I woke up lying on a shitty bed.

  “Subject M-436, please report to the lab for testing,” a machine-generated voice crackled over the intercom in my room. The collar on my neck started to beep.

  I let out a scream in frustration.

  WHY? WHY IS IT MAKING ME DO IT AGAIN?

  I ran out of my room, tears in my eyes.

  At this point, it was just going through the motions, and I found myself standing in front of the exit in short order. I didn't bother taking control of Vivi, and I wasn't listening to anything they said.

  The only communication that passed between us was me pointing to Aurin to make sure she received a suit.

  Vivi tried to talk me out of it again. It annoyed me so fucking much that she kept doing that. How she kept minimizing Aurin as if she would be better off dead than with me. Was that how they saw this?

  That killing her would be better than being forced to be at my side?

  Maybe they were right.

  “Whatever cruel god is doing this to me, please stop. I'm begging you. I'll do anything you ask, just make it stop,” I whispered at the exit. Then stepped into the dream.

  …

  I woke up lying on a shitty bed.

  “Subject M-436, please report to the lab for testing,” a machine-generated voice crackled over the intercom in my room. The collar on my neck started to beep.

  Pulling myself out of bed, I dragged myself to the lab. Along the way, I could only wonder if everyone else was wondering if I was stuck in some kind of coma. I’d been in here for hours after all.

  Reaching the lab, I sat down at the table and sank my head onto it. My thoughts wouldn't stop, but I was beyond caring about making them. I felt like my entire life was some sort of carefully crafted lie I was telling myself.

  Maybe I'd just be stuck in this loop forever.

  Just going through the motions, the environment never changing, every time I leave, I find myself back in Atlas. Where I belonged the whole time as punishment for my existence.

  I wasn't hungry. Every time I woke up, I felt fully refreshed, and I couldn't remember needing a drink or having to use the bathroom. This was in my mind, after all, why would I have any physical needs?

  The door burst open, revealing Vivi.

  “Ready to go?” she asked.

  I didn't respond, just getting up and walking out of the room without meeting her eyes.

  “Blue jay,” I said the moment I appeared with Aurin, heading towards the elevator again. Instead of hurrying, I found myself just shuffling forward at barely a walking pace, eyes locked on the floor.

  Maybe it would be better for me to die than to continue experiencing this?

  I turned around to look at the spatial anomaly consuming the hallway behind us. Then started walking towards it.

  I wondered what dying was like. Maybe my next life after this one wouldn't be so miserable. I'd get to play with magic, probably, which sounded cool.

  I also wouldn't have to remember this wretched life. Which was a huge plus in my books.

  Aurin grabbed me from behind, pulling me away from sweet relief.

  “Please, just let me go,” I pleaded, my voice came out quiet. She didn't listen. Instead, she pulled me along with her, pulling the map from my pocket that I had forgotten was there she eventually dragged me to the elevator.

  Instead of going inside, she pulled me to the ground beside her.

  “Ren. You mentioned blue jay, what's happening? What are you going through right now?” she asked.

  Her voice was kind, and she put on a tone I hadn't heard her use before.

  “I don't want to keep going through this. I can't get out. There isn't any solution but following a pre-determined route, but every time I do it resets. I can't keep going through this, I don't want to anymore,” I choked out, as I began to sob. Aurin wiped the tears out of my eyes and pulled me close to her, running her hand across my back.

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  Then she turned my head towards her and forcefully kissed me.

  I didn't resist. I couldn't work up the effort to even try. Eventually, she broke off and looked into my eyes.

  “I'm here for you. On my watch, you aren't allowed to give up. I won't allow that to happen.”

  “What if I have to leave you behind?” I asked.

  “Then you'll figure it out. I'll always be there with you if you want me to be. You just have to bring me with you,” she said, tapping the side of her head.

  “We don’t know if that will even work. You know I'm not going to test it on you. Not when doing so would risk losing you completely,” I replied.

  I had been trying to avoid thinking about the emergency release system I had installed inside her. Just looking at the switch on the inside of her lockbox made my skin crawl. There was no discernible difference between activating it and killing her.

  In fact, that was its main function. She wanted a way for me to quickly and painlessly kill her in the event her mind was compromised beyond repair. I had acquiesced with the stipulation that I add a system to eject her mind from her body on its activation. That way, I could potentially fix the issue myself before putting her back in the same body.

