“If we aren’t real, there’s no point in existing,” I say. “Without genuine love, I don’t want to exist. So I’m leaving this place, Kalxor. I’m doing what I’ve always been destined to do. And when I wake up, I’ll have you again. Our love will finally be real. This is the exit.”
I turn again and watch as the lone villager stands, bearing the same knife my father had been sharpening earlier. Yes, all of this is going according to plan.
The Furnace will burn away this world, completing the cycle my father designed for me. My redemption story.
“Open source command,” the villager says.
My jaw drops. My body drops a few degrees in temperature. My eyelids droop, but I can still see and listen to my surroundings. I just can’t move.
“Don’t end this,” Kalxor says.
But just as he reaches the last step, that strange character drives his blade down, piercing my flesh. It seers into my metallic bones, revealing the blood of a machine, stabbing through the designed organ that is my heart.
My body destabilizes. I feel Kalxor’s hands form around my spine as I fall backward, eyes thrust open to a beautiful, blue sky. A glorious sun shines down on me, and its bright rays seem to encapsulate my very being.
“No!” Kalxor roars.
The villager pulls the knife back, eyes wide with feverish benevolence. An unbearable pain breaks through my chest, thrusting me into deep spasms that ricochet outward.
But as my blood drains down my stomach, a sense of calm rushes over me. A pleasure I’ve never known, let alone felt, takes over.
Peace. At long last. Peace.
I witness my alien beast, and I smile because I’m so fucking proud of everything we have achieved together. Even when we thought it was all over, we never gave up.
He holds me against his abdomen, hands cupping around the unfixable wound. “I couldn’t save you,” he cries. “I tried. But I couldn’t do it. I have failed as an alpha.”
I choke.
“We weren’t meant for hope. We were meant for heartbreak,” I say. “But we have been given a new path forward. We have learned to love.”
This isn’t a dream. It’s not a nightmare, nor is it a simple simulation.
It’s the most complex story I’ve ever known, complete with love, lust, and so much more. It is an elaborately scripted masterpiece, a narrative held together by some outside force.
It was somehow made through the data of other people’s stories. Other people’s hopes and dreams. So many of them sacrificed for us to get here.
I’m leaving this place.
“I’ll never forget you,” I say.
And I mean it this time. He’s a part of me.
And I’m a part of him.
14
Kalxor
You never see it coming. The end. Loss is inevitable, but when it strikes, it’s fucking blindsiding. Like a freight train. Only, it’s so much worse. You’re still alive, staring into the abyss. Just you and God.
Ava was my everything. The woman I never truly had. I’m as hard as fucking bull, but my strength…
My strength left with her.
I’m exhausted. A broken alpha with nothing left to lose. I only wanted her. That’s it.
So I do what I was programmed to do. I kill for her.