"Now, show us your scars, Watcher Jude of James."
Delila’s question stretched out as if submerging all reality into the water. Her gaze remained locked onto his. The demand was explicit. "Show us."
Jude grabbed the hem of his shirt, lifting it slowly. The fabric rustled as he pulled it over his torso. He loosened his belt, sliding his pants down just enough to expose the right side of his abdomen. "See? It's there!" he insisted, pointing to the spot where a scar should be.
An awkward silence settled over the store. Delila's eyes were now fixed on his bare skin, her expression inscrutable. Lazaro and Patrick stood still. Their faces were blank. Jude's gaze darted to Lucy, hoping for a flicker of recognition. Still, her wide eyes mirrored his confusion. She stared at him, eyebrows knitted together as if trying to solve a non-existent puzzle.
He looked down at himself, panic bubbling up. The skin on his side was unmarked—no sign of the scar.
The smooth, unbroken surface stared back at him—no scar, no trace of the mark he’d known all his life. His fingers grazed the spot in disbelief, searching for a ridge or a familiar line, but there was nothing. His hand hovered there, frozen.
“It was there,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. His voice cracked, barely holding onto reason. “I had my appendix removed when I was 13...”
He looked up, eyes wide and frantic, his mind racing for an explanation. “I didn’t mod my avatar.”
In any simulation, avatars were supposed to mirror reality down to the smallest detail. Each scar, freckle, and imperfection is—an exact replica of the real body. It wasn’t just for the show. In training, every limitation mattered. A body in the sim was the body of a soldier in the real world, and they had to learn to work with it. No shortcuts, no enhancements. It was supposed to prepare the user and make sure they could handle real-world scenarios.
The only simulations that allowed for mods were the kind people indulged in for pleasure—entertainment zones where avatars were twisted into fantasies tailored for wild parties or fleeting desires. Jude had heard about them, the rave simulations, the sex programs—relics of a time when escape was the ultimate goal. But this wasn’t that. Jude was here on a mission, sent as an emissary for the UGS, a spy.
Barbara had prepared him before entering; no mods were in the catalogue. His avatar had to be an exact replica of himself—no mods, only a few skills. He hadn’t been given the option to alter anything. Not even the smallest detail. Unless…
His breath hitched. A sudden, gnawing thought settled in the pit of his stomach.
Unless this wasn’t an avatar at all.
Without a word, Jude’s hands moved mechanically, fingers fumbling at his belt. He unzipped his pants, his heart hammering as he knelt to inspect his knees. His eyes locked onto the spot where, years ago, an ugly scar had marred the skin from a childhood fall. His pulse quickened.
But, again, there was nothing.
Smooth, unblemished skin stared back at him—clean, perfect, untouched. He ran his fingers over his knee, desperately searching for any trace, any imperfection.
Lazaro half-smirked. “Jude, for fuck’s sake, put your pants back on. There’s a kid here.” His tone was light, almost teasing, but it barely masked the unease creeping beneath it.
Jude stumbled to pull his pants back up, his movements almost robotic. He barely felt himself moving like his body had switched to autopilot. He slipped behind the counter, his hands shaking as they rummaged through drawers, pushing aside old receipts and clutter. His fingers grazed something cold and metallic—a knife.
His breath steadied, just for a moment, as if holding onto that knife brought a strange calm. It had been used to cut limes for the tequila shots, but its edge was dulled by repetitive use. But it would do.
Without hesitation, Jude placed his hand flat on the counter, fingers spread. He gripped the knife tightly, his knuckles whitening as he raised it. And in one swift motion—before his mind could stop him—he brought it down with a sharp metallic bang, severing his pinkie.
For a heartbeat, time froze. Then the blood began to pool, slow at first, before spreading across the counter like a dark stain, pulsing in time with the throbbing pain in his hand.
