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He had died once, and so he would die again. Wilson didn’t mind. Everyone died eventually. His expression turned calm, almost complacent as he raised one hand toward his face. Although he tried to curl his fingers into a fist, he felt no sensation of nails pressing against his palm. Only nothingness. It felt surreal to watch himself come undone, piece by winding piece. At the very least it was a painless process. He cocked his head curiously while turning over the remains of his hand before that too disappeared into thin air and his arm was next.

Memories of his kingdom—his ship—entered his mind. He remembered the peaceful, pale glow of the tunnels as he walked through them, always dark, but faithfully lighting up his path, day or night. He could recall hours of hard labor devoted to repairing and upgrading his hover bike. He could remember spending as much free time as he could into building his tiny fleet of androids. He loved his ship. It was home to him. He had to wonder if the ship still stood in its place. Would the ship remain even after he and his crew disappeared into oblivion? He hoped it would remain long after he was gone. A legacy, a memory that would stand for however long it could.

He recalled Dakota striking his heart with a crystal. He could even remember the exact expression he had given the lieutenant—shock, hurt, betrayal, grief. The feeling had disappeared though, just like the rest of his self. He understand now why Dakota had done what he had done. Now he knew what he truly was. Surprisingly the revelation hadn’t hurt as much as he thought it could’ve. Perhaps he had been drowning in too much grief to notice the difference.

Wilson felt a strange sense of calmness as he continued to watch himself crumble away. But still he had to wonder, what was the point of this entire charade?

There was nothing for him to grasp, no hands, no arms, but still he wanted to reach for his past subjects one last time. There had been nothing he could’ve done to ameliorated their fates or eased any pain they happened to feel even though he wanted to tell them shhh everything would be okay even if he knew everything wouldn’t be okay, just the very opposite. Wilson tried to survey the room one last time. His gaze flickered to the surviving kings. Wilson felt a surge of pity. None of them knew they were all just another piece in the game, just like him. They would never know.

He sighed, but couldn’t feel it as he disappeared altogether.

Ying felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. It seemed she was a deck of cards, splayed out in front of the room. Was her hand a lucky one? Was she a full house, or a complete bust.

She'd never know. It was like the cards were turned over, and the faces were blank. She slowly lost her senses, yet it felt like it happened in moments. Her memories of Jing, huddled together as they tried to forge their path through this horrible life. Her memories of the small group of friends she'd acquired over the years, playing blackjack in the ritzy casino. Her hatred for Harrison and his crew, that always lived inside of her like a white hot ball that ate her from the inside.

Her memories served as playing cards. Which ones came up, which disappeared- it didn't really matter, she supposed, in the end. She wasn't a playing card at all, she was a chess piece.

A pawn, to be exact. She was never really important, her movements on the board never really made a difference- not a tangible one anyways. Perhaps she'd altered the way a Knight moved, or a Rook had to change his path to maneuver around her, but in the end she didn't make any of the important plays.

It stung, being useless. Feeling helpless. It hurt to have to replay Jing's death over and over in her mind, wondering if the real Jing was okay- did the real Jing even know her? Questions bubbled up in her mind, over and over. All in moments.

The most frustrating thing was not being able to see the board. She knew her place, but the outcome of the match was never shown to her.

As she laid out her cards before her, the answer was very clear. It was a bunked hand, nothing worth anything. The cards flew into the wind. It was over.

She could not hear nor see nor speak, and to be honest it sucked. Still the copycat could hear nor see when she felt the room begin to rumble. Her brows knitted together and her grip on the walls tightened. Jay slid to the floor so she could press her back against the wall for extra security, but somehow she knew even that would not be enough to save her from whatever was happening. She could imagine the loud, startling sound of something crackling as little grooves began to spread across the walls.

She sighed, but couldn’t hear it. Something terrible and dreadful was happening. Was the room somehow breaking apart? Was this the end? She didn’t even know who else was in the room if there was anyone else at all. Jay had to wonder if Senga had made it to the top as well. Surely everyone who had disappeared on the battlefield had been offered one last opportunity, one last chance to say goodbye. Her bottom lip quivered as she thought, I had my chance, and I lost it. Regret flowed through her tiny frame as she reached for her legs and hugged them to her chest.

