2 Years later
Jack
Fast fingers danced across the keyboard. Jack had found his rhythm, typed away as line after line flowed out of his mind right onto the screen. It was like a trance, a flow state he only managed to achieve when he was inside one of his worlds, united with his characters. He peeked over to his notes – a pile of small squared pieces of paper – random scribbles and fast handwriting all over them. No one besides him would be able to navigate through the mess on his desk, but all of it had its defined place, and he knew where what was laying without even looking.
One note caught his attention. He stopped typing, his hands hovering over the keyboard like an eagle over its prey. The note was written in red marker, had several circles around it.
“Oh yea… still need to change that off.”
Right as he was about to return to his typing, the bell rang. Usually, Jack would have been annoyed by the disturbance, but this time it was different. His parents were on holiday for the next two weeks, and he already knew who was on the door.
He got up, headed out of his room, and went downstairs to the main entrance. He opened the door, was surprised to only see one and not two familiar faces.
Jim was standing in front of him, both hands pointing into his direction as he held him at gunpoint.
“Damn, you would have been dead right away. Didn’t I teach you better than that?” Jim asked, his trademark smile on his face.
“How foolish of me,” Jack said, smiled as well. “Where’s Ann? Did she find someone with better finger-gunning skills than you?”
“Very funny. Nah, she joins later, has some tournament to attend too. Won’t take too long, I suppose.”
It still felt weird that they weren’t in school anymore. They still had around 3 weeks of free time left before they had to go out into the wide world, do the things adults had to do… whatever that was. Now that he thought about it, Jim had also changed quite a lot over the last few years. Not in a bad way, just appearance and some other stuff. Jack had to admit the longer hair really fit him, something in between the total mess of a haircut he had back in fifth grade and the too stern one he had worn later.
But he wasn’t here to think about chances, mights and maybes. There was more than enough time for that later on.
“Does she still try-hard?” Jack asked. “I thought she did want to take it a little bit slower.”
“She is not playing for scores anymore. Just for fun, so don’t worry.”
“Ah, alright.” He waved towards behind him. Jim walked in without Jack even saying a word.
“Hows your writing going?” Jim pulled off his shoes without even using his hands, stretched out a little.
“Good... until you arrived. I decided to change off the main char’s name.”
“Huh?” Jim stopped. “Why though? Guts is a very cool name in my opinion.”
“Don’t you think we knew someone who deserves it more to be the one to give the main character his name?” Jack’s lips narrowed. “Someone who went through hell alone.”
Jim’s eyes had dimmed a little, but through the dark shone a certain light. “I’m sure he would have been honoured.”
Jack nodded.
“Ah, now I remember what I was about to ask you. You heard the news?”
“Hm?” Jack raised a brow.
“The C.U.A will soon be expanding over the whole world. They got tons of funds and they said that they are really hitting it big now. Seems like their system will one day get well implemented into our society.”
“Ah, nice. Glad to hear the world will be a little bit safer in the future.”
Jack closed the door behind him, added, “Oh, you heard about the failed attempt to reach space?”
“Again?” Jim sighed. “It really is just bad luck at this point. For how long have they tried to leave the atmosphere now?”
“They stated something about the chances for every attempt so far to fail is something about 1 to 1000 so… yea, quite unlucky I suppose. Seems like the stars don’t want to be travelled for now.”
“Hm.” Jim started walking along the hallway, said, “Sorry by the way for throwing your planning around. I know we wanted to continue our Dungeons and Dwagons campaign as soon as possible. You wanna play something else until Ann is here?”
“Sure bro, try to defend your ‘mister-number-one-of-the-friend-group’ title.”
As Jack entered his room around 2 seconds after Jim, Jim had already kneeled down in front of the console, tried to get the cartridge working.
“But we will play the campaign later. You have a giant grammar crow to slay.”
Jim – who had just blown into the cartridge – snorted in laughter.
“No fucking way you actually spend your time creating a character sheet for that one.”
“You bet I did.”
Jim put the cartridge back into the console. This time, the game loaded.
“Hehe… works every time.”
Jim tossed a controller, Jack caught it.
“Ready to get three stocked, Jacky boy?”
“Bring it on.”
---
A few hours later
Co-Leader Jeff
A cloud of smoke travelled across the rather spacious office, disappeared out through the opened window and into the clear night. It only took a short moment of time until it had dissolved into the cool summer-air.
He had to admit that he slowly started getting used to this.
