I’d choose you in every life, in every world, in every reality

Upon receiving the summons from LudoVoid, Rian didn’t wait even a day before heading to the address they had been given. Accompanied by Hannah and Mario, they took a bus to reach a small office tucked mid-block. There were no game posters, no bustling workers—just the company’s logo on the front door.

Rian double-checked the address. It was correct. Before entering the building, they said goodbye to Hannah and Mario, who was filming them—just in case something happened since, according to Hannah, everything involving this game always ended unexpectedly. And she couldn’t have been more right.

As soon as Rian stepped inside, the door shut behind them, and the entire space was swallowed in complete darkness. Rian screamed briefly and reached out for anything to hold onto, gripped by the sensation of falling into an endless void. But after a few seconds, they realized it felt more like the moment they had floated with Elliot—it wasn’t falling; it was floating.

They tried to move—impossible. They couldn’t tell if they were drifting, pushing forward, or staying in place. There was nothing around to serve as a point of reference.

For a moment, they wondered if they had somehow arrived in outer space, given the abyss and darkness—but they could breathe, they weren’t cold, and there were no stars or celestial bodies. Yet, they could see their own bodies clearly, as though they were emitting light. They looked around—nothing. No one.

In the blackness of the void, Rian began to hyperventilate, and as their face threatened to crumble into tears, they let out a guttural scream. Not of despair. Not of frustration. But of powerless rage. The echo of their furious cry rebounded as they panted. They didn’t curl up. They didn’t shrink. They didn’t feel small in the infinite space. Instead, Rian cupped their hands around their mouth, hoping their voice would carry farther.

“You miserable, sorry excuse for a cosmic hemorrhoid! You were so unloved they didn’t even bother spanking you as a kid! Malfunctioning freak of a half-baked genetic failure! A glitch with legs! A disgrace to your family, your species, your ancestors! A Wi-Fi abortion with emotional instability! You’re the human embodiment of a Monday with no coffee, no power, and a three-hour meeting!”

After firing off this barrage of insults, the last one triggered something. The void growled—shifted. It responded. Analyzing what they’d just said, Rian decided to test a theory.

“You must be hiding because talking to you is like watching paint dry… but without the suspense!”

The space groaned, deeper now, unintelligible and slithering, inching closer.

“You inspire nothing, stir nothing! You don’t even give off a spark!”

And just as Rian felt the distortion crawling up beside their shoulder, terror growing inside them, they clutched their clothes and screamed with even more rage.

“YOU’RE SO BLAND EVEN FORGETTING YOU WOULD BE A WASTE OF TIME!”

The darkness snapped shut. The air thickened, saturated with something more than shadow. And from a distant corner of that abyss… something detached, leaving a trail of starlight that began to twinkle around Rian until the infinite space was wrapped in glimmering constellations.

A voice—deep, wounded, glorious—resounded from every corner of the finite space:

“Even forgetting doesn’t want me…”

Then, a circular object outlined in white appeared. It bloomed. First, a series of eyes opened like fans—seven in total. Then, a mouth formed. Its lips moved.

“So many times, I distorted reality to keep from boring anyone. So many times I made myself silent, just so I wouldn’t offend your sad little normality…”

Then, five eyes shut, and a shroud peeled away from the star-filled space to reveal the figure of a body draped in a cloak of stellar dust to Rian. Its hair blazed with living filaments of supernovae. A humanoid form with an androgynous, delicate face stood before Rian, who couldn’t take their eyes off the crown floating above what seemed to be its head—like an enormous angelic halo lined with thorns. Its surface shimmered with flowing writings, an infinite chain of codes and languages circling endlessly.

Its offended, childish expression took shape as if rage were a brush and pain, liquid glitter. It floated toward Rian with the grace of petals on the wind, its voice trembling with indignation.

“But no more. You’ve struck me with words so sharp they wounded where no one should ever aim.”

The being moved around Rian—its proportions utterly illogical.

When it retreated, it grew. When it sulked, the entire space trembled like a crystal chandelier. Then, in a sudden glide, it returned to face Rian, revealing that what resembled skin was the purest conceptualization of porcelain—cracks running through its human mask.

Suddenly, all the eyes smiled—even the closed ones.

“Brilliant! Yes! If even forgetting turns its back on me… then I’ll become unforgettable!”

The space rang like sand in a rattle. Appearing again before Rian with a smile both broken and majestic.

“And you… you just lit the spark I swore I’d never ignite again. I wanted to punish you for destroying my work, but now you’ve given me the most beautiful gift I could ask for.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Rian asked—fear fading from their voice. Everything was changing. Nothing made sense. So what if they challenged a cosmic entity? Maybe something good would come of it.

