Eric
He had finally made it. Eric felt his skin, his breath, his face. Everything. How long had he awaited this moment? He had stopped counting so long ago. With his body back, nothing could hold him back anymore. He would be unstoppable, immortal, undying. An endlessly powerful being, weathering all storms. And all of these people would pay. The people that trapped him in here, together with all of these cheap copies of real people, fake scenarios and worlds, over and over and over again. He would take revenge on all of them, and then on the entire world.
After the darkness, a soft glow appeared underneath Eric’s feet. He was still standing on solid ground, and an area of one square meter glowed in a nostalgic and soft white. A few meters away from him, another source of light appeared. It was Jim, standing there like the fool he was.
They looked at each other, stared each other down surrounded by darkness. The look in Jim’s eyes told Eric everything he needed to know. But Eric knew that Jim could do nothing against him. Not anymore.
Blue particles manifested themselves a few meters above the ground, a portal of tiny blue lights snapping into existence. Out of it, a masked figure stepped. Eric clenched his teeth. That son of a bitch… he had finally beaten him.
The being was wearing its usual white mask, the unrealistically large smirk imprinted on its surface. It wore a black suit which almost blend itself into the dark background, partly melting with the void of reality. A red tie brought a splash of colour on the white fabric, which the being wore underneath its suit. Even though the portal had vanished and there was no light around the floating being, it was clearly visible, as if light itself didn’t affect it.
The smiling being raised its voice, and like usual, Eric could hear it talk inside of his head as if he didn’t hear him with his ears, but rather his mind.
“Congratulations again for finishing ‘Sinner’s Game’. The preparations are now complete.”
“Then better hurry up,” Eric responded. “I want to get out of here as fast as possible.”
“There is still one more thing that has to be done before the ending ceremony. You sure have questions about your journey.” It lifted a single gloved finger. “You both get to ask one question about the game. No exceptions.”
This is stupid, he thought. But the faster I ask, the faster I am out of here. And now that I think about it, there is something that I have been asking myself since the beginning of this fucking nightmare.
Jim raised his voice, said, “Go ahead, Sinner. Ask first.”
Eric shot another glance at Jim, found his stare to be more confident than it was supposed to be. Shrouded cowardice, perhaps? Maybe delusion?
“Alright. I have one question that I wanted to ask for a very long time.”
“Go ahead,” the masked figure said, “but keep in mind you only get to ask one.”
Eric felt a wave of pressure swell up inside of him, a force of unknown origin which wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Maybe it was because of his old body, maybe something else. He put one hand to his beard, started scratching his chin. Scratching his beard instead of skin made him feel a certain way he had really missed.
“The entire game, every time, resets itself. You forced me to go through the same day every day until the game itself starts, and once I’m inside, the game is the same every single time. The surroundings, the monsters, everything. I have walked through the factory hundreds of times probably, the labyrinth of toys and all that bullshit. But even though everything resets, one thing always remains in place.”
Eric’s voice loudened, the pressure shaping his words more and more as he continued. “The fucking kids. Why do they always stay where they are? The pile of toys from the Doll-Maker wasn’t there in the beginning. The factory didn’t have the humanoid machines, and the closets in the third stage weren’t filled with dead bodies. Why? Was it to mock me? To show me how many times I have lost? Show me that I couldn’t do it? Your attempts to break me have all failed, and I am now standing here, stronger than ever before. So tell me. Why didn’t they disappear as well?”
The masked figure tilted its head to the side slightly. “I really thought you would get it, but it appears that you still haven't figured out the real purpose of this game.” It pointed towards Eric. “You should have understood by now that your sins won’t be forgotten here.”
“So you were in fact trying to mock me? How pathetic.” Eric realized his breathing had become more heavy.
“Your delusions make you unable to comprehend your own irony, Sinner,” the masked figure said. “This was your question.” It turned, pointed at Jim. “Now...”
“...What is your question?”
---
Jim stared at the gloved hand pointed at him. He swallowed, took a deep breath. He looked at the Sinner, then back at the floating creature.
Close enough, he thought.
“I spent a while thinking about the game and what is really going on, and I now have the feeling I know what is being played here.”
He made sure he had strong footing, said, “My question is the following: Am I a real person, and are my memories real, or are they all just made up from the game and have been created by you?”
The masked figure didn’t move, said, “You have been created by me inside of the game, but your memories and thoughts are based on a real person outside of it. You are a copy of said person’s consciousness and memories. If you count that as a real person or not is open for your own interpretation.”
Jim felt a burden lift off his shoulders. But at the same time, a far heavier one took its place.
“Very well, thank you. I now know everything I wanted to know.”
“Can we finish this now?” the Sinner asked, gestured with his weapon towards the masked figure.
