Rod’s heart stopped beating, and he turned pale with terror. Then his face flushed with embarrassment and anxiety; he stuttered finally, “Well, I am already in jail here.”

“Right, so you might as well stay here for the time being. It won’t be that bad,” replied Aleku.

“With you running the show, I’d take my chances in the prison.”

“You’ll be extradited to serve your sentence.”

“What? Where?” stammered Rod.

“Either in America, where I hear the prisons are literal torture chambers, or on one of my diamond mines in north Africa. Either way, you’ll suffer far more than you will in here. Oh, and don’t think you’ll have human rights or anything. Who do you think owns the United Nations? I’m its biggest doner.”

“I’m not a criminal,” cried Rod. “Why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to either one of you to torture me so?”

“I’m doing this because I care about you,” said Aleku in his squeaky, prepubescent voice. “Also, as Jam correctly pointed out, you should have never met those women in the first place. If this works, then we can do the same to those poor women and remove you from their histories as well. I want you to have no dating experience. I want you to be a eunuch forever - my little eunuch. You’re no good for anybody, anyways. In fact, Jam is right, you are actively harmful to all that is good and pure in the world. You, my good pal, are a blight upon this world. All you do is cause harm, distress and destruction to whomever you meet, to whomever you befriend, to whomever trusts you with their heart. Oh,” Aleku theatrically wiped his brow and exclaimed further, “Perhaps you should be thanking me that you are here and not in the dark, damp and dirty basement where you belong.”

“Why did you choose my first girlfriend as an avatar? Wait, why did I see her before I entered the System? Explain yourself,” he snarled, his heart pounding in a panic, a panic so hot it blared white like a thunderstorm; his voice was short, croaky and broken. Never, in all the days since he had met the Polish fiend, had Rod felt such an emotion as he had then, such an oscillation as this, such an agonising tear, a rip, the pulling of an ancient seal bolted by time; even when he had been broken time after time by the object of his love, he had never felt such anger, such rage, such ferocious, venomous hatred for all things good and mortal as at this moment. It seemed that all the therapy he had invested in since his last break up began to unravel like a thread.

“Think of this as an...opportunity.”

“Opportunity?” repeated Rod incredulously, his jaw hanging open as the seriousness of his decisions dawned upon him. He looked at his hands, which were much smaller than he was used to, and saw that they were trembling. Was he actually the villain that Aleku and Jam made him out to be? For the first time since he could remember, he was at a loss. This confusion was no doubt perpetuating his distress. He was oppressed by his own emotions. What if he was the bad guy? This doubt was driving him crazy. No! No! He kept screaming to himself, so much so that his head was loud and beating and messy and overbearing. Everyone in his life had blamed him over and over for things that he did not mean to do, but felt like he had to do to survive, to make it out, to cope with what life threw at him inexhaustibly. His fingernails curled and dug into his palm, making them white and then pink and then finally red. The pain, the pain, the pain – he felt it localised in the palm; he felt in control, he felt for once he felt... Why did he never go through with it? Why did he think that his life would get better after eighteen? What stupidity: why did he believe in God? Why did he, for years, cling to this silly little notion that there was a deity out there who cared about him, who had a plan for him, who... loved him?

While he was pulled between innocence and guilt, Rod was haunted by memories of the shame he inflicted upon his first girlfriend. His chest tightened, becoming smaller and smaller as though it was eating itself. “Not now,” he thought frantically as he placed a hand over his gnawing heart. He tried to stand but wobbled instead, falling backwards onto his wrists. “I was a fool...”

The Polish boy tilted his head back and erupted into laughter, his jaw hanging loosely open, drifting side to side like a swing, swaying, swaying, all the while his arms crossed tightly in satisfaction. His mind seemed empty, devoid of all the cleverness and intellectual energy his grades would seem to imply; all one could gleam from his eyes was ambition. He was the type of boy who would befriend only to stab in the back.

“After reviewing all your memories,” he began, sighing heavily, shaking his head, “I just want to let you know that you are an idiot.”

“Stop it,” said Rod, his eyes on the floor, lost in thought.

