𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇 | ✓

TWENTY FOUR.

Emptiness and hollowness. No human, no matter—only air, Y/n had woken with a migraine and a burning, restive need to do something—anything—preferably quiet, restful. Flashes of the evening popped like firecrackers, while shards of conversation with Anton lacerated him. If this information could help, then yes, that would be best. But if it didn't...

Y/n stomach heaved, each abdominal convulsion resonated in his head, and the apparitional railroad spike drove deeper into the space behind his left eye. He wanted to pull his brain out through his eye sockets with a buttonhook.

Y/n wanted to be left with himself, to marinate with his unsettling, buzzing thoughts, to allow himself to calm down and for the drug to slowly and methodically ooze out of his body.

Time was the best medicine, some said, and Y/n did not know if he agreed.

Did that mean he perhaps had the potential to be stronger, had the potential to have buried his feelings better and to have plastered a brighter smile on his face, if not for the fact that the drug had poisoned his own mind against him, had turned him to his worst enemy, the worst enemy of humankind?

[ Proceeding... ]

There was nothing. Nothing at all. Pure dread rose in Y/n when he realized that perhaps he had been scammed again, and that the system was doing nothing but making a mockery out of his cruel, useless fate—

[ The Oracle is not real. It is made up, Y/n L/n. The game you are in is made solely for the purpose of [redacted]. ]

Y/n immediately paused.

What? Was this even blabbering on about? What?

No, no, it couldn't be. The migraine still held him in its gloomy embrace. The drug was still meddling in his head, turning it into some horrid feeling, horrible misunderstanding. Y/n had read it wrong. He shook his head, and he counted sheep. He counted breaths. He counted back from 100.

The pain in his head burned lethal umber and gold, shaped like a dagger and sharp as betrayal. Y/n gave it flesh without worrying, he flayed it, inch by inch, glorious and beautiful. It was easier to submit to the pain, then to be aware of it and let it simmer down. He had learnt to soak it, drink it in...

The pain burst forth, like a poisonous flower learning how to bloom.

Y/n started to smile. Maybe this was a hallucination. Hallucinations were easy to sink into, but difficult to distinguish from real life.

People said dreams were a beautiful, beautiful thing. They hardly spoke about nightmares, and Y/n was currently living in one. Seconds blurred into minutes. The screen looked back at him, almost as if it was a merciless taunt, an unwavering trigger.

"What do you mean not real? I'm suffering from it. I'm dying. I'm decaying, my head is broken, my limbs are flaying. What more do you want?" Y/n stumbled backwards, a crazed smile on his face, "why? Do you wish to see me suffer more than I already have? Do you wish to slink the dagger in further than you already have?"

[ Its purpose was to bring someone from another world solely for fulfilling the made up oracle. Something that [redacted] created for the sake of his own sanity. To live without it, he would crumble. He is the creator, the messiah. He is broken, and not whole. ]

"Who?" Y/n screamed, "who and what are you talking about? Of course the game is real. It was created by—by—by some developer in the real world, it was..."

The screen flickered.

[ You are not permitted to access that information. ]

"Damn it," Y/n hissed, "not permitted? Who even—"