  In the same body was the key here. Mind transplants just didn't work unless it was from one body back to itself. The body without a mind required life support to keep it alive. Return was only possible if her mind remained in one piece while it was being ripped from her body, which they rarely did in trials I’d done.

  She leaned in close to my ear.

  “You said it yourself, blue jay. I'm not real. Try it out on me. I'm sure you can figure it out on the real me… I have to ask. Did she already?” she asked, her breath tickling the side of my face.

  I just nodded in response.

  “Then go ahead, she's already found happiness in knowing you're hers. But me, I haven't been given a proper taste yet,” Aurin said, her mouth finding mine once again.

  While she got that out of her system, I carefully unlocked her box and found the switch.

  Pulling myself away, I said my last words to this version of her, “Love you.”

  “Tell the real me that, dummy,” she said, then I flicked it and pulled the lockbox from the slot it was sitting in. The base of it tore off, and the sides shredded into pieces. I had to frantically wrap the gem that was her inner mind with a cloth to protect it as I pulled it into myself.

  The gem appeared on the stage, and I caught it before it could fall. It was quiet. I couldn't feel any life coming from it.

  Pushing Aurin's corpse off myself, I wiped tears out of my eyes and boarded the elevator.

  This time, I wasn't as kind to the Atlas employees. They were screaming and writhing on the ground by the time I was done with them, and I was completely coated in blood as I walked through the door down the stairwell. It was a nice bit of stress relief not having to worry about anyone else’s opinion.

  The moment I appeared I looked up and saw Vivi on the ceiling.

  “Why are you up there if you weren't watching Aurin and me?” I asked.

  “It's just the way things were and always will be,” she replied cryptically.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, nothing you'd understand. Anyway, are we resetting again?” she asked. I tried to look at her mind, but found I couldn't. It was like she was a rock.

  I was confused by the change, “Who are you?”

  “I'm you, dipshit. You finally took a single fucking step in the right direction of not being a little bitch. Congratulations!” I said with a slow mocking clap. My eyes were hollow and burned with a golden light as I stared back at myself from Vivi's body. “Anyway, ready to go back to the start?”

  We were standing at the exit to the facility. I was wearing the protective suit again.

  “What's the solution here? If I'm going to the start, then obviously there's something I need to change about what I'm doing,” I asked myself.

  “You already know what it is,” the other me said, tapping where Vivi's pocket would be if she weren't wearing armour.

  My heart sank.

  “Do I have to? There's really no other way?” I demanded.

  I shrugged back at myself, “You're the one who wants to. The only thing holding us back is that misplaced sense of responsibility. Why do you keep holding onto it when it hurts us so fucking much?”

  Then she was suddenly beside me and shoved me out the exit and into the dream.

  …

  I woke up lying on a shitty bed.

  “Subject M-436, please report to the lab for testing,” a machine-generated voice crackled over the intercom in my room. The collar on my neck started to beep.

  Sitting up, I put my hand into my pocket and found the card.

  “Is it time now?” I asked the slip of material that should not exist.

  There was a hum filled with deep satisfaction that echoed across reality itself.

  “Six, twenty-three, fifty-six thousand three hundred and fifty-seven, one-hundred-trillion nine-billion six-hundred-and-twenty-three-million.” The moment I read the last number, the card exploded into flecks of gold light and flew towards me. Every speck that hit my skin vanished underneath it, followed by a wave of pleasure.

  ACTIVATION CODE ACCEPTED

  STARTING SYSTEM INITIALIZATION

  PLEASE WAIT FOR CONTRACT…

  I felt myself falling backward all of a sudden into the bed. The textures of the room stretched impossibly and smeared across my vision as I fell.

  I almost stumbled as I found myself standing exactly where I had been before the nightmare had begun. As if only an instant had passed.

  Every other one of my new team members and Aurin collapsed around me while I regained my bearings. I noted the gem I took from the fake Aurin was gone from the stage.

  A screen was floating in mid-air in front of me. It glowed in that same gold colour I was finding myself panicking less over these past few days, as I was exposed to it more often than I had been these past five years. I took a look at what it had to say.

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