SCENARIO 1
“Luka, live with love.“
Only then was he able to register what was happening, and nothing mattered because Hyuna was dead.
“Embrace the pain, the frailty, and the moments so unbearably shameful.”
So this was her revenge, and her final act of love.
SCENARIO 2
Everything mattered because Hyuna was alive.
SCENARIO 89
Where Hyuna leaned in for a kiss on his cheek, he met her square on the lips, instead. Her ring, matching Luka’s own, was cold against his cheek.
And they laughed in unison, and everything was fine, at least in that moment. He felt invincible, like no fate so unfortunate could ever befall him so long as he was in her presence. His talisman.
End scenario, next universe.
SCENARIO 87
MIZI WIN.
SCENARIO 88
So then, Sua thought, an onslaught of despair, nausea, and dread hitting her all at once. She had failed to protect Mizi from all the things she thought too repulsive for her to bear witness to.
And what was her life for if not Mizi? What was the point of a win which Mizi could not celebrate alongside her? What was a universe without being able to glance at a crowd and immediately clock Mizi, because that was what lovers did, search for vestiges of each other in everything.
Now, she would spend her whole life searching for vestiges of someone who did not exist.
SUA WIN.
SCENARIO 839
She succeeded in saving Till and thought with a dull stinging sensation which formed in her eyes and in the back of her throat, finally, after all these deaths, a win.
Nobody ever had to die. But at least she’d intervened before Till did.
SCENARIO 840
She was right there, and only a split second too late.
SCENARIO 1084
ROUND 6, MIZI VS TILL.
MIZI WIN
SCENARIO 7388
They were all laughing at their escape, how easy it had been in retrospect, and Till stared into the distance of what used to be Anakt Garden.
So that was it?
In his imagination, Ivan asked, “Are you happy?“
To which he, in his imagination, replied truthfully, “I don’t know.”
But not knowing was better than flat out no, so he followed them and basked in the stretched blanket that was the stars.
SCENARIO 7389
They didn’t get far before they were caught, so that beautiful daydream drew to a close.
SCENARIO 2
Thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions.
SCENARIO 3
Where else would I find such a heavenly garden?
SCENARIO 73
He pulled the trigger at the same time that Till mouthed something.
NO —
SCENARIO 5983
“You don’t know how to skate, Sua?“ Mizi laughed, and at Sua’s flushed reaction, she took both hands in Sua’s and guided her.
She’d spend life guiding her, if only she so asked.
SCENARIO 6000
Luka lost in the first round and the world was better off without him, anyway.
SCENARIO 9839
Nothing mattered because Luka died.
SCENARIO 1
As she bled out in his arms, he could only repeat the words over and over in his mind;
Maybe in another universe.
But in this one, as long as Anakt Garden existed, as long as humans had no emancipation, they would always be born to perform and then die at the whims of other’s entertainment.
So this was what grief felt like. Like love, a pervasive, degenerative disease.