The most things in his old office had been moved over into his new one at this point. He liked it like that, everything in a certain place, so he immediately knew where what was. Alphabetically sorted files, binders and so on. Besides the room being about twice the size compared to his old one, there really wasn’t that much change to talk about. Yet, the feeling which clung to it had somehow changed entirely.
The light was rather dim, a desk lamp shining some light on the dark wooden desk Jeff was sitting in front of, a PC monitor hooked up to the C.U.A database resting on top of it. It was a slow shift.
Jeff’s gaze wandered around as his nose exhaled some smoke. At his right, a picture frame and an award were standing.
The award was something which looked rather poorly printed out with a 3D-printer. In fact, he knew the printer where the award had come out of. It wasn’t all that pretty, but he sure wanted to keep it. The text on it read ‘one year sober’ in comic sans.
Just behind the award rested the old picture of his family. The side of the picture which had included his ex-wife had been ripped off entirely, was now replaced by someone else. Jeff’s eyes stopped wandering for a moment. He looked at the female in the picture, smiled.
There was a knock on the door. He twitched in surprise. Jeff put the cigarette out and hid his ashtray in the usual spot.
“Yea, come in.”
He moved one hand through the air as if to cut through the smoke, hoped that it would dissolve fast enough. Who even wanted to speak to him at this time of the day? It was around 10 minutes until his shift would end.
The door opened, and a female stepped inside. As Jeff recognized her, he felt himself calm down a little. He noticed that he was smiling again.
The person was slightly out of breath, almost as if she had just ran a marathon along the hallways. She rearranged her C.U.A uniform, made a failed effort to appear calm.
“You know that you don’t need to hide that you are smoking in here, right?” she asked. “It’s not like everyone knows that already anyways. Also… it is your office, remember?”
“Oh… right.” Jeff hesitated, then put the ashtray back on his desk. “What brings you here? It is like 5 minutes until the end of our shift. Did the coffee machine malfunction again?” Jeff pulled the half finished cigarette out of the tray, put it back into his mouth. He started fetching for a lighter in his pockets. Where had he put that damn thing again?
“It’s important.” Jane pushed the glasses on her rather roundish face back up the bridge of her nose, added, “It’s about cell 741.”
Jeff tried hard to not roll his eyes. It always had to be him. He had a lot of joy seeing him being locked away, yet he still managed to be a pain in the ass, even behind bars and underground.
“What happened? Did he refuse to eat again? I swear to god, if that motherf-”
“You lost.”
“What?”
Jeff finally caught the lighter, pressed it down to create a small flame which he led to the end of the cigarette.
“Don’t you remember? The bet a couple of months ago.”
Jeff shrugged, lit the cigarette.
“You have to stop doing that now.”
“Do what?” Jeff inhaled.
Jane pointed at the cigarette.
Jeff halted, then put the lighter away and got up.
He took the half-finished cigarette out of his mouth, exhaled and put it out in the ashtray.
He marched over to the wall to his left, grabbed the key for cell number 741.
“Lets go,” he said.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I need to see it with my own eyes. “
---
Jim was gently shaken out of his dream.
He felt soft, warm, comfortable.
As he opened his eyes, he saw Anna’s face close to his as one of her arms caressed his left cheek.
Jim let out a confused sound, something closely resembling a tired bear.
“Sorry for waking you up.” A few lines of hair were more or less laying across Anna’s face. It was clear she had been asleep a few moments ago, too.
“Jack is gone.”
“What?”
“He’s not in his bed. I just went to the bathroom and then realized he isn’t here anymore.”
Jim sat up on the mattress which was placed on the carpet floor of Jack’s room. About half a meter higher, Jack’s bed indeed appeared to be empty.
He got out of the bed, yawned.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Anna asked.
“Outside.”
Jim turned to the window.
There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.
“I think I know where he is.”
---
Jeff was pacing along the hallway, wide fast steps moving him forward. Jane had a hard time keeping up with him, even though she tried her best staying at least slightly behind him. On the left and the right – every couple of meters – were thick metal doors with a small window embedded into each of them. The corridor stretched on for what looked like hundreds of meters.
Jeff counted the numbers on the right side: 699, 701, 703
All cells down here were sound proof. Not a single noise could get out of them, so even if the people inside of there would make as much noise as they were capable off, nothing would be heard from the outside. They were also located deep enough underground for no sound to ever reach the surface.
