The Infinite Chasm, the dungeon of Illatius, was just a story, an interactive game-world printed into existence to entertain a single person.

The city of Eureka and all of the worlds within her embrace had been the real Infinite Dungeon, an infinity of possibilities, humanity imprisoned, reborn, killed and made again for one hundred million years. Eureka was a chain that held together an incomprehensible variety of life spread out across the infinite divide controlled and bound by the living concepts such as space, time and others.

I looked at the nearest holographic clock.

According to it, it was 6 AM in Eureka.

I pressed my hand against my face, placing a magical illusion hexagram over my violet eyes and dark hair, putting Yulia's face atop of Infi's. Having done that, I walked to the spot where I had seen Charles pass previously. Crowds of pedestrians filled the streets. I waited.

[6:27 AM] The clock flashed overhead.

I had chosen my position well. A single magical note that I held in the air pushed the crowd around me. I saw Charles. He walked straight into the effect of my field and blinked in confusion. I grabbed his hand just as he began to circle the field-bubble.

“W-what?” He sputtered as I pulled him out of the crowd.

“Hey! Can you come with me, this is important,” I said.

“Bwah?” He uttered, not expecting to be accosted by a stranger. “If you’re selling something, I don’t want it.”

“I’m not selling anything,” I said. “I just want to talk.”

“Nobody wants to talk to me,” Charles huffed. “This has to be some kind of a newfangled marketing strategy.”

“It’s not,” I assured him. “I just want to be friends with you, ask you some questions.”

“Is this going to take long?” Charles sighed. “I have to be at work soon.”

“You can’t take a day off?” I asked.

“No,” the man in the black and white jacket shook his black, messy mane.

“Fine,” I sighed. “How about we talk while we both walk to the maglev train?”

“Fine,” Charles said.

“My name’s Yulia Ishenko,” I said.

“Charles Snippy,” he introduced himself.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I slapped a tracking hexagram to his coat as I brushed my hand against it, making sure he wouldn’t be simply pulled somewhere by the crowd.

“Nice to meet you,” I smiled.

He stared at my smile with a look of great suspicion.

“Listen Charles,” I said. “Do you remember anything from a month ago?”

“Uhhh…” the man blinked. “What am I supposed to remember?”

“Specific things,” I said. “Try to think - did you exist a month ago?”

“What?” Charles stared at me, looking stupefied.

We reached the train station and sat down on a bench, waiting for the maglev.

“Are you screwing with me?” He asked.

“I’m not,” I said. “You don’t realize this, but you were printed into existence by Eureka.”

“What?” Charles blinked. “Come on, that can’t be…”

“Yeppers,” I nodded. “You were printed. I was wondering if you even have any memory of yourself before Eureka made you.”

“Of course I have memories!” Charles insisted.

"Fine, name one friend that you had when you were young," I said.

"I don't have friends," Charles ground out. "I have idiot work colleagues."

“Where does your dad work?” I asked.

“Uhmm…” Charles blinked.

“What’s your mom’s name?” I pressed.

Mr. Snippy’s sky-blue eyes grew wide.

“Shit,” he said. “You have got to be shitting me. I… I can’t remember anything.”

“That’s what I thought,” I smirked. “When I made you focus on the memories, you noticed that they weren’t there at all. I do wonder if someone erased them from you or if the human-manufacturing process has decayed over one hundred million years to the point where nobody remembers these things anymore and just keeps going with the vaguest sense of self.”

“WHAT?” Charles growled.

“Your job isn’t real,” I said. “You were printed to exist, over and over and over. This process has gone on for millennia. You can quit anytime you want to, you know. Break your chains, Charles. Don’t go to work today.”

“I…” Mr. Snippy opened and closed his fists. “Fine. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but… I want answers.”

“That’s right,” I smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you my Tower.”

“Your… tower?” The Eurekan stared at me.

“Mhmmm,” I smirked as I grabbed his hand. “Let’s go. We can talk there without being overheard by annoying detectives.”

. . .

Charles stopped in front of the massive billboard.

“Ta-daaaa,” I pointed at the structure. “Behold, my Wizard Tower!”

“Uhhh,” my companion looked up. “What?”

The holo-advert over the billboard dimmed for a second, featuring a massive poster of a girl in blue goggles and a black dress riding a nuke. “LOVE THE BOMB!” Gargantuan letters declared.

The holo-adverts resumed, drowning the girl in a commercial for hair shampoo.

“I don’t understand,” Charles said.

“Welcome to mi casa!” I said as I grabbed the metal ladder. “Come on!”

In a few minutes both of us stood on a metal-mesh platform that I had covered up with cardboard boxes held together with nano-graphite duct tape. The cardboard concealed my writing and also made the space more cozy by adding a semblance of walls to it.

“IT’S RATHER LOUD UP HERE!” Charles yelled, trying to overpower the loud commercial that the billboard was projecting.

“Silencio,” I strapped a silencing hex onto his coat and then added a Voicecast hex that would allow him to hear me.

“What… what the…” Charles blinked as the noise around him faded.

“Magic!” I declared giddily. “I’m a Wizard.”

“I can’t decide whether you’re insane… or I’m having a very bad lucid dream right now,” he muttered.

“Nah,” I shrugged. “It’s just reality.”

I wiped the illusion from my face.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

Charles stared at the face of Infinity Paradox for a few seconds.

“No,” he said finally. “I don’t remember you.... but you look pretty. Both of your faces do. Which one's your real face?"

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "Both? Lets go with both."

Charles squinted at me, judging me.