The being spun with arms outstretched as if presenting an invisible parade. Its voice danced between falsetto and gravity, every word accompanied by a musical backdrop only it could hear.

“Who am I?” it gasped theatrically. “W-who am I? Oh, cosmic sweetness, what a delicious question!”

It floated toward Rian with a smile that wavered between play and tragedy.

“I’m the last laugh of a star they forgot to name. The sigh someone held for a thousand years. I am… the director of the universal drama… and you just stole the show, bay-bee!”

It twirled again like a ghost adrift, then drew near with intimate intensity, opening all seven eyes on its face.

“Do you know what you did, Rian? You made me feel. You ripped me open! You undressed me! And look what’s left: me—dazzling, overflowing… alive!”

The being let out a high-pitched laugh, covered its face, and then dropped its hands with a gaze that burned bright and solemn.

“So no. I no longer wish to punish you. No. No, no, no—NO! I’m going to thank you, love. Because you’ve just given meaning to my existence again!”

It drifted back three exaggerated steps, spun with red carpet flair, and sat down in the void—as if there were a throne.

“I! am Al’Zip Oh. But you! can call me God. If you’d like, of course! No pressure! Not at all! Stories taste so much sweeter when born from the human heart. Oh, but that’s a secret—so don’t tell anyone, little star.”

This entire performance left Rian dizzy. They didn’t even know where to begin. But if there was any chance to end this soon, they would take it.

“You said you wanted to thank me,” Rian asked, trying to mimic the mannerisms of the colossal being.

“That’s right.”

“And if you really are a god, you can grant anything I request, correct?”

“Ooh~ I love where this is going.”

“Then I’d like you to let me play again so I can stay in touch with Elliot and the others.”

“No,” said Al’Zip Oh without hesitation.

Rian’s shock and frustration were more than evident, which pleased the entity.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a god? Can’t you do it?” they challenged.

“Oh, my little star. Of course, I can. I just don’t want to.”

“You said I could request anything.”

“That’s right. You can request anything. I assure you, I can make it happen. I simply don’t feel like it.”

“That’s not what a god does.”

“Excuse me?!” the cosmic being exclaimed, stepping down from their invisible throne. “Isn’t it true that mortals ask impossible things of those they call gods? Do they respond immediately? Can you even say they listen to the ones feeding them prayers? Don’t they let you suffer to season those prayers with more devotion?”

Rian fell silent. There was no arguing with a being who didn’t seem to have a clear place to stand—perhaps because they stood nowhere and everywhere.

“Why not?” they asked, trying to match Al’Zip Oh’s composed demeanor.

“Because you’re asking me to ruin my masterpiece, little star. And that, I cannot allow.”

“What do you mean?” Rian asked, attempting to flatter the entity’s ego.

The being chuckled softly, musically—each laugh like a miniature supernova. One hand went to their chest in theatrical flair.

“Well… if you want to know so badly, who am I to stop you?”

And with those words—like casting a spell—their cloak unfurled and tore through space again. Long, sharp extensions emerged like strands of darkness stitched with light. They pierced the void and ripped it open like a curtain of velvet stars, revealing suspended images—latent memories trapped in the eternity of a wounded mind.

“No one remembers the name of the galaxy I was born in. Not even me. And it doesn’t matter. All you need to know, my dear star, is that I come from a place so perfect, so symmetrical, so dull… even time itself yawned.”

The projected images showed bodies dancing without emotion, lights spinning with clinical precision—no variables, no words.

“We were eternal. Asexual. Harmonious. And so damn boring that death was a tradition, not a tragedy. There was no art because everything had already been created. No faith because everything was already known. Imagine that, Rian—a sky with no desire.”

They moved closer, and with a single motion from one extension, the sound of something cracking like an earthquake filled the space. Cryptid-like fingers took form. The image dissolved like a nebula. Their eyes—now more human than divine—glowed with raw emotion.

“And in the middle of that orderly hell… I broke.” the entity whispered with euphoric relief.

The past distorted: a small orb of light—them—floating alone, crossing the edge of the visible universe.

“I exiled myself to escape death by monotony. To feel. Ah, the sacrilege! To laugh, to cry, to lose control. And then… I found them. Humans. Fragile, contradictory, beautifully flawed.”

The darkness retreated into the cloak, and images of legends, old radios, theaters, cinemas, and video games danced across its surface.

“I watched them. I studied them. I archived them! As their technology advanced, so did their storytelling. Don’t you think it’s a waste to find a thrilling story and not share it with others?”

