I woke up in a hospital—a modern hospital. Looking down, I was definitely not Albert.

I’d returned.

Dreams slipped away, but these memories still felt so real. Four years, nearly five. I could remember too much too clearly for it all to have been delusions; maybe that was how every delusional person felt. It wasn’t the sort of thing that had made sense to begin with, accepting it because I had to accept reality. Once again, I would have to accept the reality I found myself in.

It was a little funny to me, because I found myself wanting to go back, even though I’d never felt homesick after being thrown into that strange world. My home….

My gaze drifted across the curtain cutting me off from the rest of the room, finding a girl sleeping in a chair by my bedside. A teenager, fifteen or so.

I remembered now. I remembered how I had ended up in Albert’s world. As I’d thought, I had woken up in the morning hungry, fridge mostly empty, had walked to the newsagent and never made it there. On the way, I’d seen a girl standing, looking out at the river. And I’d thought I should call out to her.

But I hadn’t.

I’d watched as she climbed over the railing, waded out into the river, and disappeared. And I’d done nothing. I’d walked home, filled the bathtub, drowned myself before the shock wore off.

Except, I had gone in after her, struggled to swim in my clothes, terrified as I felt the water drag me under but refusing to give up.

Both memories existed as the truth in my head. Both memories vivid and recent and burned into my mind. And the second memory had to be true, because the girl was sleeping in a chair right in front of me. Not only that, but she looked exactly like Gwendoline. She had her hair cut differently, a little sickly looking, but the features were identical.

I coughed, breathing too deeply, throat dry. She jerked awake, brown eyes quickly finding mine.

“You’re…” she said, blinking, and then she stood up, wiping her eyes. “I should, the nurse.”

She left.

A doctor soon after came to check on me, shining a light in my eyes and asking questions and all that. Then he also left.

My phone sat on a table, just in reach. The water hadn’t ruined it. Someone had been nice enough to loan me a charger. A few missed calls from my boss, none from my family. A few messages from my boss, a couple from colleagues, none from my family. Checking the date, I’d been out all of Sunday and Monday, early Tuesday afternoon now.

I closed my eyes, and I could still see Miles, Daisy—Alice and Chestnut. Even Isabel and Beatrice, the little time dancing I’d spent with them nice enough. A year, I’d had a year and I could have done so much more with it, should have done so much more with it. All I had now were regrets. I’d expected the game to go on forever, but I should have known that it wouldn’t last beyond the ending.

Wiping my eyes, I tried to remember how long it had been since I last cried. Too long, probably, because the tears had really built up. It was hard, remembering how much I’d lost this time. I wouldn’t have a chance like that again, no matter how hard I tried, how hard I kept trying.

Rather than a hell, it really had felt more like a heaven. Salvation.

Eventually, I calmed down. The pain was still there, but it had lost its edge. Eventually, it would go away, or so I tried to believe. I doubted it.

The curtain rippled, a hand appearing and opening enough of a gap for the girl from earlier to slide through. Her eyes met mine, and she immediately looked away. She sat down on the chair, staring down at her lap, hands on her knees and back hunched over.

“Are you okay?” she quietly asked.

She sounded just like Gwendoline. “I’ll live.”

That made her wince. “I… I’m going to, to try and do something with my life. Maybe I can work hard and become a doctor, or a nurse, or I could volunteer in Africa, but I won’t waste…. I’ll—”

“Don’t bother,” I said, cutting her off.

Her mouth stayed open for a second before she closed it, her head sinking lower.

Even after all these years, I still couldn’t help but be cruel in my thoughtlessness. “I didn’t save you because I believe all life is sacred, or anything. I just don’t want to be someone who sees something like that and does nothing. So you do whatever you want, don’t worry about me. I mean, if you want to go right back there, go ahead, but check that I’m not around first.”

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She seemed to pale at my words, her lip quivering for a moment. Barely a whisper, she asked, “You saw?”

“Yeah.”

Her mouth wouldn’t stay still, squirming no matter how tightly she pressed her lips together. She blinked quickly. Her hand kept rubbing her cheek, nose, across her face, and then she just covered her eyes, nose sniffling. Voice wavering, she asked, “You’re not gonna tell me… it’ll get better?”

I shrugged, not that she could see. “It might not. Maybe things will get worse, I don’t know.” I let out a sigh. “It’s not as bad for me as it was in school, but it’s not really better, and I’ve been trying for ten years. I don’t have much of a reason to live. You’ve been here, right? No one’s come to see me. My boss called to see why I didn’t come to work—that’s all the people at my job care about.”

Leaning back, I closed my eyes. The loneliness felt that much keener now. Day after day, I would be alone. Silence. Painful silence.