“You are a worthless human being,” continued the younger boy, “and it is all your fault. Even with your recent girl-”

"Careful,” Rod said suddenly, his eyes shooting up in anger. “That’s too far,” he thought quickly. “Too far even for you.”

“Or what?” smirked Aleku, his fat, bulbous cheeks obscuring half his eyes. He knew that he had pushed far too many of his friend’s buttons, but he did not care. He felt elated, overjoyed, almost delirious from the power he wielded. In the real world he was restrained by rules; and no matter how many boundaries he pushed, he was met by more and more rules, and this was so exhausting. But in this world there would be no rules he could not overcome, for he was its programmer; and this came naturally to him, of course, establishing his own rules, because he was forced to by the circumstances of his childhood, although he would never admit that these had any effect on his eventual personality since he was adamant that he had no significant advantageous in his upbringing over his peers, for he his parents never gave him attention unless he excelled in some aspect or another, namely school, and thus he was in his element. He could not understand why others suffered. He could not understand suffering at all. In fact, he did not even know what the word meant; and he had never in his life contemplated this except briefly whenever Rod forced him to ponder such a concept and only because he was then reminded of its existence within the vocabulary of the human race. He pondered, cupping his bare chin and stroking it lightly. He missed his beard because it made him feel manly.

You’re a literal monster,” croaked Rod, and he flew into a rage; he shot up and hurled himself at the middle-class Pole.

Immediately, Aleku threw his hand in front of him and made a grand handwaving motion, yelling, “Forcefield: Activate!”

Instantly, Rod’s body flew backwards as it bounced off an invisible wall like the ball from before, and he landed forcefully on his neck with a gigantic thud. Rod lay silent and motionless, his chest heaving up and down, on the marble-like surface, as if he was knocked unconscious; and indeed, he was, as he was nearly out of his senses. He raised his head in a daze and looked strangely at the man, all the while feeling immense aches and pains in his upper back and neck and head. The younger Polish boy stood looking at him with furrowed brows; his round body remained untouched behind the invisible wall, which shimmered periodically purple.

Aleku sighed, “I didn’t mean to reveal to you the existence of these powers so soon, “they were supposed to be a surprise waiting for you after summer break. Well, you would have found out anyway since you’ll have to battle your primary school classmates anyway to progress.”

But instead of waiting for Aleku to continue his explanation of these superb powers, Rod, afflicted with more and more bodily pain, which only made his internal situation the worse, appeared to increase his intent to inflict harm upon his jailer; his eyes narrowed upon his aggressor as he struggled to his feet, his posture now hunched and his shoulders rolled forward so that his arms hung loosely in front of him. He boiled with rage. He closed his hands, tensing his biceps and forearms in the process, looking at the Pole. The mist was without a gap or a shadow, a space entirely foreign to anything Rod had ever seen before. The sky was arched as though he stood in a gigantic globe or metallic sphere. The glass wall that stood miraculously in front of Aleku glittered even though there was no light to reflect upon it... now that he thought about it, how was this ‘word’ lit? He saw no lights above him. And then he thought, strangely enough at that moment, bizarre even, of women. The air was stifling, however, even though he could distinguish nothing particular about it: it just made his stomach churn like a false sense of security, like a clinical ward. The boy shivered at the vivid memory of his time in the hospital, retching. He wondered why his mind jumped from topic to topic... then he thought of the woman in question, that woman who broke his fucking heart, and he remembered how Aleku had mocked him even then before she finished with him completely. Has she finished with him though? That was the doubt which tore him to pieces every day. It struck his heart like a stranger shanking him in the street.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Don’t bother,” yawned Aleku, “I’ve min-maxed my character. Remember in highschool when we used to play that imaginary game? Everyone took the mick out of us.”

“I remember,” laughed Jam, still hiding his presence behind Aleku.

“Why is he hiding?” Rod thought to himself.

“You always resorted to using Forcefield to block my attacks. Well, it was a good idea, so thanks for that,” said Aleku. “Since the observers to this show cannot see the inner workings of the mind, obviously, and because for the majority of your life you were (and still are) an introverted loser, I thought it best to manifest the psychological into the actual.”