Jude’s chest heaved, heart racing as he stared at the growing pool of blood. His mind scrambled for an explanation, expecting the pain to trigger something—anything. The sharp sting radiating from his hand was real, too real. He waited, breath held, for the usual flicker of the simulation breaking, a glitch, a disconnection. Nothing.
His eyes flicked between his severed finger and the hand still trembling on the counter. The safety algorithms should’ve kicked in by now, reversing the damage and restoring everything to normal. But the blood kept flowing, warm and thick, and the pain didn’t lessen. No reset. No safety net.
This wasn’t a simulation slipping; this was raw, and Jude’s pulse quickened with the terrifying realisation that the world wasn’t about to correct itself.
"Where the fuck am I?"
The silence was deafening. Jude’s eyes stayed glued to the spot where his pinkie once belonged, his mind numb to everything except the slow, steady pulse of blood spreading across the counter. Time stretched, the world around him frozen, his focus locked on the detached finger lying lifeless on the cold surface.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The pain now surged through his hand. His breath came in shallow gasps, and the room around him blurred. This wasn’t a glitch. This was too real, too visceral.
“I cut my finger.”
Patrick moved cautiously; his hand raised like he was approaching a wounded animal. “Jude... I think I’ve got another neural Epipen,” the store owner muttered, trying to keep his voice steady. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you to the hospital... put it back.”
Jude’s grip tightened around the knife, his knuckles pale as he swung it toward Patrick. His voice came out ragged with raw panic. “Where are your fingers?”
Patrick froze, his gaze flicking to the blade pointed at him. “What?”
“You’ve got four fingers on each hand!” Jude’s words slurred slightly. His breathing laboured as the pain began to cloud his mind. “Did they cut them off? Not everyone’s born with a finger missing. It’s not—” He swallowed hard, his vision blurring, “It’s not common! Marta’s like that, but she is... this... this isn’t funny. Where are your fingers?”
Patrick raised his hands higher, palms up, showing his hands clearly. “Jude, I was born like this,” he said softly, keeping his distance, watching the tremor in Jude’s body grow more erratic.
“Jude, I was born like this. Four fingers on each hand and foot. My ears… they’re different. I don’t have hair, nothing. My appendix is on the left, and my heart’s on the right.” His tone softened as he edged a step closer. “We’re similar but not the same. That’s all.”
Jude’s breathing grew more erratic, his chest rising and falling with each shallow breath. His body shook, the knife wobbling in his hand as he tried to process Patrick’s words through the haze of pain and confusion.
“What the fuck are you?” Jude’s voice was barely a whisper, thick with disbelief, his gaze darting between Patrick’s hands and his own bleeding one.
Patrick’s eyes never left Jude’s. “I told you, Jude, when we met,” he said quietly, inching closer, hands still raised in a gesture of peace. “I’m a friend.”
“Alien!” was the last thing Jude muttered before passing out.
----------------------------------------
Jude blinked against the sunlight pouring through the window, the brightness forcing his eyes to flutter shut before he squinted again, trying to focus. The room around him felt sterile, the faint scent of disinfectant filling the air. White walls, clean and cold, framed his blurred vision. He didn’t need to look twice—he was in the hospital.
A sharp throb pulsed through his hand, his arm ached, stiff from where needles had been plunged in too many times. He tried to move, to see if they’d reattached his finger, but his body didn’t respond the way he wanted.
He was strapped down.
He realises his wrists and his ankles were bound tightly against the mattress, the restraints biting into his skin. He pulled weakly, testing the limits, but they held firm. He couldn’t move. His heart raced, frustration mingling with the dull ache in his limbs. Everything felt wrong.
Jude's mouth opened, but no sound came. His throat felt thick, his tongue heavy. He wanted to scream, to call out for help, but his body was sluggish, his mind fogged. Every attempt to form words faded into a soft, breathless rasp.
Through the haze, muffled voices drifted from outside the room. One of them—low, familiar—cut through the fog. Lazaro. But the other voice—female—wasn’t Delila’s. It was husker, distinct, a voice he knew but couldn’t quite place, tugging at the edges of his memory.
