1.44 - Never Fade Away

   January 18, 2026      

 

Something hard slams into my chest and wraps around me. I open my eyes and instantly recognize the top of Kai’s head. On instinct I just hug him back. I didn’t want to die alone but I didn’t want Kai to die too. I rest my chin on his head, I made peace with my death but I don’t want my best friend to die too. Trying to break that glass was probably a bad idea. I glance up to watch Kay’s mech fly out of the space station as well, but no signs of Daamin or Kevin. At least she’s dying with us. Kai lets me go, but holds onto my hand so we don’t float away.

“Guess you got to hold my hand again,” I try to joke. “Sorry you got sucked out here with me.”

“I jumped,” Kai says. “I didn’t want you to die alone,” he uses his free hand to wipe a tear.

Now I’m crying, “I didn’t want you to die with me. That’s stupid.”

“My life wouldn’t be worth living without you.”

“You’ve got plenty to live for.”

“You always believe I’m so much better than I am. If I don’t have you, I don’t really have anything of value.”

“You’re the value Kai. You’re always there to support people, even people who don’t deserve it. So many people in this world try to tear each other down just to get to the next step in life, but you build people up.”

“Dre,” Kai wipes more tears.

“I told you stop crying over me.”

“You also promised to come back, but I had to go chasing you.”

“Fair enough,” we share a brief laugh.

Space goes silent again as we accept what’s going to happen to us. We start to pick up speed towards the Earth. Now I’m wondering if we’re going to burn up in orbit or splatter on the ground. I wonder what death is like. Is there a Heaven? Will I go to Hell? What if reincarnation is real? Do I get reincarnated as an apple and eaten in the second chapter? I’ve got so many questions flying through my mind and I can’t put words to most of them.

“Dre, I fucking love you,” Kai says. “I fucking love you,” he repeats several more times, each louder than the last.

“I love you too Kai.”

“No, I really fucking love you. Some mornings you are my reason to get out of bed. If you don’t text me during the day I get anxious. I hate when you compliment me because I get butterflies in my stomach. Everything you say to me is just genuine. You’re the realest person I know. You make me stutter sometimes,” Kai raises his voice, “I’ve fallen asleep thinking about you so many times. You’re always on my mind,” he finally runs out of steam.

“I told you, I love you. You’re my best friend, one of the people I care about most in the world. I don’t want to die, and I really don’t want you to die. But I’m glad you’re here with me. I always feel like I need to be the best version of me when I’m around you. I don’t ever want to disappoint you because you might cry and I hate seeing you cry more than you’ll ever know.”

“I really love you Dre. I just don’t know how else to say it or show you,” Kai keeps talking but I can’t hear him as everything begins to grow louder.

We’ve entered orbit. It’s almost as if the sound of every gust of wind in existence is flowing through one ear and out the other. I can see Kai shouting at the top of his lungs, but it’s no good. I point to my ears, and he just nods. Understanding it. He just squeezes my hand tighter and closes his eyes. I don’t close mine; I want to see what happens when it’s over. We start to burn up and eventually I have to close my eyes from the heat. I just wait for the impact and the end to come. 

***

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1.43 - Mass Effect

   January 04, 2026      

 

I can’t help but think how lonely I am as I ride the elevator to the next floor. Every relationship in my life I’ve ruined. I’m watching my friends get married and have kids and all I’ve got to show for it is a good job that I hate. I spent so much time trying to grab financial security that I let the exciting moments in life pass me by. I could have had so many more friends, maybe found my future wife, but I didn’t. My life isn’t how I wanted it to go at all. Maybe nobody’s life is. Other people may think about their failures and opportunities they didn’t go after. The difference is I’m the only one trapped in virtual reality and riding an elevator to my death at the moment. It’s really humbling and puts into perspective how much I’ve royally fucked things up over the years. I wish I knew what the others were thinking; just so I would know rather I was alone in my thoughts or not. My funeral will probably be trash. My family wasn’t great to me growing up, and now I avoid them. They don’t know anything about me. My obituary will just say what schools I went to and jobs I worked. Nobody will have remarks when asked. At least it’ll be a short funeral.

