The sun hung low over the Arena, baking the stone beneath Arven's boots. Third fight of the day. The first two had ended quickly, no drama, no blood worth remembering. Just warm-up noise for what was coming now.
The crowd wasn't roaring yet. They were waiting.
Waiting for him to break.
Arven stepped into the sand with slow, even strides, gauntlets locked tight to his wrists, their heavy clawed fingers flexing with each motion. The heat didn't touch him. The tension didn't either. He had made peace with the idea of dying three times already.
His eyes scanned the stands briefly. Hundreds of faces. None cheering for him.
The announcer's voice boomed over the Arena.
"MATCH THREE! PLACE YOUR FINAL BETS!"
The big board flashed above them in shimmering golden glyphs.
Arven Kayn – 1%
Borzak – 99%
The crowd chuckled. Some jeered.
Arven didn't flinch.
It was what he expected. Every fighter he'd spoken to, every gambler, every whisper in the hall, said the same thing: Borzak doesn't fight. He erases.
He'd won a tournament before. No one remembered how.
The Arena trembled slightly as his opponent appeared.
A tall, lean man in his thirties, clad in pitch black. He wore no armor, just long robes. A single polished staff rested in his grip, carved from blackwood, the end capped with a dull iron spike. His eyes were unreadable.
Borzak stepped onto the sand like he'd done it a thousand times before.
No fanfare. No show of power.
He walked like the match was already finished. As if he weren't part of the game, only the ending written in advance.
His long black robes whispered against the ground with every step, untouched by dust or wind. The polished blackwood staff in his hand made no sound as it struck the stone, not even the dull thud of wood. The iron tip gleamed once, then dulled as though it had blinked.
Arven stared.
No armor. No muscle.
Not even a stance.
Just stillness.
And yet the air shifted the moment Borzak stopped moving. Not like a wind or heat wave, but like a hole in reality itself had opened somewhere nearby. Something quiet and cold slid in around the edges of Arven's awareness, curling along the back of his skull, whispering without sound.
The crowd didn't cheer.
They watched.
The announcer's voice cracked the tension.
"BETS CLOSED. BEGIN."
Arven didn't wait.
He moved, fast.
Claws extended, boots tearing through the sand, vampiric strength exploding through his limbs. Each step hit like a hammer, raw speed launching him forward.
Murder surged through his blood.
Borzak didn't blink.
Arven raised his arm for the first strike.
And then-
A hiss.
A mist.
No, not mist.
Smoke.
Oil-smoke.
Black and thick and wet, it erupted around him in a sharp burst, and the sound of the Arena vanished in an instant.
No crowd.
No footsteps.
No air.
The world blinked out like someone had flipped a switch.
The color drained. The heat disappeared. The pressure collapsed in.
Arven staggered, no sand beneath him now.
His boots were on hard flooring.
He looked down.
Old sneakers. Torn at the soles.
A faded hoodie. Jeans.
A hole in the sleeve.
"…what the hell…"
And then he saw the room.
His room.
A cramped, one-bedroom apartment.
Yellow light spilling through crooked blinds.
The same stain on the carpet.
The cheap fan rattling overhead.
No sound of the Arena.
No magic.
No blood.
Only the life he thought he'd left behind.
And the voice that shattered him all over again.
And there she was.
Standing in front of him.
Red in the face. Voice rising. Every word like a slap.
His ex.
"Do you even care, Arven?! Do you even listen?!"
His throat clamped shut. He couldn't answer. Couldn't even move.
"I told you I was done! You don't get to crawl back now!"
"I…" His voice cracked. "I didn't mean, please…"
He took a step toward her.
He knew this fight.
Knew every line. Every mistake.
This was the last day they were together. His first love. High school sweethearts. Five years. Gone in ten minutes.
"I'll do better," he choked out. "I swear. Just… don't leave yet. I was stupid. I…"
His knees trembled.
The TV in the corner crackled, flickering with static. The old CRT glow buzzed like a fly inside his skull.
His hands shook as he reached toward her.
"I can fix this," he whispered, barely audible.
Her expression twisted. Her eyes darkened.
"Fix it?" she spat. "You don't fix anything. You lie. You mope. You rot the whole fucking day!"
The words didn't just hurt.
They hollowed him.
He stepped forward again, but slower this time, like each inch was made of glass. His hand raised. She flinched.
"You don't even see me, Arven," she said, stepping back. "You just want someone to save you from yourself."
"I… No. That's not… I…"
His legs buckled.
He dropped into the couch like it had gravity all its own. The stained cushions wrapped around him like a trap. His breath turned shallow. Uneven.
Then,
Something glitched.
A flicker at the edge of vision.
System Warning:
Host Vitals Low. Cognitive Drift Detected.
He blinked hard.
The overlay vanished.
She was still yelling.
"You want to change now? Now?! It's too late. I'm already gone."
She turned toward the door.
And his heart stumbled in his chest.
"She moved on," something whispered at the back of his mind.
"You didn't."
His hands clenched the couch. Fingers digging into the old fabric like he could hold himself together by force.
"She found someone days later," the voice murmured. "Didn't even look back."
Arven stared at her.
But something was wrong.
The colors were too bright now. Her skin too smooth. Her hair too glossy. Her eyes, vacant.
Like a mannequin in motion.
Like a puppet someone was still perfecting.
Still, his throat burned.
"I cared," he whispered. "I always did."
The figure turned back toward him.
Then smiled.
And the smile was wrong.
Too wide. Too symmetrical. Too... clean.
Like someone had drawn it on a mask.
"But she didn't," the voice said.
Arven stood again.
Barely.
His knees shook, but some stubborn flicker inside him refused to collapse.