“We just talk to the dude; what’s the problem?”
Jude’s ears strained, his heart picking up pace. He’d heard that voice before. It stirred something familiar deep within him, but no matter how hard he tried to grasp it, the face that matched it slipped just out of reach, like a name forgotten on the tip of his tongue. The tone, though, was teasing his memory.
Lazaro's voice followed, strained and tightly controlled, but his frustration was impossible to miss. “Teresa, his brain froze twice already. Next time, he might not be so lucky.”
There was a pause, “And you heard Paris,” Lazaro added, “He’s one of us.”
“Laz, sooner or later, he needs to know,” she pressed, impatience lurking in her words. “It’s not like they’re going to wake him up. At any moment, things will blow up wherever he is, and he’ll be disconnected like the rest of us.”
She exhaled, and though she was insistent, her tone got calmer, almost motherly. “He needs to understand the truth. This slow drip of information isn’t helping anyone and the girl—she trusts him. Laz, his heart is in the right place; he’s making good decisions, unlocking the map, levelling up, and not rushing or taking the easiest way. Let’s just tell him already.”
Lazaro’s response was clipped, almost resigned. “What did Paris say?”
A pause, then Teresa's voice. “To wait for Len… or take him to the Arena.”
Silence followed the kind that lingered like a held breath. Jude lay there, listening, the quiet stretching out as if the two were silently weighing his fate, making choices that would decide what came next for him.
His mind spun, trying to piece together fragments of his scattered thoughts. What sort of tech could move him into a new body? What happened to his real one?
And then, out of nowhere, a memory surfaced—her. The image came to him, unbidden, vivid. Her sun-kissed skin glowed softly under blue light, and her chestnut hair framed a face that felt like a dream. He remembered the inexplicable pull toward her the moment he first laid eyes on her in the warehouse.
Her hands rested gently over her chest, fingers folded delicately, except for the noticeable absence of her pinkie.
Agatha had called her Helena Troy—but here, they called her Len. Jude couldn’t shake the memory of how she looked in that pod—alive, vibrant, as if time had forgotten her. While the others around her shrivelled, their skin dry and stretched tight like mummies counting the seconds. Len remained untouched, suspended in time.
However, in this world, she looked so tired.
Jude's thoughts circled, unsteady, the image of Len lingering like an echo he couldn't shake. Why now? And the Arena—why did it feel like everything was pointing there? He didn’t understand.
Outside the room, the conversation went on.
“We have two choices,” Teresa explained, “Either he goes to the Arena and sees all the footage, everything that’s left there…”
Lazaro didn’t let her finish. “That’s the opposite direction of Len. Lucy needs to meet Len as soon as possible.”
“I know, but we’ve got a Saint on the edge of collapsing. A Saint who actually understands quicker than we ever did this whole fucking system. Laz, I’m not staying in this phantom zone forever. I want out—I want to retire, and so do you. Remember? We disconnect, and we become happy citizens. That was the promise. And since Tom is out of the picture, what keeps you here?”
Lazaro almost growled, his words dragged through gritted teeth. “We’re all going to disconnect.” But something was underneath it—a crack as if even he wasn’t sure how long he could keep believing it.
“Not everyone.”
Lazaro's suspicion crept into the conversation. “What do you know that I don’t?”
She didn’t hesitate, “Orders have come in... they’re moving people to Antarctica.”
“The spaceship... it’s still there?”
Teresa let out a small sigh as if explaining something painfully obvious. “You know the Friends are more stubborn than humans. They’re planning an evacuation. And they need Jude. He’s the one who could bring everyone here."
Lazaro’s eyes widened. “Whose idea was this? Len?”
She shook her head, the faintest hint of a smirk playing on her lips. “Of course not. Paris. It’s his plan. He wants Jude to hijack his own ships. Five more Starships right to Earth.”
"How the fuck are we going to pull that off?"
image [https://i.imgur.com/1dHO81s.png]