I exit the elevator to a large open room with a window that takes an entire wall. It has a direct view of Earth. In front of that window stands the back of a mech suit. I know it’s Kay right away. She’s too arrogant. She wants to kill me herself, and I’m okay with that. I can probably kill Kay, but whatever trap she has will take me out; I’ve made peace with it.

“Kay, turn around and stop acting like a movie villain,” I shout.

“You really don’t let anyone have fun,” the ground shakes as her mech suit turns around.

“It’s not too late for you to just end all this,” I make an unenthused plea for peace.

“Oh, we’re going to end it all today. At least for you, and your little friends. For me, it’ll keep going, living a perfect life.”

“Your life isn’t perfect Kay. Your life is just as screwed up as the rest of ours. That’s what life is. We have good moments, but they’re only good because we have bad ones. You know? Sunny days wouldn’t be so special if it wasn’t for rain. Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.”

“I hate you and your little friends. You people run around like life is all good. You don’t know what it’s like to not have any friends or to be left alone by yourself. You think everything is just great.”

“We’re all lonely, but the game you created let’s everyone have a chance to live their best life and make new friends. Even grow friendships they already had. I’ll applaud you on that, because it’s beautiful. You hate me and my friends, but we were fully willing to accept you. We could have just treated you as a hostage, but we fed you, housed you in the badlands and treated you as an equal. You just couldn’t get over the fact that I shot you. Not killed you, just shot you because I was trying to get answers. Even after we learned you were the one who trapped us in here, we got over it when we learned people didn’t really die. Then you started killing people for what? I mean, we’ve probably killed a few people because of you. We have to live with that.”  

“You think I don’t have things I regret too? If I had never tried to save one of my friends, I never would have met you assholes.”

“Your friends? Is that why you’re mad? You’re jealous? You think the NPCs are your friends? Okay, I get it, you’re insane. You don’t like the fact that we’re friends You could have been our friend. Instead, you’re stuck on AI controlled friends and harems. You’re a nutcase.”  

“I’m not crazy. Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In churches, in schools, sidewalks, stores, video games, everywhere. There is no escape from loneliness. I’m God’s loneliest woman. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there’s a change. I can build a world where I’ve got all the friends I want,” Kay is shouting now. “God can not make me be alone. I can have as many friends, and as many lovers as I desire. You keep calling it a game, but this is my world. It’s my world. Everything and everyone I love is here and I won’t let you take it from me.”

“Alright then, let’s do this,” I pull out Excalibur for what may be the last time.  

“You’re going to shoot me,” Kay laughs.

“Yeah, I’m going to end this.”

“Well you can’t,” Kay holds out a bright red trigger button. “You see, someone has to press this for the code to upload. The problem is, if I die, the button stops working. Kill me and nobody goes home. Let me live, and nobody goes home, but you still die.”

I don’t know if she’s bluffing but I don’t want to take any chances. I could try to get the button out of her hand and press it myself. I doubt it’s linked to her DNA or anything like that. The opportunity to plan is gone as she aims a gun at me. I drop to the floor as she begins shooting. I quickly get up and run as she continues to fire. There’s no cover in this room, she designed it to kill me. She’s made the choice for me. I throw a grenade across the room, which knocks her mech against the glass. It cracks under the weight and she continues to fire. I throw another grenade and start to fire Excalibur as many times as I can.

