**They did something to me.**
My memories are wrong. I walked through the wasteland, glaring at the shattered moon. Gravity didn't work right—chunks of rubble floated in the sky while I stayed stuck to the ground. The moon hung in broad daylight, glowing like a second sun, lighting up the wreckage of this ruined world. Two giant robots stood frozen in battle in the middle of the wrecked dystopian city .
No—not just frozen. *Time itself had stopped.* That's why the rubble hung in the air.
This wasn't real. This was a game. A game where even the concept of death didn't exist. And they'd trapped me here. I was doomed to suffer for eternity
Worse, they'd messed with my head. I could tell some of my memories were fake. How? Because things didn't add up. I have to find Elly, wait... Does Elly even exist? No, I can't think about stuff like that. I have to organise my thoughts. The contradictions started that morning, when things were still normal. Or as normal as they ever got with Elly.
---
The living room hummed with quiet before the screen flickered on. That melodramatic narration oozed from the speakers again:
*"In one word? Hell."*
I smirked. After three years of daily matches, I could probably lip-sync the whole thing.
"Ugh, do they *have* to do this every time?" Elly murdered a potato chip between her teeth. Sunlight caught in her tangled blonde ponytail as she turned to scowl at me. Always vibrating with restless energy, that one.
"I like it," I said, my thumbs finding their familiar positions on the controller. "Hides the fact we're watching stick figures dismember each other."
She fake-shuddered. "It's *kinda* creepy."
"Let's just play." She torpedoed onto the couch, launching a mushroom cloud of crumbs. I made a mental note to vacuum later.
"Weapon choice?" I asked, though I already knew.
"Plasma pistol!" Elly cracked her knuckles. Same as always. All aggression, no tactics.
I scrolled past the obvious choices. "...Play card."
Her laugh could've shattered glass. "*Ha!* Worst weapon in the game!"
I shrugged. "Good thing my *opponent*'s terrible."
Her grip on the controller turned homicidal. "This time, I'm *finally* gonna beat you."
"No tantrums this time?" I prodded.
She flashed a shark's grin. "Won't need 'em when you're crying."
I let her pick the Frozen Wasteland. Couldn't resist watching her shoulders tense when ever she saw the titan frozen in ice glaring at her Avatar with its cold red eyes.
"Thought the Titan freaked you out," I said.
Elly's spine went rigid. "N-no! It's whatever!"
I leaned closer, dropping my voice. "They hide them in *every* arena. Beat me, and one wakes up."
Her controller slipped. "*WHAT?!* That's—you're lying!"
I shrugged. "how would the person who's never beaten me know? ."
**FIGHT!**
Elly charged like a rabid wolverine, plasma fire painting the screen neon. For half a second, I actually hesitated—she'd never opened this aggressively before.
"Bet you didn't see *that* coming!" she crowed.
I hadn't. But by the third dodge, her pattern crystallized. Predictable.
It was time to erase her hope.
**FATALITY.**
---
She was headbutting the wall when I came back from tossing the snack bags. "*Flawless victory?!* How?!"
"You're improving," I lied. Truth was, she *was'nt* getting better—but admitting it would just make her train until her hands cramped.
Elly melted into a groaning puddle on the floor. "*Not school, not games...*"
"you're better at to talking to people though" I added in an attempt to cheer her up
"you would probably be better at that too if you cared" She curled tighter, a human black hole of misery.
That's when my fingers brushed the VIP passes in my pocket. And that's where the memories glitch—because there's *no way* I got these legally. Not when E.N.D. Live tickets traded for more than human organs on the black market. Not when corporations killed for seats to the one place where death couldn't reach you.
"Elly. Look."
Her head snapped up. The way her face lit up at those holographic tickets could've blinded someone. "*ARE THOSE—?!*"
"E.N.D. Live." I braced for impact.
"*HOW?!*"
Who knows how I replied to that question, to be honest I'm genuinely curious too
She was already snapping selfies. I should've warned her—those passes went for five hundred credits on the black market. But her grin made me bite my tongue.
"When's the event?" she demanded.
My watch beeped.
"...Twenty-eight minutes."
The shriek that followed probably cracked windows.
**Elly didn't let me explain.**
she was in such a rush. if I'd tried, I'm pretty sure she would've strangled me with her own hair. Instead, I fumbled with the bandages on my arm—crude wraps hiding the real damage underneath. The outside wounds were easy. It was the *other* injuries that refused to heal.
Elly shoved toast into her mouth, crumbs spraying as she eyed my makeshift dressing. "You hurt yourself *again*," she said, voice sharp with something between concern and annoyance.
I played dumb. "No idea what you're talking about."
She didn't buy it. Her gaze flicked to the flower-decorated frame on the wall—our parents. My father, blonde and hollow-eyed like me. My mother, dark-haired, her smile too young for the dates on the grave. Wait did her face just glitch...
"Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad," Elly murmured, softer than I'd ever heard her. "We'll be back."
