Chapter 4
"You Know You're Screwed When Your Most Powerful Weapon Is a Well-Timed Roast".
Alex had fought monsters.
The kind that drooled acid and had teeth in places teeth shouldn't be. Things stitched from shadow and rage. Eldritch freaks that spoke curses like lullabies and bled languages no one should understand.
But this?
This was worse.
Because now he had to fight himself.
---
The hideout was too quiet—the kind of silence that made your skin crawl, like memories with too many legs. Alex sat slouched in a half-deflated beanbag near a graveyard of busted arcade machines. Glitched neon blinked out names of long-dead games. Every now and then, a CRT screen fizzed or whimpered—like a ghost trying to remember who it used to be.
Each flicker cast twitchy shadows across the walls. And inside those shadows?
Shapes. Or eyes. Or maybe just guilt with limbs.
Alex dragged a hand through his hair and tugged harder than he needed to. His scalp burned. He didn't care.
He'd insulted a monster so hard it had emotionally disintegrated. Turned it to cosmic pulp with a roast sharp enough to be considered a war crime in at least six dimensions.
That should've felt cool. Should've made him feel powerful.
It didn't.
He felt like a frayed USB cable—technically alive, emotionally unusable.
"Sad magic gremlin with trauma issues and a System that rewards me for mental breakdowns," he muttered. "Living the dream."
Lia walked in, carrying two mugs. Steam and the scent of bitter, overboiled coffee hit him like old regrets.
"You good?" she asked, offering a cup.
He looked up slowly. Eyes red. Voice dry. "Define good. If you mean spiraling through an existential kaleidoscope of guilt and generational dysfunction, then yeah—five stars. Would spiral again."
She didn't laugh.
Not this time.
"I get it," she said, softly. And somehow… he believed her.
---
They sat on opposite sides of a busted pool table, the felt shredded and the pockets stuffed with cigarette butts, broken pens, and what looked suspiciously like a hamster skull.
"How'd you learn all this?" Alex finally asked, eyes fixed on his drink like it might answer for her.
"You mean the System? Rift logic? Magic that eats your soul sideways?"
He nodded.
She leaned back. Her voice was hoarse. "Used to think I'd save the world. Me and my sister—we thought we were the chosen ones." A bitter laugh. "Turns out, we were just beta testers."
"Your sister was Awakened?" he asked.
"Yeah. First gen. System powered by joy."
Alex choked. "Wait—joy?"
"She could cast shields with hugs. Heal with laughter. Her barriers were built from shared memories." Lia smiled faintly, then blinked fast. "Her spellbook was basically a Pixar movie."
"What happened to her?"
Lia's face shifted—something darker beneath the surface. "One of the corps took her. Maybe the Bureau. Maybe worse. She died in a lab, fueling some prototype God-weapon she didn't even understand."
It hit like a punch to the chest.
Alex looked down at his trembling hands. "We're not heroes, are we?"
"No," she said. "But we're still here. That has to count for something."
---
Sleep didn't come that night.
The mattress felt like a bag of gravel. The ceiling fan above him creaked like it had secrets. So he climbed to the rooftop, hoping the night air could blow something loose from his skull.
Harrow City lay below like a dying neon dragon—tagged walls, broken windows, sirens wailing lullabies no one wanted to hear. Fog twisted through alleyways like bad memories searching for an exit.
A notification blinked in his peripheral vision.
---
[System Notification]
XP Gained: +100 – Introspective Meltdown: Grade B
---
Alex snorted. "Cool. Leveling up from insomnia now."
He dangled his legs over the edge, eyes closed.
Then the memories came.
His mom's voice—soft, fraying around the edges. Her laugh. The chipped plastic dinosaur she said made him brave. Nights he waited for his dad. Hours that stretched into silence.
---
[System Sync: 57%]
New Passive Unlocked: Emotional Armor – Your pain is your shield. Defense +15% when recalling personal trauma.
---
Alex stared at the pop-up.
"If I get a trauma loot box next, I swear I'm jumping into a Rift."
The city didn't answer.
It never did.
---
Lia shook him awake at dawn.
"Minor Rift," she said, throwing a coat at his face. "Outskirts. Unstable. Potential cognitive hazard."
He groaned. "Define minor."
"Only a 40% chance of irreversible psych damage."
"Oh, goody. Field trip."
The old train station was a corpse in the fog—rusted girders, shattered clocks, benches overgrown with mold. Forgotten even by ghosts.
Then the Rift tore open.
It didn't crack.
It bled.
Energy buzzed like a scream turned inside out. From it stepped something… wrong.
Humanoid. Almost. Skin like wet concrete. Eyes like shattered mirrors reflecting every mistake he'd ever made.
Lia's voice trembled. "Regret Entity. Type II. Feeds on guilt."
Then it spoke.
Not in its own voice.
In his mother's.
---
"You left me."
---
He froze.
His brain fractured.
---
The kitchen again.
Burnt coffee.
His mom trying to slice bread with trembling fingers.
The knife slipping.
Her voice: "You were supposed to be better."
"I'm trying."
"Trying isn't enough."
---
[System Conflict Detected]
Error: Memory Loop Initiated
---
His knees hit the ground.
Guilt wrapped around his chest like a chain.
But deep inside—something sparked.
A whisper: Enough.
He gritted his teeth. Forced his fists to close.
---
"No."
---
[Override Successful]
Memory Rewritten: "You did your best."
---
His palm glowed. Gold light poured out—jagged, sarcastic, burning.
"HEY REGRET," he shouted. "I ALREADY PAY RENT TO MY SELF-LOATHING. YOU DON'T GET TO MOVE IN."
---
[Spell Unlocked: Memory Lash – Level 2]
---
The lash cracked like thunder.
The creature staggered.
But it laughed—a sound like snapping bones and old guilt.
Alex stepped forward.
"You think I'm scared of feelings? Buddy, I've got trauma on speed dial."
Another strike—pure, raw sarcasm sharpened by survival.
The Rift trembled.
Then silence.
The entity dissolved into stardust.
---
[XP Gained: +500 – Memory Defiance: Grade A]
New Spell Learned: Sarcasm Overdrive – Reflect emotional damage taken over the last 24 hours.
---
Alex dropped to his knees, breathing like he'd run through hell.
He didn't cry.
But he wanted to.
---
Far away, in a palace where time cracked like ice, Lucan Zelios watched across a wall of floating screens.
"So," Lucan murmured. "He's rewriting his memories."
His assistant stayed silent.
Lucan's smirk sharpened. "Let him heal. Let him hope. Let him feel whole."
He tapped the screen, freezing it on Alex mid-laugh.
"Then we break him."
Something ancient stirred behind him—something vast, and very, very awake.
---
Back at the hideout, Alex reheated noodles and didn't burn them. He even hummed something. For a second, just a second, he felt human.
Then—
---
[Critical Event Triggered]
Dream Rift Detected – Sector 12
Time Limit: 1 Hour
Penalty: Memory Disintegration
---
Lia burst in, breathless.
"It's happening again. But this one's… different."
"How different?"
She tossed him a file.
Inside: a photo of a little boy.
Seven. Empty eyes. Symbols circling his body like dying fireflies.
Alex's breath caught.
In the corner of the photo—shadowed, barely visible—was a face.
A face he hadn't seen in over a decade.
"...That's my dad," he whispered.
His legs nearly gave out.
---
[System Alert]
Warning: Next choice will alter the future.
This decision is irreversible.
Are you ready to confront what you buried?
---
Alex stood at the doorway, file shaking in his grip.
Eyes burning. Jaw tight.
He didn't answer.
He just walked forward.
---