The glass breaks and air starts to be sucked out of the room. Really glad she stuck with the space is a vacuum thing. Kay’s mech jams it’s hands into the floor, refusing to be sucked into space. My feet are snatched from beneath me at the same moment Excalibur is flung from my hands. That was a good gun. I hang on to the back of Kay’s mech, refusing to go without her as she shouts. I climb towards the pilot seat of the mech, fighting against the vacuum of space and Kay. The elevator doors open as I finally reach her. Daamin, Kai and Kevin all hang on for dear life as I fight Kay. I can’t hear what anyone is saying. There’s just too much sound now. I struggle to eject Kay, but she bites me. Dad always said not to hit girls, but this is a monster. I punch Kay in the face with my free hand as she bites harder. My hand slips, I know I’m going flying and I can’t take her with me. I make one last play for the button, and grab it as I’m sucked out through the window.

I press the button and watch green laser fly from the station to a satellite that bounces it to another, one after another and finally towards Earth. I’m going to die, but everyone else is going to live. Really glad she didn’t program space to have no air. Suffocating is a terrible way to go. What do I do now? Do I pray? I just close my eyes and wait. Not sure if I’ll be zapped out of existence or splatter into a thousand pieces as I hit the ground on Earth. 

***

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1.42 – Thank You For Being a Friend

   December 21, 2025      

Shots are fired at us before the elevator opens, it’s not surprising that Kay would put traps up here for us either. We take cover behind the elevator walls. When there’s a pause in firing, I roll out two grenades. The first is just a smoke bomb decoy, it fills the hallway with smoke, the second explodes and causes chaos. Kai sends out a medium sized drone and there’s some shots before silence.

“We’re clear,” Kai says.

We enter into the hallway and there are no gunshots, but the smoke has made a laser security grid visible that wasn’t there before. We could try to find a way to deactivate it, or we could try to maneuver through it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kai says.

“What’s that?”

“You’re thinking time is short, and it would be best to go through the lasers. I promise you, I’m very flexible, but not that flexible. We’re going to have to find a way to hack it.”

Kai sends out one of his smaller spherical drones as I lean against the wall and watch him manually pilot the drone through various lasers. Some of the lasers are set in still positions, others set to rotate. I guess the only saving grace is that Kay has basically choreographed the way to win this thing. The hall only contains two other exits. At the far end, a door which likely has the room where we upload the data. The second, another elevator, likely to the next floor. I let Kai concentrate on the lasers as there isn’t much for me to do other than hang around and twiddle my thumbs and hope the other guys are okay down there. Kai’s drone shoots a hole in the wall but Kai doesn’t budge so I don’t worry. The drone enters the walls and slowly lasers start to vanish one at a time, as others begin to appear then vanish. After a few minutes, our path is clear.

“Good job Kai.”

“Thanks Dre,” Kai begins to make his way down the hallway, and I follow. “Want to hold hands again?”

“Why would I want to hold hands?”

Kai shrugs, “seemed like you enjoyed it, just thought I’d ask.”

Inside the room is filled with what I can only describe as tech stuff. I recognize a ton of server cases similar to the ones we have at work. A lot of the other stuff, looks like high tech tool boxes or something way beyond my field of expertise. At the end of the room is a massive computer terminal with screens taking up an entire wall. Kai instantly plugs in the drive and begins to work on distributing the cure. I take the moment to glance out the window into space. An infinite number of stars lighting up the dark. I always thought it would be just plain black but there are shades of blue and purple in there too. I have to remind myself this isn’t actually space. It’s a video game, and I’ll probably die on the next level.

Still, “it’s really pretty.”

“Did you just call me pretty,” Kai asks with a confused grin.

“No, I was just space is really beautiful. It’s so big, and we’re so small. Even if it’s just a game, it’s a crazy experience.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s the kind of place that you want to bring a person you cherish to. Just experience the universe with them as you stare into forever.”

“I don’t know if I would describe it that way,” I almost chuckle but spot Kai’s face out the side of my eye. “But I know what you mean.”

Kai returns to the computer and makes some adjustments as I continue to stare out into space. Something is on his mind, but he’s not saying it. There are times I feel like I can see right through Kai and our minds are linked. Other times, I’ve got no idea what is going through his head. Kai comes back and joins me at the window.