“You were always one to steal ideas,” said Rod, grinding his teeth, his jaw hanging loose like a skeleton. “If you think that I am going to play your silly little game then I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“Come now, don’t be like that. I thought that you wanted to change your past. Well, I’m giving you the opportunity,” replied Aleku, extending his hands.

“Not like this,” cursed Rod.

“Oh, because I have broken the illusion momentarily? Don’t worry, you’ll wake up soon enough in your bed at home for school. You’ll be starting from the beginning, where it all went wrong. You keep going on about trauma, but I do not think that it exists; if it does, prove it! Prove that trauma exists. Because if trauma truly exists, then you will be incapable of escaping it, of managing it, of overcoming it. Everyone has these powers, in varying degrees of course, and you’ll have to master your own abilities if you’re going to survive.”

Rod figured that his out-of-touch friend was simply, well, out of his mind. He hadn’t come back to be able to conjure up magical forms and play around like a child. To tell the truth, Rod had consented to the invasive procedure simply because he wanted to change his personality so that he could form long-lasting relationships with women. However, the thought of having super-powers, or whatever they’re supposed to be, made him feel sick. He stood eyeing his rival with hate.

Aleku returned the glare. “No wonder she left you,” he said coldly, his splintered teeth on full display.

“You didn’t have to add all this videogame shit to the world, like forcefields! Or are you just fucking with me?” he snapped, clenching his fists, spluttering with intense and hot rage like a pot of boiling water gone mad.

"Didn’t you hear me? No wonder she left you,” Aleku laughed and jutted out his squeaky-clean chin in taunt. “Do you honestly think that learning Polish will get her back? Are you that thick headed? No wonder everyone leaves you eventually. No wonder you have no friends outside us.”

“Ahhh!” he shouted, shaking his head uncontrollably like a wild beast; it seemed to come out of him like a gasp, as though he was drowning under the enumeration of all his deepest things that he was most ashamed about, what his self-worth rested upon. The air began to pop around the youth’s ankles even though it seemed that he had not moved a muscle, and his face scrunched with determination like a paper bag.

“You’re a shitty dude,” said Aleku seriously, with a finality and tone of voice that would kill even the bubbliest of child.

His eyes turned glazed and hallow. “I’ll kill you,” he said hoarsely, his face dark and overshadowed by contempt. He had lost all sense of time and space, his mind turning black like the gutter.

Rod launched at the baby-faced Pole, leaving a trail of gust in his wake, screaming incoherently, his arms flapping manically at his side; when he was face to face with Aleku, he used his extremities as weapons, violently throwing them at his rival with blistering speed; they moved with an odd and spectacular expression, much like tentacles and whips, as they cut through the air at incredible velocity.

“Forcefield; Activate!” screamed Aleku, an expression of shock betrayed upon his ordinarily smug face. He threw out his arm in a wave motion just before Rod’s feral fist made contact with his jaw, and instantly the giant wall was erected to intercept; immediately upon contact with Rod’s knuckles, the wall splashed a dark, spotty and oily purple, like a puddle reflecting a rainbow, or of dish-soaped bubbles.

There was no stopping the flurry of mad punches and kicks flown by the angered child: rage had usurped the throne of the intellect; rage which had been suppressed for too long now came up out of the volcano of emotions; it had been living in a dark cavern all this time, pushed and pushed away like some shameful family secret, and had looked on over the plain at the rest who were together, who frolicked across the river and across the mountains in the backdrop. It could only imagine that it was there, white in the heat and cold in the river. That’s why it came out; and that’s why it was out at then. But of course, it was never welcome; consequently, it kept in the cavern where it was dark, only looking out at the valley, out of sight with studious eyes. Whomsoever did see it, however, quickly learned that it was there for a reason.

The wall kept; it splashed purple, sometimes green and yellow depending on the ferocity of the impacts. When the integrity of the wall was nearly depleted, Aleku waved again, announcing his intention: “Forcefield; Activate!”

