Shit, had I slept through a whole day? I checked my holo and...no...it had been...negative one hours? Same day, 0900. I was totally lost, but I was used to it at this point. I reached out to say good morning to Saga's mind, and was troubled to realize she wasn't there.

I walked downstairs, and found Tem sitting up on the couch. She blinked and then her face split into a smile. "You're here!" she said.

"Hi." It was about as civil as I could manage with the little shit. "Where's Saga?"

"She left. She gave me these."

I grabbed the notes out of Tem's hands. Both were folded in half, one was crudely bound shut with a strip of the adhesive gag we'd had over Ajax' mouth, the other said 'good morning' on the outside. I opened it and started to read, and felt my mind expanding.

[Hey, Athan, good morning. Couldn't bear myself to wake you up when you were sleeping so cute.]

Saga's familiar mind-voice floated through mine, as I realized the paper didn't have words on it, and the world began to disappear around me. I fell downwards into blackness, and as soon as all light was extinguished, fell into light again.

I was Saga, reliving the moment she wrote me this note in her mind, reliving her memories. I realized, by the very nature of her scheming to do so, that she'd planted this as a compel in my brain while I slept, set to crack when I read the note.

I--Saga--was sitting on the corner of the massive bed, knees up, as they had been so often lately. The real me was laying on my side, sleeping soundly, under covers Saga had pulled up on me. It was very late at night, I...she...had spent several hours thinking and planning before deciding to do this.

[I told you I made a mistake and had the chance to undo it. I'm...not doing that, exactly, but I can't afford to be as selfish as I have been. I'm sorry that you've been all confused and things haven't made sense lately, just blame me and try to move on.]

She sighed.

[No, that's no good. What am I even doing?] I scratched at my head with both hands in frustration. [Why did I even decide to do this...he was right, I do never think things through.]

I let out a deep breath. [Sorry, I just...realized that bigger things than me and you are at stake here. I don't want to sound like Karu, but honestly, you guys had a real thing going, and this...this is all just kind of my mess you're left cleaning up. If we see each other again, remind me to get rid of those memories of banging Lia, you've probably been punished enough.]

I laughed. She laughed. It was confusing, having someone else's memories.

She sighed. [Look, the point is...you're right, you've always been right. I'm no good, Athan. I could lie to myself as much as I wanted, but the proof was yesterday. Yesterday...we…]

I stopped, and just stared at me sleeping, longingly for what felt like an hour. I didn't move, with a patience no person should ever have, forged in a crucible of a hundred years. Eventually, with a heart-rending sigh, I got up, padded to the door, and opened it with a stillness and silence that made it hard to tell the door even moved.

As I walked downstairs, I realized I wasn't walking like I usually did. Saga was light, but she was also frail. She was tireless, but she was also weak. Every step down was an effort, leaning against the wall as I went, my feet unsure, as I lowered myself, unaccustomed to walking on stairs in my own...in her own flesh, gently reaching down with straining toes to find the next step, as though every one of them could be the edge of a bottomless chasm.

I finally made it, with a slow, unsteady gait, and fell into the couch.

[Sorry, didn't think I could say it with you right there. Maybe I still can't. The next hour of this memory is just going to be me walking out of range of you, heh.]

I laced my fingers in front of me, held aloft, and looked at my hands with some disgust. Wait, I loved her hands? She didn't?

[Athan, I mind-fucked you, and I'm sorry. You and I...we had a big fight. You were trying to be noble and self-righteous and offered to date me because you were trying to protect my feelings, and I, like an idiot, accepted because even if I knew it was all the right things for all the wrong reasons, I wanted it. I thought...maybe I could just have some fun with you and then let you know it would have never worked, but it didn't go that way.]

I sat up. [We fought. We got really, really dirty with it. We were...feeding off each other's negativity, in a way I never should have allowed, but once we were there, I was just so mad at you, I thought you deserved to feel all my anger and pain. You brought up that I'd spend the rest of eternity living on the blackened shell of the dead Earth, and Tem got dragged into it somehow, and you said at least you knew she loved you, and that you hated me, and I just...kinda snapped.]

I sat there for a few more minutes, looking down at my toes. My stupid ugly boat feet. What? She hated those too?