“I’ll have to stick around and enter some prompts every now and then, but you can head to the final boss. I’ll meet you up there with Daamin and Kevin, so don’t get killed before then.”

“Hey, did you want to tell me what was on your mind earlier? You didn’t get to finish what you were saying back on the ship.”

Kai pauses for a moment, glances at me and then stares back out the window. “I actually think I’m okay.”

“It seemed really important back then.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll have all the time in the world for me to tell you later.”

“Alright,” I don’t pry any more. After a pause I ask, “can I say something to you?”

“Sure.”

“Kai, we’ve said it a lot in these life of death situations we’ve been facing. But you’re my best friend. When we get out of this, and we will, I want us to be real world friends too. I’ve been thinking about how you said you were lonely in real life, and that makes me feel bad; so, I’ll be coming to see you. Also, thank you for being a good friend. You’ve always stuck with me. Even right now as we might be heading towards our deaths, you’re still with me. You could have backed out at any time but you stuck with me.”

“I could never turn my back or walk away from you Dre.”

“Thank you for being a friend.”

“Travel down the road and back again.”

“Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.”

Kai laughs, “is this what we’re doing now?”

“You started it,” I give him a light shove.

“If I threw a party, and invited everyone you know.”

“You would see the biggest gift would be from me.

We sing together, “and the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.”

Kai wraps his arms around me and buries his head into my shoulder again. He’s a hugger, and a crier, but he’s my best friend so I just wrap my arms around him and let him cry. I know I keep telling him everything will be fine, but this could very well be the last time I see him.

“I hate seeing you cry,” I can’t help but wipe a tear away from his face when he lets me go. “It always makes me feel sad.”

“Then I won’t cry anymore,” he quickly uses his sleeve to wipe his face dry.

“You can cry, just don’t cry over me anymore.”

“I won’t cry over you anymore, as long as you promise to come back.”

“I promise to come back.”

“You better.”

Kai gives me another quick hug before I make my way to the elevator. Sometimes it seems like nobody understands me as well as he does. I’m really going to miss him when I’m dead. I know Kevin was the wrench in Kay’s plans and everything has flowed well, but I’m pretty sure Kay has a little something extra to kill me.  

***

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1.41 - The Four Muskateers

   December 07, 2025      

 

A laser blast hits my chest and sends my flying backwards. There’s no chance to survey our surroundings when we enter the next room. The drones and bots are hitting hard and fast there’s no waiting time or big moments like prior missions. The blast didn’t do much damage, but it had plenty of concussive force behind it. The rest of the guys rush in after I wave them off and do their thing. Kai’s brought out nearly every drone he’s got, Kevin and Daamin seem to be having some sort of competition. I’m just sitting here on my ass letting them do all the work. I shake off the blast and prepare to get in the game.

I rush in with Excalibur not really aiming for takedowns but enough to cause chaos until I can find cover. I blast a robot as I dive to cover. But I can’t stay long as another starts firing. I dive for a group of boxes and fire at two more bots. A group of drones circles me leaving me behind the boxes. I borrow a trick from Ashley and Kevin, and toss a grenade. As it nears the drones, I blast it causing a quick and fiery explosion that takes out several drones.  A bot rushes towards me but I manage to send its head flying before any damage can be done. Another blast from the bots sends my flying through a stack of wooden crates. Three bots seem to zero in on the location. Firing from my back I manage to take out two. Daamin appears seemingly from nowhere and finishing off the third. I fire on a drone above his head, we share a quick nod before he rushes off and I get back to my feet. I fling a grenade like a baseball that explodes on impact sending a group of bots to the scrapyard.  

“Round 1 complete,” there’s silence and the remaining bots and drones self-destruct.

Two timers appear projected above the makeshift arena; at the same time an elevator becomes visible. The first timer displays ten minutes until the next wave of enemies. The second displays twelve minutes until the elevator vanishes. It’s forcing us to make a choice.

“How do we take the elevator if there’s another round,” Kai asks.

