David wakes up in a dark abyss. He moves forward, and sees Anna in bright-colored clothes, she joyfully runs around him and keeps saying, “Catch me when I fall David! Catch me when I fall!” he doesn’t understand what she means and keeps looking at her. He clenches his fist and takes a deep breath, “Anna! I want you, I...I think I am in love with you!”

As soon as he says this, she starts running away from him, he watches her run away and suddenly the Overseer appears in front of her. He takes her hand and looks at him, “For the future, we must all sacrifice people dear to us, you will have to give her up if you want to stop Reed!”

Anna starts screaming and the Overseer takes her away. David stands still and keeps yelling, “No! No! Don’t take her away!” and suddenly wakes up, gasping for air, “What a fucking nightmare!” he says as he gets up and goes outside his room.

Anna is awake and is watching the news on the holo-screen. She sees him coming from the room and asks him to sit with her on the sofa.

They both watch the news when suddenly he clears his throat and says, “Anna, do you really trust the Overseer?” She looks at him and decreases the volume of the news. “Yeah, why are you asking this?” he looks at her with an intense gaze and says, “What if he is using us against Reed and has his own plans, I mean the man is from the future, and unlike us, he has nothing to hold him back. Then why can’t he just travel back in time and kill Reed when he was young or maybe kill him right now?”

“What if in the end when we take down Reed he takes over? He ordered me and Bill to steal the ‘Chronoton scanner’ a device that can predict a person’s future, which doesn’t make sense. He is from the future so why does he need that device?”

She starts pondering on his questions and after a few moments says, “You know what, you made some good points. I never thought of this, and I feel rather stupid that I didn’t.”

They watch the news for a while and then decide to get some rest. Before they could go to their rooms, someone rings the doorbell. Anna looks at the doorbell cam and sees a man in a black trench coat. David looks at him too and says, “Be careful Anna, I don’t like this guy.”

She opens the door and says, “Yes, who is this?” the man looks at her and smiles, “I am an HPD agent, we’ve had reports of a new face settling in this building, and ever since he arrived…he is causing all sorts of trouble for the neighbors. Here is his photo; do you know this guy, Ms. Julie?”

Anna looks at the holographic image of David and gets rattled by it, she doesn’t respond to the man who reads her expression and says, “Ms. Julie, hello? Have you seen this man?”

She shakes her head and says, “No...No I don’t think I have. I would like to sleep now, big day tomorrow. Bye now! Hope you find this man!” she says as she closes the door. She tells David about this and he becomes cautious. He grabs Anna’s arm and takes her to her room, “Stay inside, things might turn ugly in a few minutes. Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone!”

She gets scared and asks, “What’s going on? Did you know that guy? Are we in danger?” he doesn’t answer her and closes the door. She locks the door and sits on her bed frightened. David takes his plasma gun from his room and waits in the lounge.

In the elevator, the man speaks on his comms, “You were right to doubt Anna Maximus sir, this apartment has been purchased on a false name. I can confirm she was Anna Maximus and not some Julie Alvarez. How do you want us to precede sir?”

On the other side Dorian replies, “Go in quietly, David might have an enhancer and would teleport somewhere else if he finds out we are coming for him. We need to catch him right now before he slips away. Ready your team with shock rounds, we need him alive for questioning. Also, be careful he is a very dangerous man!”

The man gears up with his team of three men and goes back to the apartment. He uses a silent breach charge to break the lock on the door and they quietly go inside. They check their corners and proceed to the lounge where they see a chair out of place.

Out of nowhere a tiny cylinder comes flying and drops in front of them, looking at the cylinder one of them shouts, “Sonic grenade!” the team quickly disperses but two of them are stunned by the grenade. The remaining two move behind the lounge walls and look restlessly in the dark for a target. “I can’t see anyone, no target in sight!” one of them says

The stunned men drop to the floor curling left and right holding their heads. David comes from behind and snaps the neck of one of them who is behind the wall and quickly shoots the other to his left in the head.

He moves to the men who are still incapacitated and shoots one of them in the head. He grabs the last remaining man and drags him to the table. He holds his neck and questions him, “Who sent you? Was it Reed? Does he know about us?” before he could answer, a shock round hits him from behind and he falls to the ground shaking frantically.