Even though it was already rather deep down, there were still a handful of floors underneath this one. Mostly important stuff, and of course the server room with the most important piece of the C.U.A. project.
721, 723, 725…
Jeff could feel his heartbeat fasten. He had managed to remain calm until now with counting, but even getting close to the cell made his blood begin to boil. This time though, he wasn’t boiling with annoyance.
This time, he was boiling with excitement.
735…
And now, it was finally time.
737…
It had taken so long.
739…
Jeff arrived at the cell. It didn’t appear different from the other ones. In fact, all of them looked about the same on the inside as well. And even though cell number 741 looked like the others, the scent it gave off stung in Jeff’s nose. An odour of rotten sweetness hung in the air like a rainbow consisting of different shades of grey.
He hesitated to look, turned to see Jane. He felt his heartbeat slow down a little.
She just nodded, said, “Don’t worry, you can just unlock the door.”
Jeff’s lips tightened. He fetched the key out of his pocket.
He put it inside of the door, turned it sideways.
The lock inside of the heavy door creaked as it slid to the side.
He forced the door open.
---
As soon as he opened the door, the smell of sweetness, as well as some other scents, increased in intensity by a lot. It was a penetrating stench, strong enough for him to immediately cover his nose. As soon as Jeff was able to look inside of the room, he froze.
His whole facade dropped. His facial expression washed from the usual hard shell to something softer which he usually kept hidden underneath. He took a single step inside of the room, examined it closely. On the ground, piling high all over the room, were small boxes filled with half rotten strawberries in varying states of decay. They were spread across the floor, smeared on the walls, as well as piling up in one corner of the room.
Jeff’s view fixed at something in the center of the room.
“Did he put it on himself?” he asked.
At the center, from a pipe close to the ceiling, Eric Hoffner’s lifeless body dangled with a belt around his neck. He didn’t move, yet Jeff didn’t feel like stepping closer towards him just yet. Eric’s face was hidden behind the white mask of the Sinner, the static smile staring right towards him.
“He did put it on himself,” Jane said. “It seems like he finally had enough.”
Jeff regained control over his facial expression.
Jane stepped further inside of the room while holding a red piece of cloth in front of her nose. She moved to the Sinner, pulled off the mask.
“I think you should take a closer look at this.”
Jeff, who had been looking at the mask once again, hesitated for a moment before nodding. He made his way over to the corpse, looked at it.
“Seems like he had finally lost it for good, huh?” Jane had turned the mask, held it towards him.
He barely realized it, picked it up. Jeff had spend the last few seconds just staring at Eric’s face, expressionless and robbed of all the joy and smiles it had carried in the past. He had almost expected him to smile underneath the mask, but that wasn’t the case.
Jeff turned the mask, saw the dozens upon dozens of smiles scratched into its otherwise flat inner side. But there was something else, written in messy text close to where the smile would be on the other side.
“Is this the end?” Jane asked.
Jeff hesitated, grunted.
“If I am no god, then there is no one left I can pray to,” Jane said.
“...”
“What even is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know if this is an ‘end’,” Jeff said.
He carefully put the mask back on the Sinner’s face.
“But it most certainly is a new beginning.”
---
“I expected to find you here.”
Jack sat up, looked down the roof of the tree-house he was currently sitting on top of. It was resting inside of a rather old looking oak tree, its beams already aged and darkened by the elements and currents of nature over the years. Jim remembered that Jack had told him years ago that this tree-house had once been the one of his father, the tree it was built into rooting in their garden since generations. To Jack, it was the only spot on the whole planet where he could get close to the stars.
“How come?” Jack asked as Jim started climbing up the makeshift ladder and made a rather risky but accustomed jump to grab the roof’s ledge. Jim grunted, pulled himself up. The air was a little chilly up there, but refreshing as well. Maybe it was because he was still wearing his sleeping clothes. Jack shared that style, though.
Jim pointed upwards. “Still planning to catch them one day?”
“Yea… right,” Jack said, but the tone of his voice betrayed his smile, revealed a glint of concern.
Jim laid down next to him, viewed upon the cloudless heavens above their heads.
“Something is different than usual, am I right?”
Jack nodded.
“You want to tell me?”
Jack laid back down as well. His gaze was focused on the stars, but it almost seemed as if he looked right through them; as if he was searching for what laid hidden beyond them.
“Jim… You still think about Hen from time to time?”
“Daily. He deserves to be remembered.”
Jim turned his head, couldn’t quite read Jack’s expression.