But a force tugged at her, pulled at her arms and legs and somehow she could feel herself unraveling like bandages. Jay could utter absolutely nothing as she helplessly allowed the force to break her apart, piece by piece. There was nothing she could do as she relived through her memories a second time before she disappeared for good. There was no coming back to the dead for her.

A single tear slid down her cheek as she took in the warm, golden glow of her kingdom one last time. She wanted to reach out toward the walls and smooth pillars, but now she possessed no fingers to touch them with. Jay was spiraling deeper and deeper into the void. Regret flooded every fiber of her being, whatever her being was composed of. She had wanted to do so much more, brought glory to her kingdom despite the charades and games. She had wanted so much more than this, but she would never get it now.

Her lips moved to form soundless words. I’m sorry.

When it had started, Nkosazana was still smiling.

Really, she noticed the world falling away. As someone leaning against the wall, it was nearly impossible not to feel the brick by brick as they crashed onto the ground, leaving an empty void behind her where once there was feeling. She, too, felt the sudden gust of air blowing in from all sides, fresh, cool oxygen where there hadn't been before, filling her senses and places that ... should not have really had senses, weaving inside and inflating, just filling in a forming gap like the way putty could fill up the leaks of drainage pipes.

Something in Nkosazana was draining, and to be honest, at first, she didn't even realize what it was. In some ways, she felt nothing at all, no pain in her arteries or bones as she felt her fingers fade into the distance, leaving her without anything to touch or to feel with the most tactile place of her body. The fading of senses seemed to fall in easily to her, not bothering her in the slightest as the smile remained.

It crawled up her arm, taking her apart bit by bit, like someone dissembling a jigsaw puzzle, perhaps to put away in a box, never to be put together again.

As she began to realize the overwhelming void that took over her shoulders, her feet, she breathed. Her mind spun in a circle, reviewing all of everything that she had done, everything she had done which had truly, sincerely mattered. There were only so many things that she was, a fragment, never really a whole person and never really truly anything but a pawn to others, a pawn in a fancy game she would never understand the rules of, and understood less of as the sensation crawled up her legs.

Bit by bit she came apart, unraveling like the yarn in a spool, memories going back to before any pillars, any voices telling her she wasn't actually real, any remarks on how that perhaps this was just some big game, and perhaps The Silver Kingdom had never existed. Her mind went further back, up into her gut, about how she had met the people who were closest to her, people like David, and wandered the kingdom day and night, begging to find out more, existing for others, to give them comfort in their days or even some excitement at just getting something that was a bit of a change of pace.

She wasn't sad, though. Somehow, she was never sad.

It was when the sensation twisted through her core that something a bit different was pulled out, an ingrained desire to serve a King which had both never existed and had, the one sign that they had all awakened into what reality was and reality wasn't, the need to be respected, to be part of his court, to do anything to serve, even go against her natural instinct to comb through the very knowledge bases of every kingdom that had existed before and after her own, for the glory of the Silver Kingdom, for the glory of Change.

And yet, that didn't matter, did it? That had never mattered. None of it had truly ever mattered, Nkosazana just a pawn in the game that was played, a toy for someone else's ultimate amusement.

But she still had what she was, didn't she?

... Yeah. At some point, to some people, Nkosazana had meant something.

And even as the shards of what remained blew outwards, she was still smiling.

What was the point of all of this? For a moment Yin, or the fragment of him, considered what could have been. What would his life have been like if it everything was not being stripped from him? Would he eventually have caught up to the mysterious man, found out why he grinned at him, found someone who could possibly have been a friend? No. No he probably would have returned home, tried to seek out what he knew, how he could serve.

That moment was fleeting, and then his memories washed over him. Fragments of thoughts, flashes of images, there and then drug away from him like water lapping at the shore, pulling the bits of sand and shell back into the ocean. Becoming a knight, the memory vivid and then gone. Serving in the King's guard. The death of his beloved Princess Eva. Everything was backwards, and he was glad when the memory of her death was gone, though he really could not remember why. Seeing the small creature in her prime, yipping and tugging at him until he went on a walk, getting him out of his small home. Her as a small kit, playing with him, movements awkward rather than graceful. Him finding a small box, not sure where it had come from, opening it to find a small, three-tailed creature inside. Training, growing up an orphan, not quite sure how to fit in with the other children. School. Flashes of a caretaker.