[I blasted you out, Athan, and then I felt so bad about what I did, I erased the whole fight from your mind. And then...and then...I...I put in fake memories instead, because...I don't know why. I thought you had to have something. And when I was doing that, I don't know, it was like one bad idea kept piling into another, and I decided to give you memories of this really perfect night we had together, and how much we loved each other.]

I breathed out, raggedly, sounding like 'gaaah.' I wanted to get up, to pace, to do anything but face this stupid note I was writing in my head.

[Anyway, that's it,] I finished. [There's another note with another compel. If you open it, I'll be gone from your mind forever. I wouldn't blame you, okay? I'm sorry.]

I landed back in my own body, the blank note in front of me. Tem was watching me warily, and I wondered how long I'd just been staring transfixed at it. As the last sensations of being Saga faded away, I realized I had both sets of memories, hers and mine, of the time which wasn't.

I felt...I felt everything, it seemed like. The now-familiar sensation of heartbreak, not over Karu, but over Saga, now that our one-night relationship was unravelling in my head and heart. I felt betrayal, obviously, but also of sadness, she seemed like she had really loved me, and just didn't know how to be anything I wanted.

Guilt and shame took their turn next, as I relived and remembered everything I'd said to her. She was angry but mostly reactive when we'd fought...I'd...really gone for the throat. Fuck. Some of the things I'd said crossed the line so hard, no amount of psychic feedback could excuse that. And to be screaming at her while she was desperately clinging to the hope of somehow keeping me?

And then back to sadness, as I realized she'd given up that hope, for me. Now. These notes, these compels, these memories, this was her letting me go, realizing that her own desperate bid for happiness was too selfish, that when she had me all to herself, she didn't want that, didn't even want me if I was like that, had walked out in the middle of the night just so that I couldn't try being self-sacrificing again and say words she wanted to hear, or talk her down yet again.

It was what I would have done, and I had to wonder if she'd run these thoughts through my brain while I slept to get that answer.

I held my head like that would keep the wave of emotions from splitting it in half. Tem looked at me, concerned, and then got up, disappearing seemingly by pure habit now.

There wasn't much here I could blame myself for, which I almost seemed disappointed by. Saga had...really fucked up everything possible. Every decision of hers was coming from a good place, but was worse than the last, and every time she realized that, she thought back to the words I'd cut her open with, and felt more and more like everything I had said was true. I didn't know how she could be falling off the edge of the world in front of my eyes, and all I could think to do was try to sex her up and hug it out.

...except that wasn't me at the time, just a doll in my likeness she'd created.

Tem came back with a plate of hot leftovers, and materialized long enough to place it on the coffee table in front of me. To my surprise, I found myself overwhelmed in gratitude, and stood up, holding her in my arms.

"A-A-A-Athan?" she stuttered out, having nothing to do with her impediment.

"I'm sorry for everything the past few days," I said, and pressed her body to me. "I was so horrible to you."

I knew it wasn't me, but she didn't. She'd endured so much, it didn't even matter if it was because she was fucked in the head, I felt horrible for the things I'd said and done, and how easily I'd allowed Saga to let me dismiss her as even human...or whatever.

"I don't un-un-understand!" she squeaked, her hands frozen behind my back, not sure if she was allowed to touch me or not.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

It was a sentiment I had felt a lot recently. Not understanding, anyway. I relinquished the hug and held her at arm's length. "Tem, I have a lot of problems with you, and I think you might even have more with yourself. I think you know that?"

She nodded, still wild-eyed.

"But you are still my friend no matter what, and I will treat you that way. I know for some reason you think I treat you better than everyone in the world will, and that's just messed up, and also wrong. If you made any real friends, they'd also want to protect you and be around you, and would save your life if they could."

She shook her head adamantly and I sighed and walked a few paces, trying to get out the right words.

"The last few days...I wasn't myself. Saga messed up my head a little bit and--"

I had to to jump back. The air was tearing itself open around her. Light was becoming black holes, and my view of the world grew distorted and dim.

"S-S-She hurt you."

"Tem, NO!" I shouted. "I just wanted to apologize!"

