your name is

Your name is Anesid Elpisa.

You stare up at the massive computer monitor in front of you. It’s the only thing you’ve decided to put in your dream bubble. What’s the point of anything else, you think. It’s not like you’ll be doing anything but pouring over your mistakes, one by one.

Trollian is open. Not like there’s anyone else to talk to anymore. But you do see the chatlogs it contains. You’ve read them over and over, back from the very beginning.

You remember the first time you ever came in contact with your friends. Scrolling through the old chats, you see yourself getting to know each and every one. Some of them tested you, and though at the time you had been annoyed, you never let on that you really did enjoy their company.

Sure, your temper was short. Sure, you didn’t take the cracks at you as well as the others did. It didn’t always seem like you cared so much, but you did. They could tell it, too. You remember the jokes they made about you, about how even after they entered the game that they wouldn’t need their lusii, because they had you. You were harsh and humourless, but at the end of the day you were the first to come up in defense of your “children.”

It was only fitting then that fate would tie you back, make you watch as every single one of them was snapped in front of you.

You keep reading through the logs and find the moment when the trouble started. Emeiel’s normal shy, quiet demeanour giving way to increasingly maddened ramblings. Finding out he had died and not even ascending could save him, and the sinking, horrible feeling that it was the best ending for him. The first signs of the glitch that he’d foretold, and the havoc it wreaked on everyone’s minds. Losing your space and time players in the same moment. Finding that even your attempts to reset the game would not work, and that whoever was still alive had to stay in this decaying session. Trying to do the best for the only two left, but having them slip through your fingers as well.

Your ascension was the final cruel joke. Hope? There was none. There is none.

Starting the game released a flood of horrors and pain. It’s been sealed, but only you remain, locked inside with no end in sight.

Your name is Anesid Elpisa.

You tried your best.

It wasn’t your fault.

But that doesn’t change how it ended.

They’re all gone now.

And you’re all alone.

With nothing but the flickers of the computer screen, the vestiges of memories, happy and painful, for your company.

--

your hand rests on the old, dusted box. you undo the rusted lock and lift the lid. the hinges creak in protest, but it opens. you are unsure if what you find inside is a gift or a curse, but you keep it close. it’s been alone for a long time.