“You know,” Jim said, “It’s not like we are ever going to forget any of the events which happened in the past, but we did the right thing. We will never see the Sinner again, and he won’t be able to hurt anyone, either. Sure, that won’t heal the damage he has already caused, but it is still a win for us. Hen can rest in peace now, and we should remember him as a friend, not a corpse.”
Jim paused for a moment, searched for the right words.
“It’s time to move on, Jack.”
There was a moment of silence, the wind gently brushing over the surrounding leaves. The sky towered tall above it all, the stars unmoving and in their usual place.
Finally, Jack broke the silence, said, “I lately spend a lot of time thinking about what the other Jack said. The one in the game, I mean. The things he said in the location similar to this one… and also, what the Jim in the game said about reality.”
“The stars above our heads are a proof that-”
“How can you know that they are real?” Jack asked.
Jim stopped talking, thought about Jack’s words. So this had bothered him all this time?
He is able to create stars himself by moving a pen over paper, so he shouldn’t worry about powers beyond his comprehension, Jim thought. He should rather focus on reality on his scale, which is the only option he has.
But before he could say anything, Jack had already continued: “Only because they appear to be real doesn’t mean they are. We just look at things out of reach for our grasp, feeling certain of things that have never changed before, even though we can’t say for sure if they might as well just change one day. Maybe this reality has been created like the game as well. Created by a higher power which set up all the things in the way they are supposed to play out, pulling the strings in a place beyond the stars. We can never be certain, never be sure, and that really bothers me.”
Jim swallowed, put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack broke his gaze towards the stars, made eye contact with Jim.
“Sorry, dude,” he said. “You know, I always go too deep on stuff like that.”
Jim didn’t bother to address the last bit, said, “Does it really matter?”
“What?”
“If it is real or not, I mean…” Jim got up, reached with one palm towards the stars. “As hard as I try to grab them, as much as I will reach for them, I can never touch them.”
Jack tilted his head. “Yea… I mean…”
“Dude, it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to touch the stars. Look, the stars being real is not important as long as they are real to us. The emotions and memories we have with them are real, and that makes them real. Is there someone or something who or which created them? Most likely. But at the end, it only pushes away the answer one step further. Who created the God which created the stars? And who created the God of that God? Does it really matter to us? I don’t think so. We should focus on what we can control, what we can influence.”
Jack got up as well. “So does an end to all of this even exist? A line of gods upon gods, creating their universes, layers upon layers of existence and non-existence on top of each other spiralling till eternity.” He reached for the stars as well, but it was a half fledged attempt.
“I really wonder what is at the end of it all,” he added.
“Guess we never know, huh?” Jim asked.
Jack sighed. It was a heavy sigh, but Jim felt like Jack had uncovered something he had hidden away for a long time.
There was once again a moment of silence.
“I recently asked myself if all the time I spend escaping from reality in the past playing video games, role-playing, writing and reading really meant anything,” Jack said. “In the past, I felt like running away from the real world, escaping from the boredom, from the repeating days at school, the boring responsibilities, all of it. I wondered if it all had meant something, if it had been worth it, or if I only wasted my life away with things that weren’t even real.”
Jack put his hand down again.
Has he accepted the stars to be out of his reach?
“I think what you said really makes sense, Jim. It was real all the time, all of it, because we made it real. Our emotions as well as our experiences were real, and therefore, what we did became real as well. And if I create something on paper and people feel emotion once they read it, it gets reality for them, even if it’s just for a short moment in time. And if they carry those memories along with them, it gets a piece of their reality forever.”
Jim couldn’t help it but smile. “Alright, let’s head back inside now. I have to admit that it’s getting a little chilly out here.”
“Ah, yea, sure. But let’s look at the stars for a little bit longer.”
Jim turned, looked at the window of Jack’s room which wasn’t too far away. Anna had opened it, appeared to be watching the stars as well.
“Fine, but not for too long, okay?”
“Sure,” Jack said.
The moon was watching over them like an ancient presence. It shone a dim light upon the darkened scenery, like a giant light keeping the earth safe in the endless night of space.
“Jack?”
“Yea?”
“Do you think humankind will reach for the stars one day?”
“Maybe.”
“…”
“But you know what? Maybe it would be better if they didn’t.”
And so Jim gazed upon the stars once again,
knowing that they might as well be fake.
But he did not care,
since he thought they looked beautiful either way.
-----
Sinner’s Game End
-----