She looked down at me, but it wasn't the same Tem I recognized. Black trails of vapor seemed to pour from her with every slow, measured breath, like even the air from her lungs could destroy light. Every part of her was bathed in shadow, as smoky tendrils streamed from her body.

"Tem, she's gone, and I'm fine. I promise."

"I will find her."

"Tem, listen to me."

"I will end her."

"TEM! LISTEN TO ME!" I tried walking to her, but the world was shifting beneath layers of shadow and light, and what there was to see wasn't the world anymore. Despite knowing the floor was flat and even between us, I couldn't step without feeling like everything was wavering.

"I will destroy her, I will...rip her s-s-skin from her flesh and her flesh from her bones...again...and again...until there is nothing left of her to come back."

I closed my eyes and walked forward. It helped a lot. Reaching out blindly, I caught ahold of Tem's hand. I drew her close and looked at her. Underneath the shadows and mist, she was there, silver hair, small body, but with hate carved into her face so deeply, it was almost worse.

"I will burn her s-s-soul into the blackest part of hell, and then I will kill myself so I can join her and s-spend all of eternity making her s-s-suffer. I will make her s-scream and bleed and die a million deaths and then a million more, and s-s-she will wish, with every...last...breath...that s-she never touched you, Chariot. Never hurt you. Never even met you."

I heard the door bang open behind me.

"Athan? What the fuck is all this? Athan? ATHAN!?" I heard someone...a synthesized voice. Not an XPCA...Lia, maybe? She had screamed into the twisting scene.

"Lia? Lia, get the hell away, this is super fucked right now!"

"Athan? Is this Saga's doing? AEGIS, can you see anything?"

"I can't see anything either!" AEGIS shouted. "It's not a mind trick."

"Guys, I'm begging you, leave right now. This whole situation--"

"THEY WILL RELIVE EVERY MOMENT THEY INFLICTED ON YOU, CHARIOT, I PROMISE. UNTIL THE END OF TIME, THEIR PAIN WILL BE THEIR LIFE."

"What the fuck was that?" AEGIS' voice said.

"It's Tem, I told you! Just fucking back off!"

"Athan, you're not right in the head right now. Saga--"

"I know!" I shouted. "But this is unrelated, okay?"

"No, not okay. Not okay at all." Lia was fretting. She was scheming. Why'd she have to be so damn good at it, she'd be coming at us any second with something. I realized, in her current state, Tem might even interpret Lia and AEGIS coming to help or not listening to me as an affront. I only had moments to defuse this whole situation.

I stared at her, shook her. She just grinned at me, darkness clouding her eyes under her silver hair.

"S-s-suffering for s-s-suffering," she whispered with a grin. "For you, Chariot. All for you."

I slapped her across the face as hard as I could.

She reeled, and I caught her. She blinked at me, tears replacing the darkness in her eyes. The shadows and black holes and twisting distortions of the world and fractured figments of reality snapped back into the cozy living room one by one, revealing AEGIS and Lia each tense and at the ready close to the door. Lia was in full slipskin and mask had something in her hands, which she pressed into AEGIS' now that they could find each other again.

"Ow." Tem said in a small hurt voice, as confused as she was pitiful. She spit out some blood and wiped it on the back of her hand.

"I told you, Tem. Do not threaten anybody, not my friends, not people who hurt me, I can handle my own trouble."

"I was only protecting you."

"I don't eradicate anyone or revel in their blood when I'm protecting you, Tem. Be sane."

"S-s-he needs to die. S-she hurt you."

I turned towards the others for help but they had no idea what was going on either. Lia gave it a shot anyway.

"I think what Ath--Chariot is trying to say is…" she hesitated for a moment, and then pulled off her mask, looking Tem up and down the whole while, but settling on her face. "...he would be very sad if you killed or hurt anyone. He doesn't want you to have to do that, because he cares about you."

"Oh," said Tem. "I don't want to make Chariot unhappy," she shifted a little guiltily. "But...on the whole, I think he would be happier with them gone, even if he is upset at me. I don't mind him being upset with me."

Damn, so close.

