Chapter 1: Becoming Forgotten

Breaking News

The death of tech revolutionary and CEO of Arbitrators Inc., Issa Omari Adjei, has left the world in shock and mourning. The 38-year-old visionary, known for redefining the gaming industry, died in a tragic car accident late last night. Details remain scarce, but the tragedy has raised questions about the future of his company…

The screen dimmed, the soft glow of the television fading into darkness. The silence that followed was deafening, pressing down on the spacious conference room. Once alive with voices—heated debates, bursts of laughter, and the relentless hum of ambition—the room now seemed eerily empty, as though the soul of the company had departed with its founder.

Raji let the remote slip from his fingers onto the polished table. The dull clatter echoed in the stillness. He stared blankly at the empty screen, his mind refusing to process what he'd just heard. His broad shoulders slumped as he leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.

The room, designed for fifteen executives, now hosted only four. Each one carried a hollow expression, their grief and exhaustion etched into their faces.

Across from Raji, Fenris leaned back in his chair, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. The dim lighting cast sharp shadows across his scarred features. His piercing gaze, usually sharp enough to cut through any nonsense, seemed distant now. It was the look of a man who'd faced countless battles but found himself utterly unarmed in the face of this loss.

To Fenris's right, Lars adjusted his glasses, scrolling through his phone with trembling hands. His suit jacket was crumpled, his tie askew, and dark circles underlined his eyes. He muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, a mix of numbers and half-formed sentences. He looked every bit the financial wizard who hadn't slept in days.

At the far end of the table sat the fourth member, staring blankly at the ceiling. Their eyes flickered with the faint glow of the emergency lights, but their expression was devoid of emotion, as though their mind had already checked out.

The silence stretched unbearably.

"Are we shutting down?" Raji's voice was barely above a whisper, but in the oppressive stillness, it might as well have been a shout.

Fenris didn't answer immediately. His frown deepened as he ran a hand through his thick, unruly hair. Lars glanced up from his phone, his face a mask of fatigue and frustration.

"They'll want us to," Lars said flatly. His voice carried none of its usual sarcasm or charm—just the weary resignation of someone delivering bad news. "The shareholders are already pulling out. Without Issa, we're just…a memory." The weight of those words hit the room like a blow.

Ten Years Ago

The whiteboard was smeared with hastily scrawled diagrams. Issa stood in front of it, marker in hand, his smile infectious as he pitched yet another wild ideas

"Imagine a world where every decision you make has a consequence," he said, his eyes alight with excitement. "Not just in the game, but in the lives of the people you meet. What if your choices changed the economy, the politics, the entire structure of the world?"

Fenris leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his skeptical expression betrayed by the glimmer of intrigue in his eyes. "Sounds like you want to play God."

Issa grinned. "Not God—Mediator. Someone who doesn't just live in the world but shapes it." Raji chuckled from his seat. "And how exactly are we supposed to pull that off with three laptops and a busted router?"

Issa's grin widened. "We don't need tools. We need vision. The rest will come."

It was moments like these that defined Issa, moments when the impossible seemed not just plausible but inevitable.

The apartment was cramped, with barely enough space for the whiteboard Issa had dragged in from the street. It was covered in frantic scribbles—numbers, diagrams, half-erased sketches of characters.

"What if it's not just a text game anymore?" Issa's voice was alive with excitement. His eyes sparkled as he gestured wildly, his vision almost tangible in the air between them. Raji folded his arms, leaning against the peeling wallpaper. "We can't even pay rent, and you want to go 3D? Do you hear yourself?" Issa grinned, determination in his eyes. "We don't need rent if we're living in the future."

Raji had rolled his eyes back then, but something about Issa's words—his certainty, his fire—had been impossible to ignore.

Raji blinked, the memory fading. His hands trembled slightly as he gripped the edge of the table. "It doesn't have to end like this," Fenris said suddenly, breaking the silence. His voice was low, gravelly, but it carried an edge of steel. Lars snorted, shaking his head. "It's over, Fenris. No CEO, no leadership. Mediator's Story is dead. The servers crashed last week because no one updated the service keys, for God's sake. The console? Obsolete. The market's flooded with clones, and we don't have the resources to compete. Let it go."

"Issa always believed in us." Fenris's voice broke the silence, low and measured. "He trusted us to carry his vision forward, even if he wasn't here." Lars looked up from his phone, his frustration evident. "Trusted us? If he trusted us so much, why didn't he update the damn service keys before the servers crashed? You want to talk about trust, Fenris? How about responsibility?"