He started pacing. Slow, uneven steps over carpet that no longer felt real. His mouth moved, whispering to no one, to himself, to the echo that clung to the room.
"I loved her," he muttered. "I gave everything."
His voice cracked. The words came out choked, ragged.
His fingers clawed through his hair, pulling at his scalp as though pain might push the thoughts away.
"She… she laughed behind my back."
He could see her now, not the illusion in front of him, but the memory. A half-glimpsed text on her phone. The way she turned her body slightly when she smiled at someone else. The night she came home late and smelled like smoke and aftershave that wasn't his.
"She left. She lied."
He gripped the edge of the wall, breathing fast.
"I was there. I stayed. I bled for her. And she… she just walked."
He clenched his fists, shaking.
"I paid the price," he whispered. "She moved on. I didn't. I'm the one still haunted."
The couch behind him fizzled, reduced now to twitching lines of static.
"I was the one who rotted in that place. Who couldn't even breathe some nights without thinking about her."
His eyes stung. He wiped at them with the heel of his hand, but the burning only deepened.
His voice dropped to a rough whisper. "I begged her. I would've crawled on broken glass if she'd just stayed. Just one more chance. Just one more day."
He stopped pacing.
The room twisted, colors bleeding at the edges, the lights warping into a sick, hospital pallor.
He looked up.
And something in his face changed.
His lip curled. His eyes narrowed, not in grief, but something closer to spite.
"She didn't deserve me."
The System blared again.
HOST VITALS: CRITICAL
PSYCHIC INTERFERENCE: 91%
SYSTEM INTERVENTION: FAILING
A flicker rippled through the false room.
And a mirror appeared.
Tall, seamless. Smooth as water.
Arven's reflection stared back.
Bloodshot eyes. Jaw clenched. Face pale. Lips twitching in silent denial.
But it wasn't just his expression that twisted his gut.
It was his hands.
Wrapped tight around his own throat.
In the mirror, and in the real world.
He was choking himself.
Hard.
Fingers locked like a vice. Veins bulged along his forearms. His neck darkened. His eyes widened. The pressure in his skull built like a scream with nowhere to go.
He dropped to his knees in the vision. His legs failed first, then his spine, collapsing into a kneeling heap of muscle and madness.
The room flickered again.
Then broke.
The walls peeled back like burnt paper. The couch melted into static. The fan overhead froze in mid-spin and shattered, piece by piece.
Behind the mirror, screens unfolded.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Each one flickered to life in staccato pulses.
Each one showing a moment.
A failure.
Missed deadlines.
An alarm silenced and a shift missed.
A promotion passed over.
A job interview blown in the first thirty seconds, his voice shaking, forgetting his own resume.
Text messages left unread.
A phone vibrating in the dark for hours, never picked up.
A voicemail played.
"Sorry… this isn't working."
Another screen.
His mother's voice.
"You just make things harder, Arven. For everyone."
Another.
A childhood drawing crumpled and thrown away. A teacher shaking her head. A friend walking off. An unopened birthday message blinking green, unsent.
Each moment stacked on the next, piling like debris. His worst echoes, all alive again.
The words began to bleed into each other.
The screens glitched.
Then they aligned.
All at once.
In red text, block letters.
Glowing.
Pulsing.
Burning.
YOU FAILED
YOU WEREN'T ENOUGH
YOU NEVER WERE
Arven screamed.
Raw. Desperate. Choked by his own grip.
He punched the mirror.
It cracked.
Fractures spiderwebbed through his reflection, distorting the self-image already caving in.
Another hit.
The glass splintered.
Blood bloomed across his knuckles, warm and real, but he didn't stop.
Didn't care.
The System glitched again, red glyphs strobing over the shattered surface.
DO YOU CONSENT TO MEMORY WIPE
[YES] / [NO]
He staggered back.
Breathing hard.
Then lunged.
Another punch.
The glass exploded, shards slicing his fingers open, biting into his skin.
Blood streaked down his arms.
"I'M NOT NOTHING!" he screamed, voice shaking the screens around him.
"I'M NOT YOUR DAMN TOOL!"
"I AM!"
Something tore.
Reality itself seemed to inhale.
Black mist exploded from the fractured mirror,hot and violent. It roared past him, swallowing the room in a thunderous cloud of shadow.
He stood in the middle of it.
Arms shaking. Chest heaving.
Bleeding. Burning.
Then he screamed again
But it wasn't just him.
It was all of him.
Every version.
Every failure. Every lost day. Every forgotten self.
A scream layered like shattered radios overlapping, static mixed with rage, grief, shame.
A chorus of Arvens, screaming as one:
"IiiII aaAMMMmm SssSStiiiLLLLLLLL HERRRRREEEEE !"
The Arena flashed back into place.
He was back.
His hands, still wrapped tight around his throat, nearly crushed.
His own body locked in a death grip.
His eyes bulging. Veins pulsing beneath pale skin. Blood leaking from his nose. His body trying to kill itself.
But the pressure was loosening.
Bit by bit.
Control clawed its way back.
Air scraped into his lungs.
He gasped.
Dropped to his knees, hands falling away, blood trailing from his fingertips.
Silence.
Then,
He looked up.
Borzak stood across the Arena, robes still untouched, staff raised, face unreadable.
Watching.
Just watching.
Like none of it had meant anything.
Arven's lip twitched.
Then curled.
His mouth opened.
And the voice that came out was no longer fully his.
Glitching, fractured mid-sentence, stuttering like broken code, each word overlapping the last. Low, almost subterranean.
"Iii… aaaaMM… nNNNnoTT… doooonnneEEEEEee…"
The distortion rippled across the sand like thunder, warping the air around him.
The crowd was dead silent.
Frozen.
Even Borzak shifted. His fingers tightened on his staff.
And Arven…
Arven stood.