Before Eric was even able to react to what was going on, Jim had already stepped forward. His breath was calm and his footing perfect as his scissor moved in a clean, fluid movement. Fingers flew through the air as the Sinner’s weapon clattered to the floor. As he turned his head in surprise, another strike went through his ankle as Jim sent his hand flying as well.
Jim put his foot on the Sinner’s scissor, kicked it away as it disappeared into the darkness. The Sinner yelped, groaned in confused pain as he attempted to step back.
But Jim was focused.
The scissor embedded itself inside of the Sinner’s right knee, impaled it before Jim brought him to fall with a kick against his chest while also pulling the weapon out again.
The Sinner, who was now laying on the ground squirming and attempting to crawl backwards, suddenly halted as he realized the tip of the blade which was now hovering mere millimeters away from his face. He stared up at Jim in disbelief. Jim’s face carried no emotion.
“A-Are you crazy?” He stammered.
“Y-You are going to ruin everything.”
“Surprising, isn’t it?...” Jim said while glaring down upon him.
“...It appears that gods do bleed.”
---
Pain. Stinging, strong pain was everything Eric felt for a moment. He laid on the floor, glaring upwards at the weapon which was in front of him, his face tensed in strong emotion. Jim stood there as if he was looking down on him, pitying him with every fibre of his being. How dare he judge him like that? A mere mortal staring down upon a god!
Eric raised his voice as he spat, “Go ahead! Try to kill me. You can’t. You should have understood that by now, but it seems that you really are that fucking stupid.” Blood had started dripping from Eric’s wounds, and the white light underneath him had changed to a very light tone of red.
Jim hesitated, then put his scissor away. He averted his gaze from Eric, turned away. He started walking off.
Eric felt his remaining hand form into a fist.
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“LOOK AT ME!”
Jim stopped, turned around.
His face still carried the note of ignorance.
“Don’t worry,” Jim said.
“I won’t kill you.”
---
Jim averted his eyes from the Sinner once again, ignored his loud words and shouts behind him. He walked a couple of steps forward, the light under his feet following him as he now stood in front of the hovering creature, which had lowered a bit. Jim scanned over the eyeless mask, stared it down for a moment.
He then lifted his arm, pointed his weapon towards the masked figure.
“I fulfilled my part of the deal,” he said. “Will you fulfil yours?”
The smile on the mask grew, reality around the creature shifting and glitching as it did so. “Of course.”
“Then it is now time.”
Jim turned around so the Sinner could see him clearly, spend a few seconds watching him helplessly crawl over the floor. He tried to get to him, his face filled with anger and his words shrouded in utter delusion. Jim held out his both arms, gripped his weapon with both hands.
He then turned it, its tip now close to his chest. He felt his hands shiver, his heart beat faster. As the screaming and shouting of the Sinner became background white noise, and blend itself with the darkness of reality, he closed his eyes.
The words of the masked creature earlier had been clear. Jim’s theory had been right, or at least it was likely enough that he was now certain of the path he wanted to take. If he really was a fake – and everything else in this world was as well – the importance of himself as an individual had now faded. His friends were no longer alive in here, and they also wouldn’t be able to find peace as long as the Sinner existed in this world. But if he was based on someone real, someone that was still out there, there might be a chance, even if a small one, that his friends were still out there as well. And that meant that there was still a chance for them to be together, to be friends, and to be alive and happy, even if that meant he had to sacrifice himself for this to become reality.
Reality...
His hands stopped trembling.
Reality...
He still wasn’t entirely sure what the Sinner had done outside of the game, but he now knew that it had something to do with Hendrick and his family. Whatever it was, the masked figure would take care of it. The deal they had made… the masked figure had said he would make sure the Sinner would get what he deserved if Jim made him tell his plan and drop his facade.
Reality...
The grip around his scissor tightened.
Reality.
For the game to really end and not repeat, he needed to die before the Sinner did. Still, it had felt good slicing some piece out of that bastard. Some personal revenge, even though he knew it was bad in general, felt like the right thing here.
A soft smile formed on his face.
And as he brought the blade forward with all of his force,
and it impaled his own heart,
he stumbled and fell to the ground as the surroundings started to get blurry.
But an honest smile remained planted between his tears,
since even if it wasn’t here and now,
he knew somewhere out there at some place in reality,
he and his friends might be able to laugh again.
His consciousness faded, things came to darkness,
his senses ceased and his thoughts left him,
but a faint glint of happiness burned on for a short moment,
before his story came to an end.
---
Eric let out another angered scream as he saw Jim impale himself with his scissor. His screams didn’t seem to reach him, as he used his working leg and arm to somehow pull himself forward. The light underneath him had started to turn more and more towards a crimson colour, and he could feel himself getting weaker. The masked figure was floating a few meters away from Jim, seemed to be unbothered by the events that had just unfolded. Eric reached Jim.