“I don’t get it, the elevator should only be visible when we’ve completed the rounds,” I respond in confusion.

“I get it,” Daamin doesn’t seem surprised.

“What’s going on,” Kevin asks.

“It’s Kay. She’s created a trap for us. Even if she doesn’t kill all of us, someone is going to die. She wants someone to sacrifice themselves for the team at each part. More than anything, she wants you dead Alexandre. This level is probably an infinite fight. That’s for me. I’ll just fight until I’m exhausted and die. Next level, she’ll probably trap Kai in some crazy math problem so he can never upload the code. Last level, she’ll just kill you Alexandre,” Daamin lays it out plainly.  

“So how do we beat it,” Kai asks.

“We don’t. It’s a death trap, we can’t win. We can only be a pain in her ass until the end,” I begin to reload Excalibur. “If this is how I die, I’m going to be worse than hemorrhoids or anal fissures. It’s going to be the worst turd she ever passed. I am going to be a pain she remembers forever.”

“Alright Dre, if that’s what you want, then I’m with you until the end,” Kai begins to jump and get himself hype.

“It’s great that you’re named after Alexandre Dumas because we’re like The Three Muskateers,” Daamin laughs. “Let’s do this.”

“There’s actually four musketeers,” Kevin speaks up.

“What,” Kai asks.

“Technically he’s right,” I shrug.

“I don’t get it,” Daamin says.

“Well, the book is called The Three Musketeers, it’s just one in a group of novels called the D’Artagnan Romances. It’s a series about D’Artagnan, obviously,” I shrug.

“You’re having a nerd moment,” Kai says. “I expect this from Daamin.”

“I don’t really read classic literature, shit is hard,” Daamin responds.

“Right,” Kevin says. “In The Three Musketeers the musketeers are made up of Athos, Porthos and Aramais. But, they can’t accomplish their goal until D’Artagnan joins them as the fourth musketeer. I’m the fourth musketeer. She didn’t expect me. She set this trap for three people but forgot to limit the ship to three. I’m the glitch in her system. She probably thinks you’re going to leave Daamin behind to fight, and she’s got just enough juice to kill him. But if I stay and fight, we can clear this up in no time. You two head to the next floor. Daamin and I will be up in time to help Kai. Then we all meet up and kill the final boss.”

“We don’t have much time to argue,” Kai points out the clock.

“Then just agree to it,” Kevin says.

“I’m in, let’s go for it,” Daamin says.

“Alright, I’m in,” I give Kevin and Daamin a thumbs up.

“This is insane,” Kai says. “But we don’t have a choice.”

“Well, if they do kill us, it was an honor meeting you all. Alexandre, this game is beneath you. Kai, I hope you marry your true love, and Daamin, I hope you don’t join the priesthood but find a real fun game to play,” Kevin holds his fist out. “To the four musketeers.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but okay. To the four musketeers,” Daamin holds out his fist.

“It’s the ending of the book, they all survive and get what they want,” I add my fist to the group. “The four musketeers.”

“Well, if everyone lives at the end, I can live with that,” Kai ads his fist to the circle. “The four musketeers.”

The clock for the next wave is almost to zero, “good luck guys. See you in the real world,” I send my contact info to both and grab Kai’s hand before running to the elevator.

“Good, um, see you, good luck,” Kai stumbles his words as we reach the elevator.

As the doors close, we watch as the next wave rushes in. Daamin still using two swords, Kevin only using one. They seem to have everything under control for now. Even as larger robots and better armed drones arrive, they don’t budge or even look back to us. Finally, the elevator starts to move and they vanish from our sight.

“I hope they’re okay,” I say out loud.

“I guess elevators are our spot,” the words barley leave Kai’s mouth. I glance over and see that he’s staring down. That’s when I realize we’re still holding hands.

I laugh at his joke and let go of his hand, and pat him on the back, “Actually, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, let’s do our part and not let them down,” Kai almost seems back to normal. 

***

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