"Lars," Raji warned, his tone sharp.

"No, let him talk," Fenris growled. "Go on, Lars. Blame Issa if it makes you feel better. Blame the guy who carried this company on his back while we stood in his shadow."

Lars's chair scraped against the floor as he stood abruptly. "You think I'm blaming him? I'm blaming us. He shouldn't have had to do it all. We were supposed to be his team, his support, and we failed him." The room fell silent again, the weight of Lars's words pressing down on them.

"It doesn't end like this," Fenris growled, his hands clenching into fists.

Lars slammed his phone onto the table. "And what do you suggest? Revive the company with sheer willpower? Face it, Fenris, Issa was the heart of Arbitrators. Without him, there's nothing left."

He paused, his voice dropping to a bitter tone. "Gen's cut all ties. Not even a word from her. And that godforsaken, money hungry prick Perceval?

He's vanished into thin air. We're not just short-staffed, we're abandoned."

Fenris's expression darkened. "Gen left because she couldn't stand watching the company fall apart. And Perceval…well, that self-centered prick never cared about anything but himself."

"Don't talk about them like that," Raji said, his voice firm. "We don't know what they're dealing with."

Fenris shook his head. "What they're dealing with doesn't matter. What matters is what we do next." The words hit harder than any insult could. Fenris glared at Lars, but there was nothing to counter with.

Mediator's Story had started as a passion project, a simple tabletop game that grew into a digital phenomenon. By the time Arbitrators Inc. launched its first VR console, the game had become more than entertainment, it was a second life for billions. Guilds rose and fell like nations. Entire economies thrived within its virtual world. Players forged friendships, alliances, and rivalries that bled into the real world. Mediator's Story wasn't just a game, it was a revolution.

He remembered the stories: a guild in South Korea that had turned its virtual earnings into real-world scholarships; a group of refugees in Europe who found solace and community in the game; entire families who bonded over the decisions they made as players.

But those same successes had bred competition. Clones flooded the market, each promising to outdo the original. And while Arbitrators Inc. clung to its ideals, the world around them moved on.

"We built a world," Raji murmured, his voice barely audible.

Fenris looked up, his expression softening. "And we let it fall apart."

revolutions couldn't last forever.

Raji's voice cut through the tension like a knife. "What would he want us to do?"

Lars opened his mouth to argue, but Fenris spoke first.

"He'd want us to fight," Fenris said simply. "He didn't build this for us to give up the moment things got hard."

"It's not about hard," Lars snapped. "It's about impossible."

Fenris leaned forward, his eyes burning with intensity. "Nothing was ever possible until Issa made it so. He saw the future when no one else could. And he trusted us to build it with him. Are you really going to let his legacy die because it's 'hard'?"

"The car crash…" Lars began hesitantly, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. "It doesn't make sense." "What doesn't?" Raji asked.

"Why he was even driving that late at night. Issa hated driving, especially after Percevals drunk driving fiasco. He always took rideshares." Fenris frowned. "You think someone forced him off the road?"

Lars shook his head. "No, I'm not saying it was deliberate. I'm saying it doesn't add up. Why was he out there alone, in the middle of the night, after everything that happened last week?"

The room went quiet again as the implication sank in.

Raji cleared his throat. "Whatever the reason, it doesn't change where we are now. The company's falling apart, and we have to decide what we're going to do about it."

The conference room emptied slowly. Lars left first, muttering something about preparing for the inevitable shareholder meeting. The fourth member followed silently, their footsteps echoing down the hall.

Raji lingered, staring at the reports strewn across the table. Financial projections, server logs, player feedback—a mountain of problems with no clear solutions.

Fenris stood by the door, his silhouette framed by the dim hallway light. "You coming?"

Raji didn't respond immediately. Instead, he turned the television back on.

Authorities are investigating the car accident that claimed the life of Issa Omari Adjei. Early reports indicate no foul play…

Raji switched it off, his jaw tightening.

"Let's go," Fenris said quietly.

Together, they left the building, stepping into the cold night air.

The void stretched endlessly, shimmering like a blank canvas waiting to be filled.

A lone figure stood in its center.

"I did it," they whispered, their voice resonating across the emptiness.

In the distance, a single point of light appeared, pulsing, like a heartbeat. It grew brighter, closer.