And problem (2); upon reaching the True Kill-Screen, where do the bodies go after they vanish?
Quantum mechanics leads the current wave of understanding here. The observer effect means that the very presence of a spectator can alter the properties of a particle. If the conscious player has different properties than the conscious viewer, then perhaps a Quantum understanding can explain why problem (1) exists.
What is less clear, however, is problem (2).
Where do the bodies go?
Two officers were called to the Myers scene: Frank Berry and Kacy Adler. This is perhaps the most controversial part of the case. Berry and Adler have since reported different events. Years later, the divergence of their beliefs has encapsulated the division of the rest of the world.
Adler reported that when she walked into the room, the monitor screen displayed ‘nothing but bright red’. There is no indication as to why the monitor would display this. All successful achievements of rebirth are congratulated by the leaderboard screen. It is therefore unclear whether Myers was successful in achieving true rebirth as we know it, or reached something other which has not occurred since.
His disappearance would suggest that he achieved it. But as is widely known, his name still remains absent from the winning screen leaderboards. Every other Rebirther has their name displayed there. As the True Kill-Screen Deliverance Church writes: ‘in the leaderboards, the names of Gods’ chosen are listed in bold.’ But Thomas Myers is missing. The reason why remains unknown.
Kacy Adler achieved the True Kill-Screen on January 23rd 2031. Her placement on the leaderboard displays that she was the 54,120,468th person to reach rebirth. Her score was 151,413,717. It is unclear how this score is calculated. Unlike a normal playthrough of Tetris, players who achieve true rebirth are awarded a score un-related to the blocks placed in-game. There has been an attempt by religious sects to explain this. On their website, the True Kill-Screen Deliverance Church writes: ‘your leaderboard score, or karma, is calculated by Him and is assigned to your eternal soul. This determines which level in heaven you will be placed at.’ Adler has an exceptionally high score. Some have suggested that this is because of her activities with the True Kill-Screen Deliverance Church, who employ a paywall to be assigned a skilled “Rebirth Deliverance” trainer.
In contrast, Frank Berry remains the more controversial of the two police officers. While at first, he also described the red monitor screen (the same as Adler), in the years since he has retroactively altered his report.
‘On the screen was St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. But the picture was red. Blood red. There were blocks near the base of the Cathedral. They looked like bodies,’ is what Berry recounted in 2028 on his popular Internet podcast.
Tetris was born in Moscow. The victory screen alludes to its Russian origins – it always flashes with St. Basil’s Cathedral before the leaderboards are shown. However, it makes little sense why the game, a week after Myer’s reached the True Kill-Screen, would continue to display the Cathedral. Albeit covered in red.
‘I was threatened by three men dressed in all-black. They spoke in Russian accents,’ said Berry, in response to why he didn’t explain everything in his initial report. Many critics have attacked Berry. However, regardless of whether Berry is honest or not, the subsequent conspiracy theories that resulted have influenced the conflicted US foreign policy of today.
Tetris was under the ownership of the Soviet government until the rights were acquired in the late 1980s. Accusations of Russia’s involvement followed not long after the Myers case was made public.
‘It’s clearly a foreign weapon. My bet is on Russia. They’ve been threatening cyberwarfare for years…’ writes user Liv.505, posted on the 14th April 2026 – a day after the Myers footage went viral.
The Russian conspiracy of the True Kill-Screen increased in popularity following Berry’s reports. The Kremlin refused to comment at first. But they were forced to make a statement, following the leak of the Moscow footage in September 2029. Most unsettlingly, the footage, as some have suggested, may answer problem (2) of the True Kill-Screen conundrum.
‘There is little question. This footage is digitally altered. We strongly caution all nations from taking a public stance on this,’ said Kremlin representative, Mikhail Sorokin.
The Moscow footage was filmed on a body camera. It begins with the person climbing up an apartment complex, still under construction, on the outskirts of Moscow. The walls and windows appear barren. Bare brick is exposed. Piles of cardboard and thick tangled wires litter the scene, as they run up a rudimentary staircase. They climb out of a windowless opening and shimmy across narrow suspended scaffolding. Grey skies swirl and mix with the Moscow landscape, as distorted at the borders of the fisheye camera lens. The footage appears, while not sharp, convincingly realistic. Some critics concede that this part of the video is real, while maintain that later parts are digitally modified via visual effects.
