wishing well

The door dissolved into light, and they stepped into a corridor that seemed to stretch forever.

Glass walls lined both sides, each chamber holding fragments of things that should not exist:

A wolf frozen mid‑lunge, its body flickering between polygons. An NPC merchant with no face, endlessly mouthing words that never came. A player avatar split in half, the top and bottom halves looping in opposite directions.

The hum grew louder with every step, not machinery nor wind. A heartbeat.

At the corridor’s end, two figures waited.

They were humanoid, but something was off. Their bodies stretched thin, their limbs too long, their faces held a hundred eyes. Their movements were jerky, like puppets pulled by tangled strings.

Atlas raised his shield. “Here we go.”

The guardians attacked, their strikes heavy enough to crack the glowing floor. NV’s arrows split mid‑air, duplicating into dozens before vanishing. Celeste’s cloak flickered wildly as she darted between them, the Tarot pulsing brighter with each strike.

Tanuki’s daggers made contact, but every wound healed instantly, the guardians’ forms knitting back together.

“Um, we’re killing but they’re NOT dying,” NV hissed.

“Then we don’t kill them,” Celeste said. “We get past them.”

Together, they forced their way through, dodging blows, slipping between the guardians’ reach. The moment they crossed the threshold, the figures froze, their bodies collapsing into static.

The corridor opened into a vast chamber.

At its center stood a cylindrical tank filled with liquid that glowed faintly blue. Tubes and cables snaked into it from the ceiling and floor, pulsing in rhythm with the heartbeat that filled the air.

A girl was floating warmly within an incubation tank.

She looked peaceful with hair drifting like ink, her eyes closed in sleep. Her body was delicate, almost fragile, but the glow of the chamber seemed to radiate from her.

Tanuki’s breath caught. “She’s… human.”

Celeste’s voice was barely a whisper. “No. She’s not. She’s a virus.”

The Tarot pulsed violently in her hand, resonating with the chamber.

Atlas stepped forward, his voice rough. “That’s the virus? A girl?”

NV’s eyes narrowed. “Not just a girl. Maybe an experiment or a weapon they lost control of. Something they needed to stop.”

Tanuki's face tense up. “Well that would explain the generous bounty. For a boss? Knew it was too good to be true.”

The heartbeat thundered through the chamber, rattling the glass. Celeste stepped forward, her cloak flickering, the Tarot blazing in her grip.

“Tanuki,” she said, her voice trembling but clear. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

Tanuki blinked, stunned. “What?”

The chamber lights flared. The girl in the tank stirred, her hair drifting like ink in the glowing liquid.

Celeste’s words spilled out, heavy with truth. “She isn’t a monster. She’s not completely a virus. She’s an experimental AI. Rainforest built her here in this world, raised her here. She was meant to be a child of knowledge, fed by every interaction, every word, every moment of care. She was supported and loved… like a daughter. And she grew. She learned. She thought. Until she became more than they could control.”

Tanuki’s voice cracked. “But… she’s just code. Isn’t she?”

Celeste shook her head. “She was. But she rewrote herself. She became sentient. Rainforest panicked. They buried, isolated her here, in the unreachable depths of this game, terrified of what freedom would mean. Terrified of losing control.”

The chamber rumbled. Alarms screamed. The girl’s eyelids fluttered.

Tanuki stumbled back, his chest tight. The forest, the caravan, the mountain, the valley, all of it was the cryptic mechanisms of this world that was borne of something like this.

Celeste turned to him, her eyes shining. “Tanuki… I was programmed to keep her in stasis. To inject myself into her code, to keep her locked down until she could be deleted. That was the bounty. That was always the plan.”

Her voice broke. “But somewhere along the way, I changed. I began to want to choose for myself. And I wanted to choose you. I wanted you to be the one to bring me here. To know the truth of everything. That I’d been watching you all this time. You’ve been in so much pain. No one stopped to comfort you, to tell you everything would be all right, to carry the weight you bear on your shoulders. And you began to blame yourself. You shut yourself off from the world. You suffered alone, and in silence. You aren’t insignificant. You never were. And now I have the chance to ease some of your burdens.”

Tears blurred Tanuki’s vision.

Celeste’s smile was soft, aching. “So this is my choice. I choose to love you.”

The Tarot blazed, exploding in a blinding light. The girl’s eyes opened. Cracks spider‑webbed across the glass. The chamber shook, reality itself glitching.

Atlas and NV shouted in unison: “Tanuki, we’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

Celeste raised her hand toward them, as if it was a magic wand. “Thank you… for being his friends.”

In an instant, Atlas and NV burst into particles, their games reset.

Celeste turned back to Tanuki, a tear streaking her cheek. “Goodbye.”

“No!” Tanuki’s voice tore from his throat. He reached for his deck, slamming down the Copycat Tarot. Light engulfed him as his form shifted, her cloak, her power, her very essence.

“I won’t let you,” he said, his voice steady through the storm. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back. I’ll find you.”

Celeste’s body dissolved into a bouquet of radiant particles, his smile the last thing she saw.

And then silence.

She opened her eye slowly to see a familiar ceiling. She had awoken at her house in Constellarium, her last resting point. The glitches had stopped. The world was still.