But the child kept beating the wall without any sign of stopping. Aleku was surprised because Rod was ordinarily a very lazy man in his estimation, and in all honestly everyone else’s, and so to see him continuing the assault for such a long while had him impressed. He almost felt bad for min-maxing his character beforehand, thus making his effort all effectively worthless. Do not think that Aleku had improved in his opinion of the man-child, on the contrary, he thought it even more pathetic that he could show such passion for something as silly as what he was showing passion for at that moment. There was a certain satisfaction one could gain from seeing a man descend into such a state as this, such an emotion state, such a weakness of character in contrast with his ordinary presentation. Aleku was always, against his own conscious awareness of course, jealous of Rod. And although Aleku on the surface mocked him for his shameful display of emotional immaturity towards a failed relationship that had ended several years ago, he was, like Rod’s rage, inwardly and shamefully jealous that such a man was more capable of emotional expression than he was; for he was always punished for showing emotion growing up. There was no emotion allowed in the Polish household: He had to perform at all costs. And so, like Rod’s rage, but even more deceptively, the entirety of the spectrum of human emotions was suppressed in that tiny little cavern behind the mountainous valley. Only anger, if it resulted in academic and productive excellence, was allowed to enjoy the white-hot sunshine and the white skirt of nurture.

Aleku grunted, a smirk plastered between two chubby cheeks as he thought rapidly, trying to come to terms with this out blast of emotion from his childhood friend; normally Rod was quite reserved; he complained, of course, nearly every day, but it was not anything serious. So why, he wondered, was Rod thrashing so severely? Did he want a girlfriend this bad? Why?

You see, our moderately average-height Pole, with his puffy, dark khaki baby-sheened face and long, gorgeous hair, for his younger self had hair, could not share in his taller friend’s fixation on a relationship with a woman; he had not the slightest sympathies for such a man. It was not that he could not develop such relationships with other women, it was that he held the belief, or rather, did not hold the belief, which was found in his friend’s internal apparatus, that he could, or, on the other hand, could not, live without a woman; in other words, he could provide himself that which the latter could not fathom to provide himself. Aleku was a man who was allowed to feel and act like a man, who was allowed to break free from his mother; he was allowed to expand out of the womb, if you will, and return whenever he wanted.

For the last ten or so years, Aleku had successfully broken away from the familial home, extending himself out. He had ventured far across the world alone, comfortably disobeying his mother. He was secure in himself, at least so far as women were concerned. However, Aleku was not a reflective man at all, and so he was dumbstruck by the differences between him and other people. And Rod, now, he looked at with particular curiosity. Really, by his own admission, Aleku, despite how many times he was angered by the latter’s revolting personality, was always pulled back in by something... It was a sort of innocence, a childishness, a vulnerability that Aleku lacked, or rather, was too ashamed to admit himself. He had tried to distance himself, to move on, to advance in the world, but to be frank, he did not respect a lot of people. Or did he? This was why he kept coming back to Rod, despite how many times the latter disgruntled him, made him mad, sent him into a torturous drunken rage; it was because Rod made him think new thoughts, made him question even his most bases assumptions about the world and himself. Aleku was smarter, stronger, wealthier, and yet he felt inferior to Rod secretly. Why? This angered Aleku. This intensified the fire inside that cavern. He was smarter than him; he was more hardworking as well, and better at maths...

All the while Aleku was thinking about these things, Rod was watching him. He had been eyeing him since the beginning, putting on a show of uncontrollability, lashing about at apparent random. All in all, this was an obviously pointless strategy, except Rod had been throwing his hands and feet in a deceptive pattern, training his younger friend (only by a month, but still) to look out for the next attack. Of course, Rod knew that Aleku did not need to be able to predict where his next punch or kick would come, for the forcefield was stationary and extended wide enough to protect the entirety of his body, but he counted on the middle-class foreigner’s overconfidence and pride. And he knew also that Aleku, as smart as he was, would never ever counter such a strategy, even if he was aware of it, for his own pride would prohibit such an intellectual challenge: Aleku had to, for his own peace of mind, even though he did not believe in the concept of mental health or that it could deteriorate, accept any and every intellectual challenge thrown his way – he had to be the absolute best. And Rod counted on it.

“You had enough yet,” said Aleku , raising his thick brown eyebrows and still wearing that stupid, albeit strained, smug smile which spoke evil.