"No, he'd just be upset in general. You know how he beats himself up about things...if you solve his problems so permanently...he'd probably regret it for the rest of his life. Even if what you did was right, he'd spend all eternity being punished by the haunting question of if he could have done it different, and you were the one who took away his chance."

Tem looked like she'd been slapped again, and I was shocked and impressed myself, noting that she'd used words straight from Tem's own definition of Saga's new hell to relate to her on her own terms exactly what she was doing to me.

When had Lia grown up so fast?

"I...I guess I overreacted," Tem finally confessed. And the pin was back in the grenade?

"All I want is for you to listen to me sometimes, Tem. I'm our strike lead, remember? If you don't listen to me, even in small things which don't seem important to you, or things where you think you're protecting me from something worse, you're making my job harder, and you're making it more dangerous for all of us."

"I understand."

"Good."

"We all good then?" Lia asked cagily, and I nodded.

And then Tem wavered and fell asleep, and before she even hit the floor, I felt the world go upside-down on me as well, feeling my head slam against the wood floors an instant before darkness found me.

When I came to, it was in darkness. I was leaning back uncomfortably, and when I tried to move, I couldn't.

"Tem?" I asked. No response. I hadn't actually said anything, so it would be a miracle if she had responded. Nothing on my body seemed to work. I tried to make a sword and succeeded, though it took more focus than normal. I also realized, by its glittering, muted outline, that I was blindfolded.

"Shit, he's up already?" someone said. Tem? No. Someone else. I couldn't remember anyone else right now. My brain wasn't working right. I tried to demand to be released, but it came out as a pitiful snarl.

"Easy there buddy," she said. The voice was so familiar. Saga? Who was just there. Lia...AEGIS. It was AEGIS' voice.

"AEGIS?" I didn't say.

"Look, put the sword away please." I did, with some effort. "Good, thanks. Look, Lia and I came out as soon as we heard Saga had been in your head. We tracked you using your holo and...well...right now we're kind of holding you prisoner until we can figure out what she did, and how unstable you are. Thing is, as I'm sure you know, you're an awful prisoner to hold. She laughed. I couldn't, but also didn't. I'd also forgotten who was holding me, exactly. A friend, I thought. But why would a friend take me prisoner?

"Uh, so you're blindfolded. You're also...kinda drugged? Neural dampeners. We thought they would be the only defense we could muster against Saga. The plan was for me to go in, because she can't touch me, put the dampeners on, and then we can sort the two of you out individually later. So...same plan, but with some adjustments."

No wonder I was so disoriented. My brain was actively being scrambled by a machine as we spoke, and the possibility of doing anything more coordinated than thinking was just out of the question.

I wasn't mind-fucked right now, I wanted to scream. If only they could let me talk for five minutes, I could clear this up.

But I knew from their perspective, they couldn't trust that, couldn't trust anything I said or did. There was a reason Code-X was kill on sight. Things that messed with your head were seriously scary. I'd learned that recently, hadn't I? I couldn't quite remember why that seemed so poignant.

"So...hang tight until we get to our destination, please. Lia's with Tem, and we are, uh, in transit."

The words seemed to hang in the air, and by the time I heard and processed them, I'd already mostly forgotten the context of the situation. Neural dampener, that's why I forgot.

Neural dampeners were really expensive, I knew, and really annoying, I was rapidly learning...kinda. The tech never really got anywhere else because for all the expense of having one, typically drugging or killing or just locking up was a cheaper, safer, more reliable means of pacification.

Code-X's were one of the few cases where they might have some use...but given the kill-on-sight order...still about a billion times more costly than a bullet.

Why was I thinking about neural dampeners again? I couldn't remember. So annoying. Wait, maybe my brain was being scrambled by one now? But how I would I know that?

I spent the next indeterminate amount of time getting lost on trains of thought until I realized we stopped. I had forgotten we were moving, and when I saw the light stream in, filtered through my blindfold, I remembered I was wearing one of those too.

"I'm heading out. The dampener will turn off in a minute and you can join us. I'm sorry about this, Athan," someone said. Tem? No, someone else. Why couldn't I remember things again? I laid there in the dark, wondering where I was, and experimentally tried turning on my sword.

It lit up in front of me, and I remembered I was wearing a blindfold.