Dorian comes inside the apartment holding a shock gun, “What a mess, I warned them that you are one of my finest students, guess they thought I was joking!” David sees him and tries to get up but falls down and passes out. Dorian orders his men to search the apartment. One of them breaks the door of Anna’s room and finds her on the bed with a gun pointed at him.

“Freeze or we kill David!” he shouts. She closes her eyes in disappointment and drops her gun. She asks, “What have you done to him? Where is David?” Dorian comes inside her room and shoots her with a shock round too.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Seeing her shaking he says to her, “Don’t worry sweet Anna, I am taking you both with me!” he orders one of his men, “Clean the mess outside and fix the apartment, no clue of what happened here, you understand?”

They take both Anna and David in separate vans and he says to someone on his comms, “Prepare the rooms, I have two guests who need special treatment!”

They travel to a remote location far away from Hawkesbay. One of his men asks him whether they should report back to Reed, to which his answer is No. The vans stop near a small hut situated on the bank of a river, Dorian exits one of the vans and goes inside the hut. He goes to a wall and knocks it twice, the wall opens and a scanner scans his face.

After the scan is completed the floor of the hut opens up and a platform elevator comes up. He goes outside and gives his men the go-ahead. The men strap both of them to separate stretchers and take them to the elevator. The elevator starts descending and he looks at David, “Welcome to the Chamber David! Oh, what lovely surprises I have planned for you!”

The elevator stops and he orders his staff to take both of them to ‘the room’. The basement of the hut is a secret research facility given to Dorian by Reed. The facility conducts psychological experiments to test the limitations of the human mind. Of course, most of the experiments are illegal but if you don’t get your hands dirty you probably won’t go far in this world.

The AR Headsets and memory tapes were products of this facility even though engineers back at MSAT took the credit for them. Both Anna and David are still unconscious and have no idea of the trouble they are in. In their respective rooms, they are transferred to an observation table, they get injected with a chemical of some kind and different kinds of sensors are placed on their bodies.

Finally, on Dorian’s order, a helmet-like device is placed on their heads and turned on. In front of Dorian, many screens display their vitals, mental state, and brain activity. He orders a scientist to load ‘the Chamber’ and his consciousness inside David’s brain.

As the loading begins Dorian wears a special helmet different from theirs and looks impatiently at the loading bar. When the loading is complete he orders the scientist to wake David in a subconscious state.

David wakes up and finds himself in a huge white room. He tries to move but finds out that he is strapped to a chair. He looks around and shouts, “Where the fuck am I? Where is Anna?” Out of nowhere, Dorian appears in front of him.

“Hello Davy, welcome to my world, here you are all mine. You see, I have always had a special interest in interrogation. Of course, you know this as I trained you to resist interrogations. But this place, it gives me the freedom I don’t have in the real world. This David is the prison of the mind, anything I want I get here, if you die. I can resurrect you again.”

He starts to struggle and says with concern, “What do you mean? Release me right fucking now!” Dorian starts laughing and replies, “Let me show you something.” he looks to his left and a chainsaw appears. He picks it up and starts moving towards a struggling David.

“The fear of your death won’t stop me from getting answers, if you run out of limbs I can always reset you and try again!” David’s heart rate increases and he starts to panic.

He starts the chainsaw and asks, “Who are you working for David, why did you steal from Reed and where is that device?” David shouts, “I won’t say a thing! Do your worst!” Dorian chuckles and says, “Here it goes then!”

He uses the chainsaw on his left foot, the chainsaw cuts his flesh and David starts screaming due to the pain. Soon the chainsaw reaches the bone and once it starts cutting the bone, the pain increases ten folds and he gives out a loud wail.

He looks at Dorian’s grin and then down to his feet with watery eyes. He sees blood flowing and no left foot, the scene makes him sick and he vomits. Dorian sees him and says, “Oh come on now, don’t fall unconscious this is just the starting! Keep him awake and reset him when he has no limbs left!”

