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  "path": "/articles/what-the-thousand-year-blood-reign-means-for-gas-prices",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-09T17:36:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.mcsweeneys.net",
  "tags": [
    "The Independent",
    "New York Times"
  ],
  "textContent": "_“ Death toll in Middle East surpasses 1,100 as missile strikes continue.”\n—_ The Independent\n\n_Gas prices continue to surge in the US, rising 14 percent in a week. \"_\n— New York Times\n\n- - -\n\nQuestions are flying, ever since the start of Sepharax the Cruel’s Thousand-Year Blood Reign. Whether it’s the Pit of Souls or the Child Reapers, there’s a lot to be worried about. But most of all? The price at the pump.\n\nIt’s confusing, but our explainer has you covered.\n\n#### The Undead\n\nUnfortunately, the appearance of armies of the dead, awakened to wage indiscriminate war on all humankind, could potentially push gasoline beyond $3.50 per gallon.\n\n#### The Scorpion Venom Rain\n\nThe acidic poison constantly falling from the skies isn’t just dissolving our pets. It’s also eroding our transportation infrastructure. That’s bad news for gasoline distribution, bad news for shareholders, and bad news for your pocketbook.\n\nWith Sepharax and His Abyssal Viziers pledging the Blood Reign will last “until we have unmade the souls of countless generations yet unborn,” expect this upward price pressure to stick around well into the holiday travel season.\n\n#### The Mandatory Conscription\ninto the Depraved One’s Human Wave Attacks\n\nIt’s an issue you hear more and more these days.\n\nThe sons pressed into service, sent to distant lands, their bodies shattered on the altar of Sepharax’s apocalyptic whims purely for His Hatefulship’s entertainment, and the resulting 8 percent price spike in regular unleaded.\n\nRestaurants may feel the squeeze as consumers tighten their belts.\n\n#### You and Everyone You Have Ever Loved\nBeing Cast into the Cave of Nightmares\n\nIt’s hard to hear, but this alone could add as much as $0.25 per gallon.\n\n#### Diesel\n\nSlightly less affected than gasoline by the Great Cannibalizing. Could this portend a return of the beloved 2015 VW Golf Diesel SportWagen?\n\n#### The Cities, the Whole Civilizations,\nSwallowed Whole into the Shrieking Maw\n\nThis could push prices north of $4.00 per gallon and may even have other implications, as well.\n\nHowever, there is a silver lining. The impact is buffered by reduced gasoline demand from millions of commuting workers, given that most of their workplaces have been Hellmouthed.\n\n#### The Unceasing Wailing of Untold Lives Upended, Families Torn Apart, Children Ripped from Their Mothers, Never to Laugh or Fall in Love or Grow Old, the Agonizing Echo of Which Will Stain the Souls of All Who Hear It for Eternity\n\nThis has no impact on gas prices whatsoever, actually. So, good news.",
  "title": "What the Thousand-Year Blood Reign Means for Gas Prices"
}