Nothing.

His senses were the first to go, and while he might have put up a fight the memory to fight the loss quickly left as well.

Memories, simply standing idly by, not sure where he fit into his kingdom, what it meant to be in the afterlife, insecurity. He felt them, but he did not know what he should make of them. He was just a fragment, nothing special, a reflection at best.

If this was his end it was only fitting.

Gene clutched to the chair as the entire place shook, attaching herself with a vice grip. Being disabled brought an entirely new set of fears that she'd never thought to expect; not being able to look to someone for some kind of comfort, not being able to call out someone's name to bring them comfort, not being able to hear someone as they mutually shared their fears. This type of life - it had to be awful.

Then it was gone. She could see, she could hear, she could even speak. She saw herself - no - she saw this world's version of herself. standing before her, blank look pasted to her features and shaking her head like she'd woken from a daydreaming doze.

A frown crossed the real Gene's features as her hand lifted up, reaching out halfway to the Doppelganger's doppelganger. This poor shell of her actual self; what was she thinking about as she was unraveling for the world to see? Her false memories as a tea maker and teacher, perhaps? Maybe she was thinking of the children that had passed through her instructions, and where they had gone. Maybe she thought of the times she and the King had tea together and spent the day away by chatting about the sayings of their false ancestors.

What did this other Gene feel, at this moment? Regret? Sorrow and anguish? Her face seemed to contradict those thoughts, showing what the Doppelganger thought of as reluctance. It was obvious she didn't want to go, but she knew she had to.

The fragments of the figment Gene exploded, throwing the real Doppelganger back and into oblivion.

In the end, he cannot grasp the truth.

The dark room was shaking. Even if he can't see or hear, he can still feel the vibrations from the floor under his feet.

Rei was overwhelmed by a sense of extreme exhaustion as soon as the Voice spoken, and soon he know something was wrong. Very wrong. Fragments? Did that means, all of the residents of this world, each one of every Kingdom's citizen, every single one of them was just a mere...

Illusion?

A mere shadow created from fragmented memories of The Voice. All for a whim of getting a True King back. How important was the True King to The Voice?

He can feel something strange going on. The remaining sense-Touch, is slowly stripped away from his body. Along with that, cracks-or something nearing that traveled through his entire body, dissecting bones and flesh alike...yet didn't cause him any pain.

Is this...the end for us? Where will we end-if we CAN end? Or will we repeat this cycle eternally until The Voice is contented?

The cracks are spreading, and he can feel PIECES of his body fell out like paint chips from old wall. Strangely, he doesn't feel fear nor discomfort.

All he felt right now is...exhaustion. Like an oil lamp nearly exhausted of oil, like a spring in season of drought. He didn't want to act. He didn't want to think. All he wanted right now is to rest. To fade. To cease from existanc-

...

Why?

The girl's face flashed inside his dimming consciousness.

Why did I remember her right now?

Arnyek the Jewel-seller. What would her fate be? To disappear into the darkness like him, or to became the True King?

The image of a warrior-girl, hardened by battles and strife.
That's the memory when their eyes met in the battlefield.
And it disappeared without a trace.

Her eyes, full of sadness and despair. Tiny body that shook from the very image of ruin. That's the memory when the Silver Kingdom collapsed.
And it disappeared without a trace.

Her smile at their first meeting. The gentle eyes which seemed to shone with light of purity. Cheerfulness like those of radiant Sun's warmth.
That's the memory when they first met.
And it, again, finally disappeared without a trace.

And now...
As the cracks has ultimately traveled to his face, Rei closes his eyes. Not with fear, not with sadness, not with grief, but with regret.

...If, by the chance I can meet her again, I will surely tell her.

CRACK.

His face is now split into two, revealing a pure silver fragment, like that of a mirror-inside.

I'm sorry I can't protect you.

And with the collapse of the rest of his facial features, leaving just that Fragment, shining in the darkness around it, the individual known as 'Rei' returned to its root. [ZERO].

Falling from the remains of his body was a bag of water, crumpled paper and a card.


As if it was 'his' last attempt of guessing, the fragment silently landed on that card. What did 'he' want to convey?

It seems that question will remain for eternity...

[REI END]