He asks him the same questions again and David cries, “No way, not till you kill me a million times!” Dorian’s smile vanishes and he punches him saying, “I will do this a million times and be sure of it! I will break you!” and he starts cutting his right foot. David can only scream and endure the enormous pain.

Dorian takes the chainsaw to his right arm, but David’s vitals start to fluctuate and he starts falling unconscious. Before he does though, Dorian puts the chainsaw on his neck, and his eyes open wide as he feels the pain and force of the cuts on his neck. David squirms left and right and finally dies.

Seeing his dead eyes Dorian shouts “Reset him right now!” and in a flash of a second David is back to his normal self. He looks at Dorian and then confusingly gazes at his feet. He is completely fine, it’s as nothing happened to him at all, but he does remember what Dorian did to him and screams, “Fuck you! You psychotic asshole! I swear once I’m out of here you are fucking dead you hear me?”

Dorian smirks, drops the chainsaw and says, “Let’s change the scenery shall we?”

In a moment the white room changes to a desert and David finds his arms tied to tracks of some kind. Dorian says, “Ah! These ancient relics are called railway tracks, in the past, many people would commit suicide by jumping in front of trains. Basically, an old hover rail with wheels made of metal. Let’s see the damage it can do to a man’s arms!”

David looks at him with eyes full of fear. “Send it in!” he shouts and a train comes rushing towards David. He struggles, moving his neck left and right, trying to get up but it’s of no use, he is tied tightly to the tracks.

The train starts moving and honks the horn, in the noise of the train Dorian shouts, “Why do you resist David? For old times’ sake, please just give us a name and we’ll do the rest!” David replies in an exhausted tone, “No! Fuck Reed and you. I rather die again!”

Dorian stops the train mid-way and says, “Ok then, move his whole body on the tracks!” and it happens. The train starts coming towards him and Dorian just smiles and watches David getting crushed under the train, hearing his screams, he closes his eyes and smiles getting pleasure from them.

After the train passes Dorian resets him again but this time he changes the location to a rocket launch site. David is out of breath as he appears under a giant rocket propeller, he has tears in his eyes and he looks at Dorian with hatred.

Dorian sees him and says, “Hurry up! I still have to work on the lovely lady in the next room!” hearing this he screams, “Don’t you fucking touch her, I’m gonna rip your head off if anything happens to her!”

His reaction startles Dorian and he replies, “Hmm! If I can’t break you with physical pain, let’s try emotional pain instead! Load her consciousness here!”

David looks at Dorian desperately and is even more scared than before, “No not her, why the fuck didn’t I keep my mouth shut? This sick fuck, what will he do to her?” he says to himself with dread.

Issac and Bill teleport to the apartment and find it empty with no sign of them. They search the whole place and find no trace of them. “Do you think the Overseer is playing games with us? No one is here!” Bill shouts. Issac looks at the rooms and the general appearance of the apartment.

“I think something is wrong, the apartment is too perfect, I mean David and Anna were living here weren’t they?” Look at the floor, the beds, and the trash bins, it’s all too perfect.” They both leave the apartment and teleport back to the safe house. “What do we do? I can’t contact the Overseer. He contacts us and not the other way around.” Bill says.

Issac sits on the couch and replies, “Well…guess we’ll wait then!” After a few minutes, the Overseer teleports in front of them and asks in a jolly tone, “So, saved your brother and Anna, Bill?” to which Bill sighs, “Save who…their ghosts? No one was there, no Dorian, no David, and no Anna? Is this one of your games too?”

The Overseer listens to him and is confused, pacing left and right, he talks to himself, “No, this is not possible! Can it be really happening? The future changing, but...but specifically, these outcomes never change.”

He looks at Bill and says, “You always kill Dorian and his team at the apartment and save both of them, that’s how it should have happened! But...but if that’s not the case. They are in trouble. We all are, if Dorian finds out about our plans and informs Reed…this will fuck everything up. No! I cannot allow this to happen. We have to find them!

A ripple in the flow of time; a new event occurs which causes new outcomes and new anomalies in the timeline. The anomalies the Overseer is unaware of! Will this ripple prove beneficial for the Overseer, or will Reed be able to achieve his goal before he is stopped by Issac and his friends?