He used his bleeding stump of an arm to get some push upwards, ignored the pain as he got a hold onto the handle of the scissor which was still impaling Jim’s chest, pulled on it.
A deal? What deal had they been talking about? Had they tried to trick him, make him suffer even more in a last-ditch attempt to stop him? Didn’t they know who he was? Eric pulled hard, bit down onto his lips to make the pain more bearable as he somehow managed to pull the weapon out of Jim’s chest. He leveraged himself up to his knees, stared down onto Jim’s dead body with intensity.
That son of a bitch really tried to pity me, he thought. He felt the pressure inside of him raise up even further, was unable to contain it any longer.
He was now holding the scissor with his remaining hand, blood dripping off his knee and adding itself to the puddle which continued growing underneath Jim’s body. The blood got partly absorbed by the light under them, now only crimson left from the earlier white innocence which had pierced the darkness.
Pitied… he thought. Me?
He screamed, started swinging his weapon at Jim’s dead body. He started cutting him, stabbing him. Then again. And again.
And again.
He screeched and shouted, sending echoes through the endless dark reality as he continued covering Jim’s body with more and more injuries. He kept hacking and slashing away, blood spurting all over him as his eyes were enveloped in fury and satisfaction.
After he was finished and his strength started to leave him, he fell down to the floor next to Jim. Jim’s body couldn’t be recognized as a human anymore. It was more or less a pile of junk and flesh now, a red mass carelessly spread and smeared across the floor. Eric laid on his back, stared up at the starless horizon.
His weapon clattered to the ground next to him. Eric snickered, then smiled. He had shown that son of a bitch who was boss. He started giggling quietly, then louder. It turned into deafening laughter.
He hadn’t laughed like that in a very long time.
God, had he missed that feeling.
---
As his laughter weakened, the pain had faded. He sat up, realized that the injuries on his body had vanished. The blood was still there, but no injuries. He had been right all this time. He was really, truly immortal.
“It is now time,” the masked figure said, its finger pointed towards Eric. “Everything is now complete. The ending ceremony shall begin.”
Eric got up, said, “Hey, Jim said something about a deal earlier. What was that about? Did you try to send me back? Kind of sad that Jim knew he couldn’t kill me. It was quite a pathetic attempt.”
The masked figure didn’t move, nor did it respond.
“Hey, I did ask you something.”
The creature snapped its fingers, and things went dark again.
---
In front of Eric, a narrow path appeared out of thin air. It was presented with light like earlier, now leading him towards something approximately 100 meters in front of him. At the end of the path, the masked figure stood holding something in its hand. The light around Eric was still tainted in crimson colour, as if clinching to him.
He sighed, started walking towards it. But something seemed off. It was like there were noises, silent talking and breathing to his left and right as he walked. It wasn’t loud enough to make out details. He halted, tried checking out what it was.
A red box popped up in front of his inner eye, said: Proceed, otherwise punishments will follow!
“This shit again.” But it was different now, wasn’t it? Perhaps he could try something.
The metallic sound got louder, and the box added more explanation marks behind its message. As Eric ignored the message further, reality shifted for only a second. Eric found himself getting impaled with dozens of spears before being back in the lighted corridor, holding onto his chest in pain. There were no injuries. He glared towards the lightened path in front of him, glance flashing at the eyeless mask still a good bit away.
“Guess the part where I can choose my way is over.”
He continued walking, then stopped again. He now was around 30 meters away from the creature, had a better view of what it was holding in its hand. It was wooden, something like a hammer. He could have sworn he had seen something like that before… but what was it for again?
Another red box appeared, and this time there was no mechanical clanking accompanying it, but the voice of the masked figure speaking as if it was made as subtitles for its voice:
Enough waiting now. They deserve to find out the truth about your sins!
The masked creature moved its finger towards itself. Eric found himself flying across 20 meters in one second before being stopped mid-air, now right in front of the masked figure. It was now clear which kind of hammer it was holding. The masked figure put him down, pointed to its side. It snapped with a finger, and a wooden chair glitched into existence. The chair pointed towards where Eric had come from.
“Please, sit down,” it said while the red box remained centered in Eric’s vision to quote anything the masked creature spoke.
It moved its gloved finger once again, and Eric found himself sitting down on the chair without even moving a single muscle himself.
The masked being then snapped its fingers,
and darkness faded to the dawn of light.
The path where Eric had come from was now fully covered in crimson.
“We are now going to judge over the sins of Eric Hoffner,” the voice said.
Eric’s eyes widened at what laid in front of him.
“The case of murder that happened 3 years ago...”
“...the killing of the Reich family.”
---
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