“And I’ll keep trying. That’s all I can do, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep reading to keep the loneliness away. I’ll keep going on dates and being rejected. I’ll keep looking for new things to try, pick up hobbies for a few weeks, anything to fill the time.”

Even though I knew they wouldn’t be there, I’d go to Luton, to Dunstable, to Reading.

I let out a long breath. “I don’t mind dying trying to save someone. Even though I should have left you, I mean, I’m not a great swimmer, and we were wearing clothes—I was almost certainly going to die, we both were. But… I don’t, I’m not a kind person, but I’ve always tried not to be cruel. And I’ve failed, so many times.”

The words kept escaping me, until I opened my eyes and looked at her.

“There’s just a selfish part of me that wishes someone would reach out to me and hold on, even as I tell them to let go.”

I would miss Miles so much, the tears rolling down my cheek. Every day, I would miss him. My precious friend. In the end, I really hadn’t deserved him.

“That’s who I am. You don’t owe me anything, so do what you want.”

She looked broken, curled up as she sat there, her shoulders rising and falling to her shaky breaths. Maybe I’d said too much. Maybe, not enough. I wasn’t good at talking, worse at listening. Even now, I didn’t want to hear what she’d gone through, what had brought her to the edge. Me hearing it didn’t matter. Her saying it didn’t matter. If talking was good enough, these sorts of things wouldn’t be as big of a problem as they were.

Gradually, she seemed to calm down, her breathing settling and posture loosening, until she finally sat up. Her eyes were so puffy, I almost laughed. Poor thing looked just terrible. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Leaning over, I reached out and patted her on the head. “Would you rather hear someone say sorry, or thank you?”

She shied away from my touch. “Thanks.”

I was tempted to lean farther, even if it meant I fell out of the bed, but I took back my hand instead. I’d never been good at comforting anyway.

After a few minutes of silence, she fiddled with her pocket and took out her phone. “If it’s okay, can I have your number?” she asked.

“No.”

She froze, my quick and firm answer surprising her. “Um, I….”

Smiling, I said, “If you have something you want to say to me, then say it now. After today, I never want to see you again—for both our sakes.”

It took her a long moment to get what she wanted to say in order. Her voice came out soft, rough. “I thought I wanted that, but, when the water pulled me down, I was terrified. I couldn’t breathe, hear, see… like, all that I could do was… panic. Worse than panic. Um, despair.”

She clenched her fists, her face set to a serious expression. Determined.

“And then you grabbed me, and I wasn’t… alone.”

That was the end of her story. We went back to silence. She slowly settled down, getting some colour back in her cheeks, her eyes returning to normal if a bit red. A weight off her shoulder compared to when I’d first woken up.

An hour or so later, not keeping track of the time, a nurse came to check on me and tell the girl that her friends were waiting. The curtain opened somewhat, I peered over and saw four kids poking through the door—three about her age, one younger. Maybe my memories were playing tricks on me, but, just like she looked like Gwendoline, the others looked an awful lot like how I remembered Miles, Isabel, Beatrice and Daisy.

But, even if they were, I wasn’t Albert.

She looked at me. I smiled.

And she left. I would never see her again. I would never see any of them again.

Nothing all that wrong with me (at least physically), I was let out soon enough. The nurse wasn’t particularly happy no one came to pick me up, but the hospital had already tried calling my parents and been told it was too far to come if there wasn’t anything broken.

Getting the bus home, it was strange how familiar everything looked when I hadn’t seen it in years. Even my flat, I knew exactly what brand of beer and how many cans I’d left on my desk before I had even opened the door.

After doing little checks on everything, I sat down at the desk, a shake of the mouse waking up the monitor. Of course, I hadn’t turned the computer off, expecting to come back once I’d bought breakfast.

The game was still open. The Key To Her Heart. I went to close it, too soon to reminisce, but I stopped.

Nearly five years ago, or a few days ago, I’d reached Gwendoline’s “good ending” and that was when I’d given up and passed out. But on the screen was her “bad ending”, where she’d drowned herself in the river as Albert watched and did nothing.

Except, that wasn’t what the writing on the screen said.

“Overcoming his past trauma, Albert dove in after her and struggled against the current. Though he managed to get her back to the riverbank, he hadn’t the strength left to pull himself out too, taken away by the murky waters.

“While Gwendoline made a full recovery and went on to live a long, fulfilling life, she never married. When asked, she simply replied, ‘I lost the key to my heart a long time ago.’”

I read it again, softly smiling to myself. It wasn’t a happy ending. It probably romanticised recklessness (not that I was one to talk) more than it should have, given it was supposedly a game for teenagers.

But, to me, it was a beautiful ending. I could live with that.

Truly Bad Ending