From the scaffolding, the person jumps a metre down onto a rusty crane. It shakes as they land. While the identity of the person remains unknown, the pitch of their heavy breathing, at its loudest when they see the fall beneath them, indicate that it is most likely an adult female. Experts also suggest that due to the fluidity and confidence of their movements, the person is probably a professional free runner or acrobat. However, others have suggested that when viewed frame-by-frame, moments such as when the screen is filled with the colour of the crane, contain hidden cuts which have been spliced together via post-editing.
The person crawls along the arm of the crane. The crane appears to be lifted over an enormous structure. It consists of four tall grey walls. Outside are metal gates and barbed wire. There are two smaller towers here. At both, stand guards equipped with automatic assault rifles.
The structure is contained but, as the person gets closer, we can see that it has no ceiling. Its walls appear flat and without texture. We can estimate from trees and neighbouring buildings that the floor area of the structure is approximately 2,000,000 sq ft (185,806m2). The walls are 600ft (182m) tall. It is unclear what material it is made out of. But as can be observed in the footage, it does not reflect the surrounding light.
There appears to be something which fills the interior floor of the structure. However, the footage is too pixelated to see at first. That is until the camera zooms in. At this point, the sounds of heavy breathing become louder once again.
The structure is filled with beige and brown shapes. It is when we pause, that we can see what these shapes really are.
There seems to be an estimated 3,000,000 human bodies piled up on just the surface alone. The bodies fill about a quarter of the structure. As calculated from our height estimates, it would appear that overall, there could be approximately 24,000,000 bodies contained within its walls. When the video was leaked, 24,880,917 people had vanished after achieving the True Kill-Screen. The footage has gained increased credence in some political circles, but maintaining its validity remains taboo.
It is definitively unclear whether the Moscow footage is altered or not. However, in the age of digital editing, all video footage must be approached with extreme caution. The official ruling from the United States is that this footage has long been debunked. This is not surprising, given their isolationist stance and economic independence.
A new economic model has arisen since the dawn of the True Kill-Screen. It is called Rebirthism – it defines an economy which is wholly geared towards its population achieving true rebirth. The system is thus focused on a means to an end. If successful, the system jeopardizes itself.
The United States leads the way. Though in spite of a decreased population equalising the wealth gap somewhat, the capitalist model of before is still a requirement. If you are financially secure, it is much easier to achieve the True-Kill Screen. The average person takes five years to develop the skills to finish level 255. But with more time spent per day, this can decrease to as little as three years.
In China, the great wall now relates to the electromagnetic field which disrupts data from being sent or received across its borders. Whistleblowers recently described nationwide chaos after its leader achieved the True Kill-Screen, leading to a power vacuum within its government.
Europe has since splintered apart. Some of its countries have embraced Rebirthism, while others have expressed fear that the origins of the True Kill-Screen are not yet known.
Russia has embraced autarky. Though self-sufficient, increased military spending has taken a toll on its standard of living. The Red Square is now filled with illegal traders. Organ markets buy and sell body products for wheat and grain.
For the most part, the response of authoritarian regimes worldwide has varied. Some have adopted camps which force populations to achieve the True Kill-Screen as punishment. Others hold eternal rapture as a perk of being rich or in-charge.
It is unclear what the coming years will bring. Gone are the interactions of globalisation. The world has regressed to its former roots of limited international trade. As I write this, it would seem that there is a shift coming. Something is on its way. But as of yet, nobody knows what that could be.
And so we question – is there freedom in the afterlife for those who achieve the True Kill-Screen?
It is impossible to know. What we do know, however, is that the presence of the True Kill-Screen has changed things.
There are three possibilities of what the True Kill-Screen could be:
(1) It is the digital Day of Judgement – if you do not reach it before death, you are on the path to eternal suffering and damnation.
(2) It is an enemy weapon designed to cause total chaos by infiltrating our philosophies and religion.
(3) It is something other, which we cannot yet comprehend.
The very nature of life and death has been cognitively altered. Whether you believe that it is the Day of Judgement or not, it is only legitimate for the individual to decide for themselves.
Personally, I have decided to achieve the True Kill-Screen. This paper will be the last thing I output in this waking world. I have almost reached level 255. The colours of my game have become glitched. I have seen all the shades except the final one – deep red.
Having decided this, I feel a sense of calmness. This is a way to possess freewill over my own life. I am uncertain what awaits me. I do not know what I will experience after I achieve the True Kill-Screen.
But it is a risk I am willing to take.