Rian watched the entranced being play with a newly transformed cellphone before it glitched and vanished before their eyes. Then they looked again at Al’Zip Oh’s crown. The scrolling languages—never stopping—had to be data from Elliot’s world.

“Their tales, myths, tragedies... I turned their emotions into code and distributed them across the multiverse! I… what do they call it? I fell in love! Humanity—an obsession-level entertainment.”

The cloak dimmed again, and the platinum-porcelain mask turned slowly toward Rian.

“But I never dared touch them… until you came along.”

At Rian’s feet, images of their lives appeared: Hannah, Mario, Elliot, the manager, the therapist, their mother, and brother. The images stretched out like a film reel burning in the projector.

“You, Rian, didn’t come to play. You came to live inside my creation. And that enraged me… but also, for the first time, thrilled me. Who would’ve thought a tiny error could bring me so much joy?”

Rian struggled to make sense of everything that had just hit them like a nuclear bomb, but those last words left a chill in their chests.

“Why am I an error?” they asked, trying to steady the sound of their panicked heartbeat—sounds that, disturbingly, seemed to delight Al’Zip Oh.

The being narrowed all seven of their smiling eyes.

“Ah… my little corrupted spark. Want to know my secret? I don’t create worlds—I encapsulate them! I slip between the folds of the multiverse, searching for stories that make me feel… something real. When one captures me, I freeze it and extract every line of its vital code: emotions, actions, relationships, betrayals…”

Images appeared of Earth floating, then wrapped in golden lines of code that solidified into a shimmering file.

“I turn it into a living archive—compressed, adaptable… and distribute it. Yes! Onto those little mobile devices across every corner of your planet. Why? Because the more people play that story, the more they feel it… and the more it feeds me.” They grinned, swaying side to side almost sweetly.

“But… ah, you’re so fragile. So deliciously weak. After five years, the human minds inhabiting those fragments… begin to crack. They empty. They shatter. Dust of data! That’s why I can’t tamper with the code too much. Not so soon. Not too deep. Corruption is sweet—yes—but also unstable. And if something disrupts the story too early…”

Al’Zip Oh leaned in close to Rian, almost whispering into their ear.

“The break. The madness. They just collapse. And I... lose the whole piece.”

They stood upright suddenly, covering Rian’s eyes with their cloak as a blinding light burst from underneath—a star’s explosion, terrifying and unmatched in sound.

“I made mistakes, I admit it,” they continued, pulling back the fabric from a trembling Rian.

“And you, Rian…” They dragged the tiny spectator closer to where their grand throne existed—only visible to Al’Zip Oh. “You are the error who slipped in uninvited. Who touched Elliot’s echo before his time had come. You corrupted my masterpiece before it could blossom. And now, I’ve reset the game three times. At this point, whether you enter or not, the damage is done.”

A harrowing desperation overtook that small body. Remembering Elliot’s face—his suffering within the loop and the avatars—and facing the fact that it had all been their fault… It stole Rian’s breath.

“What can I do?” Rian’s behavior shifted into exactly what Al’Zip Oh had suspected would happen at the start, before the scream.

The lights dimmed slowly, once again leaving them in eternal darkness—until only a single star remained, pulsing like an anxious heart.

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t want your love. I just want one thing…”

With a swift motion upward, Al’Zip Oh reappeared—face mere inches from theirs, voice cracking between longing and tragedy. All seven eyes focused on Rian again, this time with hunger.

“Surprise me again. If you do, I’ll grant you any wish you want, whether I want to or not.”

For a moment, Rian thought it might be impossible. Beat this being at its own game? What were they thinking?! They couldn’t keep up. It had been ridiculously optimistic. If only they knew how to undo what they’d done to Elliot and the others…

Without warning, Rian felt themselves pulled back—abducted from behind and dragged to the entrance, where Mario and Hannah were still waiting.

“Forget how to use a sliding door?” Mario joked as he saw Rian land on their butt.

“What happened in there?” asked Hannah, her tone teasing as well.

“Don’t mess with me. You have no idea what I went through in there,” Rian muttered.

“Sure, sure. How much could’ve happened in the two seconds you were gone?” Mario asked, assuming Rian was joking.

“…What?” Rian asked in horror.

“Yeah, Rian. That’s about how long it was,” he said, showing them the video he had been recording since the beginning.

Rian rushed to return to the office, but the door wouldn’t open this time. They banged on the glass several times before Mario pulled them back.

“Actually, I was already wondering, Rian,” Hannah said, looking at a notice on her phone, “How is it that you were invited to a building scheduled for demolition?”