"What?", Ava's eyes widened as she heard the question that had just rolled off your tongue.
"You-you can't do that...", she stuttered, stumbling a couple of steps backwards.
"Who says I can't?"
"But... I'm not one of the members, you can't pick me!", she sounded almost panicked.
You nodded, "That's what I thought too. Until she told me otherwise! Then it all made sense!"
"She?", Ava frowned.
"Your conscience? Your logic? I don't know how you prefer to call her...", you shrugged, "She emphasised on how long you'd spent in here and how you'd practically turn into a ninth member... I guess I should thank her!"
Ava's breathing had faltered, "What makes you think it worked?"
"Didn't it?", you furrowed your eyebrows, keeping the smirk proud on your face, "Then why did the music stop? What's up with the sudden looks of realisation in everyone's faces? Is the game possibly glitching?"
"No!", she raised the tone of her voice, "You can't just storm in and do that! You can't tear apart everything I built!"
"I didn't do anything!", you chuckled, "You did!"
"W-what?", she had grown pale.
"You didn't actually need any of these things! All you needed was love and attention! And apparently you didn't even care if it was sincere!"
"Now, there is only one thing I'm still curious about...", you carried on, "Where are we exactly? 'Cause there is no fucking way this is a video game!"
Ava sighed, watching everything around her fall apart, "I made the whole universe up...", she explained, "One lonely Valentine's night, i wished for someone to help me... And someone did!"
"A parallel world was unlocked and it contained the house of my dreams and eight men I had been obsessing over since forever. And that's how I slowly lost myself into the delusions..."
"Wait...", you stopped her, "Who helped you?"
Ava only shrugged, "God? Cupid? Some secret fairy godmother? I don't know who did..."
The questions filling your mind were still too many to comprehend, "And what made you drag all of those people into this world?"
"Please...", she rolled her eyes, "They dragged themselves! Didn't you wish for this to happen too? I only opened the door!"
"But why are you not letting them out?"
"Because it's more fun this way!", she snapped, "Do you know how boring it was to live the same things over and over again on loop? Yes, I do love my boys!", she lowered her voice, "But I grew sick of it all!"
"And you took advantage of the fact no one could ever pick a bias...", you completed her trail of thought.
"Exactly.", she nodded, "But it wasn't everyone that stayed here... Some people actually had the emotional strength to admit to be attracted to just one. Yet, they were just the minority... I still won"
"Won?", you felt your body fill with rage, "You do fucking realise this isn't actually a game?"
"Do I?", you could hear the pain in the cracking of her voice, "I don't know about you, but I lost my delusion-free half, years ago!"
"And there's no going back?", you frowned, "With the game collapsing, the two of you go down along with it?"
"Probably...", in her eyes glimmered some welled-up tears.
"I'm sorry...", you lowered your head, "I had no idea this would happen..."
"No worries...", you felt a friendly hand on your shoulder, "As you said before, I did this to myself..."
"And you're okay with fading away?"
You watched her laugh through the pain, "I don't think I have much of a choice..."
"But regardless, my time to let go has come... Don't cry or get sad, there's no reason for that..."
"I wouldn't get sad either way!", you joked, "You trapped me, remember?"
She chuckled letting go of you, "it was nice meeting you..."
Slowly but too fast at the same time, her body turned into dust. And it didn't take long until the whole world did too. But before it all ended, you eyes were switched closed and you were pushed back into the infinite darkness.