I couldn't resist. "Yeah. Unless we get hit by a car like you guys."
The guilt hit immediately.
Then—**the glitch.**
*Wait.* How *did* they die? I couldn't remember. And wasn't Mom the blonde one? I could swear her hair looked white for a moment
Elly's stare could've flash-frozen hell. "I'm killing you first."
I blinked. "What? *Why?*"
She didn't answer. We stepped outside into a New York that felt like a fever dream. Crowds pulsed in E.N.D. merch, cameras and drones buzzing like flies over roadkill. The air smelled like sweat and synthetic adrenaline.
Elly bounced on her toes. "This is gonna be *insane*! Where's the venue? Subway?"
I pointed past the throngs to the monolithic building ahead, its spires clawing at the helicopters above. "Nah. It's right there."
Elly's joy evaporated. "*It was five minutes away* this whole time?"
I shrugged. "Mhmmm." *"I would've explained earlier if she hadn't been so busy threatening murder."*
**Mistake.**
Her smile turned feral. "Change of plans. You're the *first and second* person I'm killing."
My stomach dropped. "*Whyyyyy?*"
---
As we walked into the crowd, I felt the eyes on me again—mostly women, their gazes lingering just a beat too long. Normally I wouldn't care about social interactions, but I wasn't oblivious. My face, my build... they drew attention like some cruel joke I never asked for. The murmurs followed as always:
"Is he a celebrity?"
"Those cheekbones though..."
"God, that black hair is perfect."
*"Their whispers—crude, hungry—made my skin crawl."*. And to make it worse—
A bubbly influencer materialized in front of us, camera already rolling. "Excuse me! Mind if I ask about your cosplay?" Her manicured hand closed around my bandaged forearm before I could react.
Elly, ever the traitor, chirped: "He's not cosplaying!"
The girl's smile faltered as she examined the wrappings. "But... these bandages..."
"They're medical," I deadpanned. "Highly contagious flesh-eating bacteria. Want to see the necrosis?"
She recoiled like I'd brandished a weapon, disappearing into the crowd.
Elly punched my shoulder. "Was that necessary? She was cute!"
I glanced at Elly. "I was just eye candy to her."
"You don't know that," Elly insisted. "If you just let someone in—"
"And then what?" I cut her off. "Happy ending? Marriage? Kids?"
"Yes!" Elly grabbed my arm, her grip uncomfortably tight. "Why do you fight this so hard?"
The world seemed to narrow. Without thinking, I whispered: "Because I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to kill them."
I wondered if she heard me, but I felt her pull on my sleeve weaken.
My fingers dug into the bandages, the sharp pain grounding me. But then—through the bandages I could see something...
No. Wait.
Elly was kneeling on the pavement, cursing at her skinned knee. We were... going home for bandages? But the E.N.D. Live venue still loomed behind us, its neon signs flickering unnaturally.
Fuck! It was another glitch. Another fracture in reality.
Which one actually happened? This is the first time I saw two realities at once
*"The world stuttered—then rewound."*
Reality snapped back like a rubber band. Elly still clutched my sleeve, her mouth moving—probably asking about my sudden stillness—but a tidal wave of cheers swallowed whatever she said.
We turned toward the commotion. The crowd had become a living organism, pulsating around a sleek black car. Through the tinted windows, I glimpsed a woman's silhouette.
"Some VIP," I muttered, nudging Elly toward the venue.
"Yeah. Let's go," she agreed, too quickly.
As we moved, the car window slid down. A woman with bone-white hair locked eyes with me—then smiled. Not a polite smile. A predator's smile. Her hand lifted in a wave, and suddenly hundreds of heads swiveled toward us.
*Who the hell is she?* I saw a pic of her in Elly's room once *"Elly had a shrine to her—or did I imagine that too?"*, but I can imagine what would happen if I tried to remember her name
The car glided past the line, bypassing security like it owned the place. Even among CEOs and celebrities, she moved like royalty. Elly's fingers dug into my arm as we exchanged a look—no snark, just primal unease.
The line inched forward. The noise should've been deafening, but all I heard was white noise—until:
"Lucil! Elly! My God, it's really you!"
Elly lit up like a supernova and bolted toward the voice. I followed numbly. A dark figure grabbed my shoulders, their mouth moving rapidly. I watched myself smile, laugh, even as my brain registered nothing but static.
*Who is this? Why do they know us?*
Then—fracture.
Sounds and sight didn't just casually fade away they shattered, throwing me into madness
Reality peeled away like rotting wallpaper. Fragments of impossible memories:
—The white-haired woman whispering in my ear as we entered the facility
—A cryo-pod labeled "255" with my face behind the glass
—Elly screaming words that dissolved into digital screeches
The last thing I saw before the pod's lid sealed shut was a sentence flickering across my HUD:
**[SUBJECT 255: MEMORY WIPE COMPLETE]**
*Then—a voice, warped and familiar: 'Tell me, Lucil. What forces humans to obey?'"*